General News

Team Granada Dodges Bulls in the Streets of Nicaragua

Aug 10

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It seems like there is always some excitement on the main cobblestone street of Granada, Nicaragua. When I was there a couple months ago, there were hundreds of stallions parading down the street during Hipica, a local Nicaraguan tradition. Our newest World Vets arrived yesterday and found themselves in the midst of Granada’s version of the Running of the Bulls which culminates with a rodeo rather than a bullfight, from what I understand. So instead of a relaxing day touring the city, the team had an experience they will not soon forget dodging bulls and people in the heart of this historic Spanish Colonial city. Luckily everyone survived unscathed and managed to get the supplies and equipment set up for toady’s early morning start at the clinic. I suspected they were greeted with a long line of surgery patients waiting for them at Casa Lupita. Go team!

The Running of the Bulls in Granada, Nicaragua

Team heads out for Granada Nicaragua today!

Aug 08

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Santa Fe, New Mexico veterinarian Dr Tom Parker in Granada, Nicaragua (above and below pics)

Its only been a couple days since Team Panama returned home and we already have another team headed for Central America. Early this morning, eleven World Vets volunteers headed for the airport en route to Granada Nicaragua. We had a team in Granada just a few months ago doing a spay/neuter clinic as well as working on horses. We had a huge turnout at both clinics and in the end had to turn away some of the small animal patients as we had run out of time and supplies with such an overwhelming response from the local community. Our Granada project, like most of our programs, strives to be sustainable by providing ongoing support. In keeping with that mission, another team is on the way! This time the team is lead by Susan Paseman and Dr Tom Parker. Susan is the vice-president of World Vets and has travelled with many teams to Central America. Tom Parker is a veterinarian from Santa Fe, New Mexico who I met earlier this year. Tom contacted World Vets about the possibility of starting some programs in Nicaragua (where we previously had not worked). Well, that was just 8 months ago and we have already been there four different times doing veterinary projects and have plans for regular continued support. During the Granada trip, we will be working at Casa Lupita, a clinic run by Donna Tabor of Building New Hope. Dr Tom has worked extensively with Casa Lupita and has managed to fully outfit the clinic with equipment and supplies, one suitcase load at a time. Tom is one of the hardest-working, most dedicated people I know and is an all around great guy! Dr Tom will oversee the veterinary work on the Granada project. We wish the team good luck this week and will keep you posted on their progress.

Susan Paseman, project leader and Vice-President of World Vets, working during our last Granada project in May 2009.

World Vets Team Returns From Panama

Aug 05

Every month, World Vets sends a team to work with our Panama division, called SpayPanama. The team arrives on Tuesday, works in the clinic in Panama City for a couple days then heads out for a weekend “spay blitz” in a remote community. To date, over 22,000 animals have been spayed and neutered in Panama under this program. SpayPanama has become a model for what can be accomplished with a dedicated sterilization program. This months team travelled to Farallon, Panama for the spay blitz. It rained all the way there (it is rainy season!). During the weekend blitz, 241 animals had surgery (202 dogs and 39 cats). Anyone who has been a part of a remote spay blitz knows how much work is involved in doing this volume of surgery. Great job! The animals were also dewormed, vaccinated, treated for fleas and had their ears cleaned. A special thanks to Shirley Chen and Liz Pollak!

Pacific Partnership 09 Highlights

Aug 04

Pacific Partnership is a humanitarian mission carried out by the US Navy in collaboration with NGO’s, partner nations and other branches of the military. This years 4-month mission provides aid to Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands and Kirabati. World Vets is honored to be a part of the mission and the sole veterinary NGO participating. World Vets member Daniel Gildea (San Jose, California) has just returned from 7 weeks on board a US Navy ship which traveled from San Diego to the Oceania region. During his part of the mission, the group performed spays and neuters, worked on cattle, pigs and goats and provided educational programs on livestock husbandry. Next year, World Vets will travel with the military to South East Asia providing medical, dental and veterinary aid to the region as a part of Pacific Partnership 2010. Early next year, we will be recruiting veterinarians, technicians and veterinary students to participate in this exciting mission.

