Take A Tour With Dr. Caldwell
What will we see on the tour today?
I will take you on a big tour of the whole facility! We're really proud of this place, and we're excited to show you, so let's have a look.
Can you describe the layout of the lobby?
So when we're in our lobby, you can see that we have three exam rooms, one, two, and three, and they're all set up pretty similar, and I'll show you what I mean by that.
What equipment is available in the exam rooms?
In each of the exam rooms, we have a collapsible table. For our small dogs and cats, we will be able to do the exam right here, and for our larger animals, we will do the exam on the ground.
What does a complete physical exam entail?
Now, we're going to be doing a complete physical exam, meaning we're going to be taking a temperature, we're going to be looking in their eyes, their ears, we're going to be looking at that mouth to see if we have any dental disease. We're going to be listening to their chest, their heart, their lungs, everything else like that.
Can you show us the treatment area?
But I want to show you back here because this is where the fun stuff happens! This is our treatment area, and these are our wet tables. We have two wet tables, and by wet table, I mean that they have a sink attached to them.
What procedures are done at the wet tables?
This is where we're going to be doing a majority of our procedures, including our dental cleanings. Now, when an animal is under anesthesia, what we do is we put them up here on the table, and then for our dental cleanings, we have our dental cleaning unit right here.
How does the wall-mounted x-ray work?
But what's really neat is we have the wall-mounted x-ray, and so we're able to bring this over, and we're able to take x-rays of the mouth. Now, you've probably heard me say it before, but dental X-rays are really where we're going to be able to determine if there's dental disease. We will be able to look underneath the gum line in dogs and see if they have a tooth root abscess. In cats, we're going to be able to tell if they have a resorptive lesion. The dental X-ray is a completely invaluable piece of equipment that we have here in the hospital.
What is the purpose of the dry table?
In addition to our two wet tables, we do have a dry table right over here. A dry table means that it doesn't have a sink with it, and this is where we do pretty much everything else. You know, anything that needs clipped and cleaned, flushed. If we need to prep a patient for surgery or anything else like that, we can right here.
What is the master board used for?
That brings us to our master board right here. This is where we keep all of the information for our pets that are in the hospital that day. It has all of their relevant information, and so every team member can be up to date on everything that we're doing with them.
Can you show us the kennel and prep areas?
Right back here, we have one of our kennel banks as well. We keep our animals here during the day. And then we have our prep area right over here for when we're doing a sterile procedure, dental cleanings are not sterile procedures, but we're doing any other type of sterile procedure, that's when we use this area. When we wash our hands, we have a foot-pedaled sink, so we don't have to touch anything. So it's just one more way to keep us nice and clean for the surgery itself. We have all our PPE, so we have our caps, gloves, and masks. We have our gowns as well.
Can we see the surgery suite?
Here is where we have our surgery suite. We're not going to go in there because we like to keep the door closed as much as possible, but as we work our way back to the x-ray room, we're going to pan in there so you can see everything that we have.
What can you tell us about the full-body x-ray unit?
This is our full-body x-ray unit. This is really neat. It's a digital X-ray machine, meaning that once we take the image, it pops up instantly on the computer. So long gone are the days of having to develop the X-ray film. If we ever need to take an x-ray of the bones, chest, or abdomen, we absolutely can, and we'll have results within seconds.
How do you prepare for surgeries?
But now let's go over here to the other prep area that we have. Anytime we go into surgery, we want to make sure that we have the appropriate equipment and that the equipment is sterile. We can wash and wrap all of our packs right here. And then, with our autoclave, this is when we sterilize everything. Once the packs are sterilized, we place them into our pass-through cabinets. Now, this is an additional way to keep the surgery suite clean. We have two sets of doors here, so we're able to place materials and equipment, and then the people in the surgery suite can grab it there. So once again, the less we open the door, the cleaner we keep that area. So, it is really nice piece of equipment to have.
Can you describe the pharmacy area?
Now, we come to the pharmacy. In the pharmacy, we have our fridge for all of our refrigerated medications and our vaccines. We have everything that we need to prepare our blood samples, for example, our centrifuge and everything like that. We have a microscope if we need to take a look at anything under there. And of course we have the large working pharmacy that you can see right here.