Well, after getting stuck on my way back from Cambodia in Hong Kong (thanks to the volcanic ash clouds), I have still been trying to catch up on all my accumulated work - it is amazing that email, which one thinks makes ones life "easier" can chew up such an incredible amount of time! Oh well....

I spent almost a month in Cambodia and Vietnam working for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Free the Bears with Sun bears and Asiatic black bears that had been rescued. They are such beautiful, intelligent, and surprisingly gentle animals, some of which had really gone through hell. We performed health checks, removed smashed and dead teeth (caused by years cooped up in small metal cages before rescue), and also performed some reconstructive surgery. It was also an opportunity to help teach the local Cambodia and Vietnamese vets who work so hard with their patients, so useful bits and pieces, and of course, I got to see for my self what a precarious state wildlife and the whole environment is in, in the South East Asian region. While visiting Cat Tien National Park, we heard the worrying news that no one had seen any of the javan rhinos since february, and sadly shortly after returning to the UK we heard they had found the body of a rhino shot for its horn. We are not even sure there are any live javan rhinos now left on the mainland, and even if there are a couple they are too few to survive much longer in isolation now. Once the most numerous rhino species on the Asian mainland, there is now only a small island population of less than 50 left, and none in captivity - a little depressing!.

My series "Vet on the loose" is back on air on Animal Planet in the UK at the moment, but my real crusade, for something I really believe in, is to try and explain to more vets the clear benifits that keyhole surgery can have for their patients. I find it so frustrating, and .... I find it really dissapointing that vets are failing to embrace techniques that are clearly so benificial for their animal patients. I have started the internet portal www.veterinarylaparoscopy.com on all aspects of keyhole surgery in animals, for both pet owners, the zoo community, and veterinary surgeons, and have several specialist contributors from all arond the world.

Laparoscopy is the gold standard in numerous human surgical procedures, such as cholecystectomy. The benifits such as less pain, faster recovery, decreased post-op infections, decreased risks of wound opening and complications, and shorter hospitalisation are all well recognised. Why, in contrast, is the veterinary profession so slow in taking up laparoscopic techniques, when the benifits appear so apparent? It can not soley be cost - numerous practies offer much more expensive MRI, yet don't offer laparoscopic surgery!

Perhaps it is due to alternatives, rather than cost. Arthroscopy (minimally invasive joint surgery) is better established in veterinary surgery, and has been routinely performed in specialist practices, as there is little alternative. In contrast, one can always simply just crank the abdomen open widely - it is quick and easy for the vet, and of course in many cases requires much less skill, even though it is far from ideal in many cases for the animal patient. I suspect that veterinary laparoscopy will only really become mainstream once animal owners increasingly insist on it, and by voting with their feet, practices that fail to offer it realise that they are loosing clients and business unless they adapt.

Well, I know it has been ages since my last blog posting - time does fly, and not always in a good way!!! My series "Vet on the loose" has come and gone in the UK, but continues to be shown in various countries around the world, and I must admit nothing makes my day more than getting a kind message of encouragement via facebook about the series, from Finland to Lebanon. So many people have been so kind as to tell me how much they have enjoyed the series, what they found interesting, or learnt, and I have found it to be a HUGE encouragement. It is so easy to loose perspect and get frustrated with the minutia of everyday work!

It is also very easy to end up over-tired and frustrated, even with the bet job and work and life in the world, if one works too much and doesn't take enough time out. I have come back from 10 days in Gan Canaria with my Spanish wife, and feel refresh and re-inspired, and am very grateful for being so lucky to have such an interestingjo that I enjoy.

I also got to see plenty of the native Giant lizards, only found on that single island, and nowhere else on the planet why do so many tourists just spend the wholoe holiday at the beach, and never get to discover the unique flora and fauna?!). It was also my first opportunity to actually see a canary in the wild. Very srange after seeing thousands as pets over the years, and I am sure what I have learnt from watching their behaviour will be useful at some stage in future.

Well, it has been an interesting month. My series "Vet on the loose" finally aired on Animal Planet, not just in the UK, but also across Europe, and I also appeared on an episode of Michaela Strachans new series on FIVE. This has also been a very busy month, not only have I been busier than ever with my work at Inglis Vet Centre in unfermline and the Scottish SPCA wildlife centre, but also started to work part-time at Edinburgh zoo (the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland). I have been inundated with kind emails and facebook messages about my series hich is super, and many requests for advice since my show has aired, but I am drowning at the moment, and falling way behind in replying to all these emails! Perhaps there can be too much of a good thing!...