Aug 01

Team Nicaragua is sharing their last night together at the casa. The students have all had the opportunity to perform spays and neuters and the vets have thoroughly enjoyed teaching. The community was very welocming and we did a lot of good while we were here. This project was the first of many to come and we hope that spaying and neutering of pets will be commonplace in the coming years. This week was a big step in the right direction. We are thankful to Chris, Katie, Elvis, Harry and everyone else from Pelican Eyes for all of the organizing and planning that made this week a success. We were thankful to have Laura along as our translator this week and hope she comes on our trips often. We will watch for Jessica to apply to vet school instead of med school (we may have changed her career plans this week). We may also see Paulynne heading for vet school as well. They both have what it takes to make it. All of the students do. This was a truly a great group of individuals who came together for a common cause. I am thankful for everyones time, dedication and help. We saw a few last appointments at the clinic and did a final check up on Surger, our dog with the broken pelvis. He is walking and expected to make a full recovery. Tonight we were treated to a fabulous BBQ at the Pelican Eyes Hotel. Its time for me to sign off as we have to be up at 2am to head to the Managua airport in the morning.

Surgery, consultations and food poisoning?

Jul 31

>A new day and another clinic in Las Delicious, a barrio outside of San Juan Del Sur Nicaragua. All of our surgery patients from the past two days have fully recovered without complication. One person brought her dog back for a recheck but fortunately she was doing great and didn’t have so much as a swollen incision area. Dr Shelley continued in appointments while Dr Mike, Dr Karen and Dr Kazi worked with the students (who by now can almost go solo in surgery). I helped Lester, our Nicaraguan vet student, in surgery while two local vets observed our methods and techniques. By mid-day the team was fading. Unfortunately we had 5 people come down with suspected food poisoning. A “sick ward” formed in the corner of the building where they all had some down time away from operating tables. After we returned home, Paulynne and I summoned a local nurse practitioner to come to the aid of our fallen teammates. Most were feeling better as the evening progressed. Even with a few people out of commission we still had a good day. In the past three days we have seen 189 animals. Tomorrow brings a much deserved day off for the team. While the group heads out for some fun in the sun, I will be scoping out our next clinic location for the November project and doing some strategic planning with Katie and Chris at Pelican Eyes about our future veterinary programs in Nicaragua. World Vets is excited about the prospect of helping so many animals in this area of the world .

No electricity, no water but the surgeries continued!

Jul 30

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Today was the second day of our clinic in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. The day started off with Sarah and Katrina heading off on a farm call to check on a horse with severe anemia and photosensitization. Back at the clinic we had a steady flow of appointments and surgeries all day long. Katie and the crew from Pelican Eyes have done a fantastic job of getting the word out and keeping things moving smoothly through the day. All of the students had the opportunity to do several surgeries. We have all been very impressed with how well the students surgical skills have progressed in just two days. Part way through the day the power went away (as well as the water). Fortunately, our mobil clinics are equipped to run without either. We were happy to have plenty of headlamps, as they came in very handy today. Dr Shelley hung out her shingle and and was the primary vet seeing appointments today. She saw more than 30 appointments today alone ranging from skin conditions, to paralysis, to parasites and tumors. Two of her clients were gringos and the rest were local Nicaraguans. All were very grateful for the consultation and treatments they received. Kyle and Rachel ran the anesthesia induction and IV catheter station, while Jere and Paulynne oversaw the recovery ward. All of the vets really enjoyed teaching today. Dr Kazi spent quite a bit of time mentoring Fernando and Lester (Nicaraguans) in surgical techniques. His animated teaching stlye kept us all entertained! As we were winding down for the day we were presented with another dog hit by a car. Ironically, this dog also had a broken pelvis just like Surfer, the dog we saw yesterday. Speaking of Surfer, he did well through the night and was able to urinate, deficate and stand with assistance. He will be spend the next 6 weeks receiving care fromt the Stones and Waves Veterinary crew who well help rehabilitate him from his injuries. We will keep our fingers crossed that he will be able to recover without surgery. As I write this blog, the group is roasting organic coffee in the kitchen with some classic rock playing on the stereo. The coffee smells good and the mood is great!

