Geoffrey van Zilj - ER Vet Tech

In this episode, Dr. Cliff Redford and Geoffrey discuss their experiences during a veterinary volunteer trip to Costa Rica, focusing on the challenges and rewards of providing spay and neuter services. They explore the cultural differences in animal care, the importance of teamwork, and the lessons learned from mistakes made during the trip. The conversation emphasizes the need for education in animal care and the significance of community involvement in veterinary practices.

Be sure to follow Geoffrey on Instagram at @aint.doin.right

First, if you haven't watched my film and live in Canada (or have one of those VPN things), you can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/oMUx3yuyznc?si=oagpg7bGnpbuyXlJ

Be sure to follow me on Instagram @drcliffworldwidevet.com and on Twitter at @drcliff_vet
Listener questions, episode suggestions, or if you have a good idea for a guest, email me at dr.redford@vet905.com
Additional information can be found at drcliff.ca

Transcript

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:01)

Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of vet life with me, Dr. Cliff. In this episode, I bring back my good buddy Joffrey from a veg ER, veterinary emergency group. ⁓ and, we basically, we talk about his latest volunteer trip, him and a bunch of veterinary technicians and a bunch of veterinarians all going down to Costa Rica.

Put on a big spay neuter program. was so jealous. was so inspired. Hmm. Maybe I'll join him on the next one. We will see. ⁓ anyway, stay tuned for a great, ⁓ great fun, casual interview.

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:53)

Yeah. Yeah. Worked out. That's like, that's ahead of time. If you're, if you're working at a clinic. Yeah, man. Big time. Big time. Let's get right in this, man. You were in Costa Rica.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (00:53)

you're all good. You're all good. Only three minutes fine schedule.

100%. 100%.

Indeed.

Dr. Cliff Redford (01:12)

That's awesome.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (01:13)

Crazy. ⁓ Yeah, ⁓ it was insane, but really awesome. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been. ⁓ Only rifled by Hawaii. yeah, was an experience to say the least. A lot of hard work, a lot of red tape we had to get through, but a lot of pets helped in ways that they wouldn't have been otherwise. So, worth it.

Dr. Cliff Redford (01:24)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you done, you did a spay neuter clinic and like a vaccine and deworming clinic.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (01:43)

No, was just spay neuter. ⁓ We are hoping to go back in November. We're doing this with a new LLC. We were working under Pets Rule Care Project and working closely with Pet Insurance Review. ⁓ We had quite a few sponsors come in and help us, which we were very grateful for. ⁓ the idea was literally it was like a drunken night where ⁓ people had

Dr. Cliff Redford (01:45)

Alright.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (02:12)

a couple drinks, they said, why don't we, you know, I have contact in Costa Rica, why don't we go here, you know, and see how many animals we can spay and neuter. And it literally was born from that. And, you know, we had about three, four months to plan the entire thing, which is not enough time, but the universe definitely helped us out quite a bit and we made it work and it worked very well. It was a complete total home run.

Dr. Cliff Redford (02:37)

Yeah, and your next one's gonna be so much smoother and so much easier. Was this like your first spay neuter clinic abroad that you had done?

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (02:39)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for me, this was the first one. have a background in high-speed spay and neuter. I started in shelter medicine and worked in low-cost spay and neuter clinics where we would do like 30 or 40 per morning, really, and then the extensive surgeries would happen at the end of the day. So it wasn't like a foreign concept to me, but being in a different country, making it a true foreign concept was...

Dr. Cliff Redford (03:10)

Yeah, yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (03:11)

was different. know, some of the red tape we had to go through, for instance, was, Costa Rica. ⁓ it's, it's in central America, obviously. And, and you never know what kind of medicine is being practiced in different countries. Even in my own home country of Holland or Belgium, where we were, ⁓ not so, ⁓ long ago, we found that the technicians weren't quite utilized the same way we do here in the States. We found that the medicine was different. So we had no clue what we were walking into, but

When it comes to Costa Rica, was shocked and surprised with how much pride and how much they ⁓ value animal life, both wild and domesticated animals and how well they take care of them. Because a lot of these dogs were by definition street dogs and street cats, but as a community there in Osara, they take care of these animals. So none of them look skinny or emaciated. None of them are mistreated or anything like that. They were all

like taken care of by the community. And these people were the ones who brought these dogs in. normally I was like, well, we might rescue a dog. Like if we're down there, we might take one back to Colorado. These dogs live on a beach in this beautiful country where they get to eat crabs and God knows what. And I'm like, I feel like the dog should be rescuing me and keeping me in Costa Rica. I wouldn't dare take a dog out of Costa Rica. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (04:33)

