Fiction: Blood Draw

NOTE: This story is fictional.

I was excited to be in Canada working as a field veterinary technician for the National Geographic Society. I was very interested in what I would discover at the Wild Goose Research Center. When they brought in the captured Canadian Goose and conduct bloodwork, I was eager to let them know what I found in my laboratory findings. I knew I would first need to make an assessment. I included the goose’s signalment, noting that the goose was about two years old, intact and a male. I next took and recorded the animal’s vitals, including the pulse. I took the goose’s temperatures, respiratory, pulse rate, heart rate, weighed it and checked its lymph nodes for any abnormalities. It seemed to be average in most respects.

Through auscultation I listened to the heart, lungs, pleura, and abdomen to gauge its health. Through palpation I felt around other parts of the goose, trying to get an understanding of its health and build. It seemed very healthy. I used percussion to determine how much air, fluid or solid was in the animal.

I began by deciding to look at the animal’s blood. Drawing blood through venipuncture was my first step, and I collected one sample into a tube with an anticoagulant and I put the other sample into a tube for coagulation. I began by putting the blood I allowed to coagulate to go through the centrifuge and I examined the blood, identifying the buffy coat. I centrifuged the tube with the anticoagulant as well. I saw that serum had collected in the tube without the anticoagulant. I also found that plasma had collected in the top of the tube that had the anticoagulant.

The blood was normocytic and normochromic and it made me happy that the cell size and color was normal. This eliminated many problems and indicated the goose was likely to be healthy. I conducted several blood smears and examined the blood microscopically. I dyed the first sample with blue dye which revealed basophilic blood cells. The other one I dyed with pink dye and it made the eosinophilic cells more obvious. I saw no indications of anemia, edema, eosinopenia or basopenia. It made me happy that there were no obvious signs of dyscrasia.

I organized the records in a SOAP method and presented my findings. I used a reagent stick on a urine sample and found the results to be normal. I included those details with my bloodwork. There were no signs of parasites, viruses, fungi or other organisms. I had examined a strong, healthy goose that represented its breed well. Confident they would find other healthy animals in the region, I decided this area must be very good for them.