July 2018 WVS Thailand Monthly Report Dr Giacomo Miglio, DVM, MRCVS The Thai month of July is warm, blessed with rains, and with the forest and vegetation lush at its peak. Here at WVS Thailand has been a rather interesting and variegated month, with surgical courses, mobile clinics, cats and, as you saw from the opening picture, a charity run dedicated to our dogs. Let s proceed with order.
The first week of the month saw the conclusion of the 6 th International ABC Surgical Course, and all the 12 participants seem to have left satisfied and fulfilled with the experience. It has been our pleasure to have as volunteer Vets Dr Sarah, from Pilgrims vet UK, and Dr Sara from Spain and Ms Nikki, RVN that where amazingly helpful with the students, working along the Thai team very harmoniously. 3 rd BLES Mobile Clinic On the 9 th of September our Outreach team, Dr Sara and Dr Sarasi moved to Sukhotai, for the 3rd Mobile Clinic of 2018. Despite the adverse weather condition they still managed to operate 158 animals, between dogs and cats.
Cats week. Having had a short break from ABC surgical courses, we took the advantage to shorten our list of cats waiting to be neutered. Between the 16 th and the 20 th of July we operated over 130 cats. Run for Dogs. Sunday the 15 th of July took place Run for Dogs, an initiative organised by Hurry up and WVS Thailand. This fundraising Super Half Marathon, took place in Hang Dong and nearby areas, with 3 categories: Fun Run (5km), Mini-Marathon (10km), and Super Half Marathon (26km). It has been a huge success of public with more than 1200 participants and, of course, WVS Thailand had its own team too!
VRVC Congress Finally, every vet knows how important is to keep updating constantly to keep up with new developments and protocols in our field: during the last week of July our Dr Panchita and Dr Luckie went to the 4 day congress VRVC in Bangkok. Tales from the Rescue Centre During the month of July our Rescue Centre attended more than 50 cases; since I haven t been posting much about our cases in the past few months, I d like to take this opportunity to share the stories of 3 of them, starting with a sweet old dog called Kronos. The poor guy wasn't in great shape when he was referred to us: broken pelvis, mange and pyoderma, general weakness and blood parasite (Ehrlichia).
The prognosis was guarded, but our veterinary team didn't wanted to give up on him. For the first few weeks he was provided with the best analgesia we could, and nursed during the day to make sure he was kept clean, warm and looked after. He could move his hind legs, but was unable to stand. He even needed every day assistance to urinate. The treatment for his blood parasite had to be a priority, his blood count dangerously low; at the same his skin was taken care, with anti-parasites and antibiotics. It took some time to see some real improvement but within a few weeks Kronos was able to take his first few steps, and some thicker and healthier fur started growing back. Now we seem to be at the end of the tunnel: Kronos can walk and trot around comfortably, regained control over his bowel and bladder movement, and his skin is almost completely back to normality, with a nice and shiny black coat.
Our second pick is Kafe, a very friendly and young sausage-dog, presented with a quite unusual symmetrical neoplasia on his hind legs, a histiocytoma. Our Dr Luckie did a great job successfully removing both of them, and beign able to release him within a few days, operated, neutered and vaccinated.
Finally Cola, a senior dog with a rather dramatic neoplastic growth on his right jaw; his family witnessed the development of this basal cell tumor (Malignant trichoblastoma) over a few months, not knowing what was best for him considering his advanced age. When presented to us this huge mass was already ulcerated and infected and, after discussing pros and cons with his owners, decided to go for surgical ablation (once the infection was under control) Dr Santiparp and Dr Luckie had a very delicate job removing this: making sure they were removing good margins of tissues away for the neoplasia and, at the same time, controlling the amount of dead space left behind and closing the wound without excessive tension. One week after the ablation, Cola returned to his family, hopefully won t need to come back to us any time soon. Our best wishes for a great summer Dr G