Ha ha.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (04:39)

But yeah, the red tape that I was getting to, know, we thought like, well, we practice good medicine, gold standard medicine. They're going to let us come in and they're going to let us do our thing wrong. ⁓ Costa Rica was very strict on who was cutting and who was doing what. And we needed a lot of permits for that because it's the same thing as if a Costa Rican doctor were to come to the US or a technician, like what are your credentials and how do we transfer them over so that you can indeed practice here in the US and

They were just as strict with us coming in there, which I truly appreciated ⁓ because they have standards that they want to have met. And those are high standards. And it was really difficult at first, but we had so much support from the Costa Rican government after a while. And the, veterinary association down there, we had a Costa Rican surgeon and a Costa Rican anesthesiologist, board certified anesthesiologist that came in and helped us out. under their license, we made miracles happen.

Dr. Cliff Redford (05:32)

Gosh.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (05:35)

They were the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting there because that's kind of how it had to be. But we opened some doors to where we're going to be able to get some American doctors in there and practice medicine the way that we do. But yeah, I had a connection with Mindray, which is a larger company that does imaging and anesthesia equipment. And so I reached out to them and they said, what do you need? And we had ventilators. We had full anesthesia machines.

with monitoring equipment. We were totally spoiled. For a spay neuter clinic, like honestly, you you don't know, like it's typically pretty, as I call it, guerrilla medicine. You know, we, it's off the cuff and we had real fancy equipment. ⁓ We had blood work that we could run. ⁓ They brought in a full chemistry machine, CBC machine, ⁓ and every animal got an IV catheter and every animal got an ET tube. And so,

Dr. Cliff Redford (06:14)

Yeah, yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (06:34)

You know, the only thing we are used to like methadone, fentanyl, the only thing that lacked a little bit was getting those medications down there. So we had to work with ketamine, butorfenol and dexedomethor. No, xylazine, no, yeah, even that one was tough to get, but ⁓ I think between the ketamine and the butorfenol, we had pain very well under control.

Dr. Cliff Redford (06:41)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe? ⁓ good, good.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, xylazine I've talked about it before on this podcast. When I went to Jamaica to do my first volunteer trip nine years ago, I almost fell off my chair when they're like, yeah, we use xylazine and cats and dogs. And I had done a paper in vet school in the mid nineties about why we no longer use xylazine and dogs if we can avoid it. And now every single spay neuter, every single volunteer trip I've done, including Panama, we did two

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (07:07)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (07:23)

two day spay neuter clinics there. So just north of Costa Rica, ⁓ it was, was xylazine. It was rompin. Yeah. But

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (07:32)

Yeah. Yeah, it's

crazy. But you know, all these medications, I don't know, like you've been in the field long, too. It's always like a wave of like, now we should be using this. No, we shouldn't be using this. And now like ketamines back on the up and up. And I've always been a fan, ⁓ you know, and so the combination of drugs that we use, it was perfect. We induced with probe fall. ⁓ And then, you know, let

Dr. Cliff Redford (07:45)

yet

Beautiful.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (07:56)

let the anesthetic gases take their turn when it was needed. ⁓ I'm a very big proponent of pain management. Like I will not otherwise. And I will tell you by my standards, the pain was controlled. ⁓ Everyone received pain medication to go home, antibiotics to go home. And it was a really nice blending of their Costa Rican standards of veterinary medicine, ours coming in. And the best part is that the doctors

Dr. Cliff Redford (08:16)

Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (08:26)

Costa Rica were so open to working with us and vice versa that we had this beautiful symbiotic relationship where it just things just went so well and in three days we were able to spay and neuter over hundred and forty between a hundred and forty and a hundred and fifty pets which you know like you said the second trip is gonna be easier it was even the the night and day difference from day one to day two like yeah

Dr. Cliff Redford (08:29)

Mm-hmm.

Wow, that's huge.

Yeah. yeah. Yeah. When

we did like my first spay neuter clinic. So Emily and I, my daughter and I went down, this was right when the world opened up again during the pandemic, sort of this, you know, the second half of the pandemic. ⁓ and our first spay neuter clinic was three hours outside of Panama city. And it was run by Dr. Jonathan, who's a local, ⁓ Panamanian veterinarian. And he does these, he goes to remote cities.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (09:03)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (09:21)

So we were the, we were the guest. I was the guest veterinarian and, ⁓ I basically. Funded it. You know, I brought all the drugs and he arranged everything. had vet students that were his technicians that were doing all the work. ⁓ and it was, you know, he's, he's a cross for me in another table and we're locking eye to eye, making a joke about he, he very quickly accepted my challenge to see who could do the most. And I very quickly realized he was winning.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (09:25)

Yeah.

