We had our first day of work today. I loved it!! Peter Theil, who I am working for, picked us up from the Kollegium this morning and drove us to Foulum. It was so nice to go there when you do not have to avoid the traffic and being hit!
When we arrived Peter drove us around the institute a little bit and we were able to see where some of the student housing and livestock barns are located on the grounds. Then we went into the research “stable” as they call it. Calling the area a “stable” kind of sounded funny to me because I am used to people calling them barns. It really isn’t a stable or a barn though. The way the building is set up and is attached to the barns/stables reminds me of the vet school at Illinois. The halls of the building and offices eventually turn into halls that lead to the barns.
In the animal areas there are nice, clean, rooms with small individual pens. For the pigs at least this is true. I have not seen any of the other barns. There are sliding doors that lead to each room and I believe that each study has its own room with its own pigs in it. There is also a kind of cooling room for different blood samples and such and a freezer with different diets and necropsy samples.
There is a surgery suite as well, but I have not been able to see it yet. Tomorrow I will be able to observe and possibly assist in two surgeries to put catheters in two gilts. The blood flow probe is placed around the portal vein in between the small intestine and the liver. This is where the blood flow in the pig’s body will be measured and recorded during each day it is on a specific diet. Catheters are then used to draw daily blood samples out of each of the pigs one from a vein and one from an artery.
I was also able to read a research thesis that was created and started by a woman who actually left the institute to take on another research project, but left Peter with this thesis to finish. I have never read such a long explanation of one experiment in all my life though!! And I realized that statistics, microbiology, and organic chemistry are going to all come back to haunt me for the rest of my life…so long as I am in the scientific community. Of course the courses that I loved like anatomy and physiology will be forever constant as well, but I like those subjects more anyway.
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