Free Vet Among the Pigeons by Gillian Hick

it comes to equality. I do remember going to one avian lecture in college given by some expert who ran a referral clinic solely dedicated to birds. I think they had to import him from somewhere in England, as there was no one available locally to do the lecture. I’m sure we must have had other lectures on avian medicine, though doubtfully in avian surgery, but, either way, whatever gems of wisdom were imparted to us in college, certainly they hadn’t left much of an impression on me.
    One of my earlier locum jobs, in a mixed practice run by a larger-than-life character called Joe, typified the attitude of veterinary interest in birds. One quiet afternoon, while I was sitting in the office signing TB cards, a pleasant looking young lady arrived in. She was, she informed the receptionist, newly moved into the area and had three ‘rare and expensive parrots’, as she described them. Was the vet familiar with birds, she enquired? Sarah, themiddle-aged mother of five children, who had worked in the practice since before they were all born, dismissed the flimsy-looking creature before her as she replied in her droll monotone, ‘Oh he’s familiar with birds, all right – but not the feathered ones!’
    In one of the first clinics where I saw practice as a student , the four vets were discussing their early days after graduation and laughing at how they had handled their first consultations.
    ‘Mine,’ said the oldest, ‘was a bird. Can you imagine it? I might have managed to vaccinate a puppy, but there was this bird sitting in its cage with blood bubbling out of its beak.’
    ‘What did you do?’ laughed another. ‘Take him in for a head X-ray?’
    ‘I told the owner that he probably fell off his perch and bumped his beak. I tried to pack it with some cotton wool, but the thing bit me and there was so much blood you couldn’t see who it was coming from. Worst thing was, as she was going out the door, I was trying to salvage myself and I told her not to worry, that nose bleeds were very common in canaries. Well, I nearly died when she told me it was a budgie!’
    Luckily, when I myself qualified and began to work, I managed to escape the feathered patients for quite some time, but at Riverside Clinic one day, my luck ran out. On one of my first evening clinics, I opened the waiting-room door to see a spacious cage containing the dreaded avian. Other than knowing for sure that it was a budgie, I was stumped. The fact that the luckless creaturewas suffering from diarrhoea was clearly evident from the foul-smelling tail feathers. The owner had already rung the other neighbouring practice who claimed not to treat ‘exotics’. I had no option but to extrapolate from my knowledge of other species and treat the bird with an anti-parasite medication and the only antibiotic that I knew was licensed for birds. Luckily, the antibiotics came with an idiot-proof dosing guide for exotics, presumably designed for the client, but which, I suspected, many vets kept handy in their bottom drawers.
    After issuing a grave prognosis, I didn’t expect to see the budgie again. I was delighted, initially, when the owner rang to say that Peter was doing well, and by the weekend he had made a miraculous recovery. Although the usefulness of my intervention was dubious, Peter’s owner was nonetheless very enthusiastic. The unfortunate result of this was that my reputation as a bird vet grew. From then on, a regular trickle of birds began to make their way into the surgery and despite the fact that my limited knowledge led only to limited success, Peter’s owner was obviously an important figure in the local bird world and my followers remained undeterred.
    As my reputation looked set to last, I invested in some heavy-duty avian manuals, hoping they might enlighten me. Along with the trickle of cases, my research allowed me to add some credibility to my reputation.
    Just as I was beginning to enjoy my status as bird vet (much to the amusement