You

were in over your head. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (09:50)

And I never caught up, I never caught up to him. ⁓

so that went smoothly. And then the, the second week, Emily and I were flying down to Boca Estel Tordo, a tiny sort of, ⁓ vacation community in Panama. And we were working with a turtle rescue. The Raul who runs the turtle rescue, one of my good friends now, ⁓ he was like, Dr. Cleaf, all the dogs are eating my turtles. You must spay and neuter all the dogs.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (10:20)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (10:20)

And so

I was there to save his turtles that were being killed by these beach dogs, right? And these pets that were allowed to run around and we had no, like there was another veterinarian who was a rookie vet from the U S and then there was the Costa Rican vet or the Panamanian veterinarian who was there to keep us legit, but he was not a surgeon. He was not even a clinical veterinarian. He was like a food, food safety vet. ⁓ so he was just there. So we get our license.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (10:26)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (10:48)

No

one knew how to put in catheters. No one knew how to restrain dogs. So we had to teach them ⁓ on day one. But then by day two, like Raul turned into the, he called himself the ring leader because it was like a circus on day one. And day two, it was still like a circus, but it was, we had three rings going on and it was a three ring circus. It was, was so smooth. But it was like, you know, we're out in the jungle and there's monkeys crawling around on the roofs, howler monkeys howling at us.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (11:03)

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, we had that. We had the same thing. We had monkeys and like. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (11:17)

It was, it I saw the videos. It was so cool. It brought back so

many memories. I was so jealous.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (11:25)

Yeah, think, you know, it seems like such an unattainable, unachievable goal when you first lock into this thought of this is what we're gonna do. But I think, you know, my faith in humanity was restored on so many levels because so many people came together all under the premise of their love for animals. And I often think that me included, we pass unfair judgment.

Dr. Cliff Redford (11:41)

Hmm.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (11:48)

on cultural differences between how animals are treated, right? Like again, in my country, they don't do a lot of spay and neuter, if any, but there are no stray dogs, there are no stray cats. ⁓ But for me, you I'm so pro-spay neuter for all the reasons, overpopulation, disease, whatever, ⁓ that our love for animals transcended our differences as humans.

And even though we couldn't speak each other's language, because my Spanish is very bad, you know, I couldn't, it was hard to communicate. Like even if you speak Spanish, do you speak medical Spanish? Do you speak veterinary medical Spanish? And we had one or two translators. So like a lot of it was very difficult, but the successes and the good times that we had and the animals that we were able to help, honestly blew.

Dr. Cliff Redford (12:25)

Yeah. Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (12:42)

all of our issues out the water. But as you said, it's a circus. So, you know, my advice for anybody who wants to do this, make sure you have a team. And I very carefully handpicked this team that can roll with the punches, that find a way to say yes, not find the problems. One of my favorite quotes is, you know, somebody wants to ask Einstein why he is so smart. He says, I'm not that smart. I chose.

or I choose to live 55 minutes in the solution and only five minutes in the problem as opposed to the normal human spends 55 minutes in the problem and five minutes in the solution. And those are the type of, that's the type of attitude you want to bring to ⁓ a project like this because you know, as much as we prepped and planned for it, we forgot a fucking scale to bring to Costa Rica. And it's like, how do you forget a scale? We were so busy with medication and we were so busy with

Dr. Cliff Redford (13:28)

hahahaha

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (13:36)

with surgical protocols and anesthesia equipment that we forgot a scale. Like the first piece of equipment that you need when you are practicing medicine is a scale. So we were able to borrow one from the neighbor, a human scale, and we literally just have people like hold their pets while they weighed themselves and then subtracted their weight. you you make do, you really, you make do with what you have. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:00)

And even something

like that would bring the community together because they would all make jokes and they would laugh and you know, who's going to pick up the big dog. And then the little 80 year old man picks them up with one arm, you know, cause he's this farmer dude who's so strong. ⁓ and then seeing you in another memory that brought me back to Panama and pretty much everywhere I've gone, when there's kids involved, seeing you having the children listening to the heart. Like it doesn't matter what language it doesn't matter what,