Surgery Clinic Underway in Nicaragua

Jul 29

The World Vets Nicaragua team is winding down after a long, hot day of surgeries and cosultations. Since this was the first sterilization clinic that has ever been done in the barrios of San Juan Del Sur, there was much curiosity and some apprehension from the locals as we expected. As the day went on, more and more dogs showed up. The nice thing with the pace being a little slow on the first day was that all of the students (vet students, pre-vet students and one pre-med) got to glove up and do surgery. All of the veterinarians thoroughly enjoyed the teaching aspect of the project today and I think the students were all thrilled to do, for most of them, their very first surgery. We also had a Nicaraguan veterinarian and vet student (Fernando and Lester) helping out in surgery and learning from the group. The day finished up with a taxi screeching down the dirt road to the clinic with a dog that had been run over by a surfing truck. We were able to stabilize the stray dog and determine that he had a broken pelvis. We will re-evaluate his condition in the morning and determine his course of treatment. All in all it was a great day. After work we headed back to the Casa and made our way up the hill in our 4wd shuttle truck. It takes two trips to get everyone to the top of the road but fortunately we have Jose (the guard), a pet monkey and trees full of Howler monkeys to keep us entertained at the bottom. Tomorrow we are head out early for another day of surgeries.

Team Nicaragua arrives safely

Jul 27

>Even with several delayed flights, everyone made it safely and to Nicaragua. The long day of flights was followed by a three hour bus ride to San Juan Del Sur, followed by a a 4WD shuttle up the mountain to our final destination. Tomorrow we set up the the clinic in the barrio called Las Delicious. Patients will begin arriving bright and early tuesday morning, We have already heard that there are many dog owners anxiously awaiting our arrival to address a variety medical problems. This will be our first projet in the barrios and we hope to have a huge turnout. The Internet (which we are thankful to have) is a bit slow, so my post will be short tonight. This is a picture of some new friends we encountered on our travels today.

World Vets Team heads for San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

Jul 25

World Vets is having yet another busy month. Actually a busy week for that matter. While one team is busy spaying dogs in Farallon, Panama another is working on cattle in the South Pacific (Tonga to be exact) and yet another team is packing their bags for Nicaragua. The latter includes myself as the trip leader. Bright and early tomorrow morning 16 World Vets volunteers from Washington, South Dakota, Minnesota, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, California and New Jersey will head to the airport enroute to Nicaragua. A few are World Vets “veterans” like Dr Kazi a USDA veterinarian who worked with our Panama group earlier this year, and Rachel Baird a technician who went on our Honduras trip last year and Shawn Flottmeyer a pre-vet student who worked with us in Belize last year. Most of the others have never met and will be embarking on their first World Vets trip. Its hard to fully comprehend what we really do and and the impact that we have on the communities we visit until one has actually gone on a trip. Soon they too will have World Vets memories and experiences that will probably last a lifetime. We’ll keep you updated this week (Internet permitting) on the happenings in Nicaragua. For me, the easy part starts once I board the plane tomorrow morning. The preparation that goes into each project is enormous. Once I pass the airport security gates I know that the packing, organizing, planning, e-mailing, permits, licenses and all the other various details are complete (at least I hope!). Now comes the good part. Meeting the team and working together to help the animals. Our project in Nicaragua will be taking place in an outlying barrio of San Juan Del Sur (about 3 hours from Managua). I was there just a few weeks ago setting up all the final logistics for the project along with Katie our local coordinator. Without Katie, the project couldn’t happen. There is a ton of preparation that takes place on her end as well (advertising, securing a location, gathering supplies like tables for surgery and many other things). I am including a picture of the community where we will be working, called Las Delcious. Its now time for me to sign off and and finish up the last minute details before heading off to bed. I look forward to sharing the details of the project over the coming week.

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