Physical Exam

Today in animal handling class we practiced our physical exams. The hardest part for us all is finding the pulse and heart rate.

 

Dr. Kerns let us use a ophthalmoscope and look at the optic disc and the back of the eye. We thought it was the coolest thing until he started describing it. He started off telling us what you could see and how to look through it and see everything. By now I was thinking "I got to get myself one of these!" When he said "this is a $450 tool that can last your lifetime if you don't drop it. So when you have it hold on real tight." Never mind, I think I can live without for now. He goes on to say that you must put your eyebrow on the eyebrow piece or you will go blind. Ohh Crap! To look through the ophthalmoscope and see everything in the eye you have to think of yourself looking into a building through the window; bending down to see the ceiling, standing tall so you can see the floor and turning to the left and right to see to the side.

 

This is kind of what we saw, I got this image off of Google. Dr. Kerns described the eye that the further up you look in the eye the lighter the color and the lower you look the darker it is. That was true and you could see a lot of black specks mixed in with the color which were the rods and cones. Then down to the right was the optic disc which looks like the orange the moon can get to be and has blood vessels branching off of it.