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (14:04)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:29)

religion, culture, color of the skin, anything. The kids, their eyes just light up, right? Like it doesn't matter. They're just so amazed and they understand. mean, you were able to say in Spanish, this is the heart. Here it is. But even if you couldn't, they would get it. Like, they just, they're so excited and they're just lined up waiting to, waiting to hear. And, and, and as you put in your post, you're, you're creating.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (14:32)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:55)

More doctors and technicians and most importantly, just animal lovers and scientists. Yeah, yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (14:59)

That's the most important part. It's

just like people taking proper care of their animals. And I think the earlier you start, am partnering up with a company right now that's going to specialize in, like the children's side of education on, how to properly take care of a pet. which I think the sooner we start on that, the better our world will be because, know, I think, who was it that said you can judge a person's character by how well they take care of animals. know it was. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (15:25)

Yeah, yeah. think Gandhi said that about a, a,

a people or, or, or culture, something like that. ⁓ or at least he gets credit for it. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it creates empathy and, and emotional intelligence and fascination and, just, just love and patience and understanding it's, it's, it brings people together, brings kids together, brings kids and parents and.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (15:29)

Yeah. Yeah. And I-

Yeah.

It really did.

Dr. Cliff Redford (15:53)

and the whole bit, it's absolutely wonderful. ⁓ So when have you kind of got a general idea of when your next trip is? you said November. Right, right, November. Did you do any vacationing when you were there?

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (16:01)

November. Yeah. And as you asked earlier, we

did, right? It's hard to vacation when you're one of the people that's kind of arranging everything and making sure the project goes smoothly because once my brain goes into work mode, people at my job here in Denver know once I go into anesthetic mode and I'm doing anesthetic calculations, I'm getting ready to run anesthesia on a critical case. Don't talk to him. Jokes are off the table. He's not the funny, easygoing guy anymore because you have to put yourself in that mind frame.

I had a hard time switching myself out of that because like we got there a couple days early so I could see the venue so I could see like where stuff needed to be moved with the team, right? Making it sound like I did all this by myself, I absolutely did not. ⁓ But as a team, we needed to know where stuff was gonna go, who was gonna go where and I was like, put me in coach, let me loose. And they're like, no, we're gonna go do surf lessons now or no, we're gonna go eat dinner now. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't wanna do that because I'm an ER technician. I need to know.

what I can prevent and what I can avoid before it happens. But I had to give into that, which Costa Rica makes very easy, by the way, because I was convinced my airplane crashed on the way to Costa Rica and I landed in heaven. So between the wonderful people, the beautiful food, the way they took care of animals and their main modes of transportation were ATVs and motorcycles.

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:08)

Mm-hmm.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (17:28)

I said, this is it, I died, I'm in heaven. There's no other way.

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:29)

love it. And

they have some of the greatest surfing in the world, man.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (17:33)

⁓ and beginner surfing too. Like the beach we were at is like, this is the second best beach to learn how to surf. Now a guy that's six foot three, 230 pounds. ⁓ I didn't do so hot, but I tried. ⁓ But yeah. Yeah, that was it, right?

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:44)

They just didn't get you on the right board, man. Come down to Toronto

in January and I'll take you surfing on Lake Ontario. It's very cold. It's ⁓ minus 20 Celsius, minus 10 Celsius. You wear the rubber suits, you look like giant fat penguins ⁓ and you frolic in the icy cold water. ⁓ It's awesome.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (17:56)

done. It sounds, sounds cold. Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. You know, I got Viking blood running through me. I'm fine. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (18:13)

But Costa Rica is famous for, shoot, can't remember the beach name, but it has the longest surfable wave in the world, at least known. And it's something like, I'll do this in American, well, no, you're from Holland. you, yeah, yeah, it's like a kilometer and a half long, a single wave. And so you just ride as long as you're good.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (18:23)

Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, no, we can stick to metric. Yeah.

mean, that's a hell of a, yeah, that's a distance.