It is now almost two years since I filmed the series Vet on the loose, so I had pretty much forgotten everything that was included in the program. I don't know why on earth they chose the episode they did to start the series -  the viewers (if any!) must think I am a a mad-man wrestling with aggresive iguanas. It is always a fine line between looking good or looking like a gonzo on tv....

Well, my series, "Vet on the loose", finally airs on Animal Planet from next week.It is so long since I made it now, that I only have very vague memories of the 50+ unusual animal patients I got to see while we made it. I also have very fond memories of the tight-knit crew - we had loads of fun travelling and making the series (actually that was probably the best part) - Hannah, the perfect polite director, with endless patience, Neil the crazy (but brilliant) cameraman, and Tiffany who seemed to be able to do everything, and keep everyone happy while also filming half the time! I have also never heard Jo Brands narration/voice-over (should I be worried?!). Aside from a couple of photos, the memories are now vague - which means I will actually be able to watch the series myself!!!

I just had the sobering realisation that my blog really is meaningless rubbish (probably mainly just written for my own benifit, a type of psuedo-diary, so I can remember what the heck I have been up to - I knew this early onset senile dementia would be a bugger!), after seeing what a friend from school has done with his. Adalbert Ernst and I studied music as a subject at high school (I played double bass, while he played piano, a proper instrument - enough said!), and he has since become an anaesthetist (he always was much too erudite and cerebral to be silly enough to end up in a surgical discipline, like I have!). His blog is really interesting and meaningful, unlike my nonsense: http://quantumsurfer.blogspot.com/ guess I may have to change mine too...

This week has been full of all sorts of interesting endoscopy cases - it really is amazing to realise that when I was a child none of this was really even happening in humans - now I do it as a routine in my animal patients! While I love operative endoscopy the most, even some of the diagnostic procedures have a thrill to them - doing a vaginoscopy on a rabbit today, it is always bizzare to see the double cervix! Continue to have an interest in seal laparoscopy, this poor recently born common seal pup wasn't doing well.... turns out it had a huge abscess in its mesenteric lymphnodes.

Managed somehow to get up early this morning, but most of the time went on catching up with the million or so emails I have been neglecting, so I didn't get much writting done. Operating this morning, know I have a laparoscopic bitch spey, some rabbits and some Uromastyx lizard surgery, but wonder what other joys the operations list holds in store for me today....

Liver biopsy in a very ill Bearded dragon lizard - even the 3mm human paediatric surgery instruments look huge in a 350gram patient!

Today was nice and quiet with most of the vet students having finished their placements at the practice last week. Should be a welcome relief as you can finish all your work much quicker (and grab a cup of coffee!), but I actually miss them. There is something to be said for constantly being asked questions about everyhing you do, and suddenly you have to think about everything again yourself, and question routines, and whether your treatment protocol really is best practice or very occasionally, simply a product of routine. Although students are meant to see practice to learn more outside the veterinary schools, sometimes we actually learn more by forcing ourselves to question and think about what we actually do clinically!

I spend the whole week looking forward to the weekend, then discover I have a weeks worth of extra work that needs doing in these two days! Aside from  brief break to watch the new Harry Potter movie (the sixth in the series), I spent a couple of hours squinting down the microscope doing pathology of rare Polynesian tree snails, determined to try and extinct theselves in captivity, and then thankfully, although work, got to spend tie trying to design a new surgical instrument - just like a boy, time flys by when you are doing something you enjoy!

Today the day ran away from me - somedays it just feels like you are spectator to your own crazy out of control working life just watching it hurtle on by.....

Somedays I realise that I know very little about computers. Trying to update my blog I seem to have erased all my previous postings!!! Oh, well, have to just start from scratch....Reminds me of when I started in veterinary practice, and all our clinical records were kept on index cards in a big alphabetic catalogue. We used to curse the odd record that went AWOL, but generally the system worked well (never had to re-boot an index card hald way through a busy mornings surgery!). I guess we just had to become modern....