Dr. Cliff Redford (18:39)

You just ride, ride, ride and, you know, scoop and switchbacks and the whole bit and boom, boom, boom, boom, carve, carve, carve. And then you hit the, you hit the beach and you got to walk 20 minutes back to the, to the starting line. ⁓ but, ⁓ yeah, that's, that's my dream one day of checking out Costa Rica for sure.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (18:44)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I

think we just got to bring you with us. I don't know how far we were from that beach, but you know, I wasn't complaining. Let me put it that way. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (19:05)

Yeah. Well, it doesn't have to be there. And I'm not, I'm

not, uh, although I surf a lot, the waves here are, they're kind of like hockey players. They're, kind of rough and they like to knock you down pretty quickly. Um, so it's a very different, but I did like the first time I surfed in warm water, other than, you know, vacation 15 years ago when I actually took up surfing seriously and bought my own boards and started doing training on the off season, that sort of thing. Uh, the first time I did.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (19:14)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (19:34)

warm water surfing was Pocostell Toro was during that during that trip we took a half day off and it was it's nicer it's nicer than the cold the cold lake water yeah yeah

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (19:43)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, for sure, for sure. It's and

you know, beautiful, beautiful water, beautiful beaches like you can't really complain ⁓ even if you tried. So I was I literally I ended up in heaven. can't wait to go back in November to your earlier point. You know, we will be bringing vaccines.

Dr. Cliff Redford (19:51)

Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (20:03)

Parasite control both preventative and ⁓ you know, whatever is going on because a lot of the blood work we did we we noticed, you know, lot of these pets came back with some form of relic eosis. There's yeah. And so we I mean, there was one point where I was drawing blood and placing an IV catheter and I saw a flea jump like clear across my needle and I'm like, well, we have arrived, you know, and these are just some of the things that you're going to deal with when you're in the jungle in the middle of nowhere.

Dr. Cliff Redford (20:13)

Yeah, so many bleeder dogs.

Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (20:31)

And these things are hard to anticipate as well, you know, but we we we learned a lot One of the tougher lessons that we learned is one of my texts got absolutely annihilated by a cat ⁓ only trying to get a weight and we ⁓ She got scratched up and then the cat did the exorcist thing when it crawled across her body and needless to say bitter in the butt twice ⁓ And I was ⁓ I always bring

Dr. Cliff Redford (20:43)

no.

no.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (21:00)

I mean an arsenal of medications when I go out of the country because God forbid I get a tummy ache, know, or the man flu and I'm a down and out. But I was going through my medicine cabinet before we left and I had three augmentins left over because I'm one of those really good patients that absolutely always finishes their antibiotics. ⁓ Clavimox ⁓ and amoxicillin, believe, or amoxicillin, clavim- yeah. And of course, you know, I didn't finish these antibiotics because I'm-

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:15)

What are, are, is that an antibiotic? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (21:27)

I'm in medicine so I don't follow instructions very well. But I brought those three of them. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna bring them. We'll see. And I thank the Lord and the universe because she needed them. Yeah, she got bit pretty hard. And you know, these are things that you don't think they're gonna happen. And it only happened once out of 148 animals. we were lucky for that.

These are all things you learn as you go and it's tough. What were some of the difficulties you had like on your trips? Like what are some of these unforeseen problems? Teach me and teach the rest of the people.

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:52)

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, ⁓ look, to be honest, part of the problem was my ego. ⁓ I went to Panama specifically. And when I was working with Dr. Jonathan, ⁓ and I wasn't rushing, like we kind of had this joke that let's see who can do the most, but we're, very good at being efficient, but not, you know, not rushing. ⁓ and we had, ⁓ I, for the first time in.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (22:20)

Yes, of course. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:27)

at the time, 23 years is when I'd been a vet, I dropped a pedicle and with this dog had come back after the first day, at the end of the first spay day and it was bleeding enough that, you know, it shouldn't have been just a drip, drip, drip, but still it was bleeding. And I was convinced it was a skin bleeder. He was a bleeder dog, like you're like, you're positive. We assume they all were.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (22:45)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:55)

⁓ we put it through on a bandage and he came back the next day and he was still bleeding and, ⁓ Dr. Jonathan at the time it hurt my feelings, but he was 100 % right that he took over. didn't speak English. And so it was just like quickly. just shook his head. No to me. And, and one of the translators, one of the vet students spoke well English and he had to sort of sheepishly say to me, Dr. Jonathan's upset.

he's going to do the surgery and he ended up finding this dropped pedicle and it had just, it had never happened to me and I don't know why. And, and, you know, ⁓ I had all these different, different excuses. ⁓ and I quickly realized at the end, no, just look, I just fucked up. It just happened to happen in another country. And with a bleeder dog where, you know, was, it was a partial drop. was a partial loose, loose, ⁓ suture.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (23:43)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (23:54)

⁓ I don't, do the flank technique. He does the flank technique. I've never learned how to do that. I got to learn how to do that because it is, it is exceptionally, ⁓ more efficient. ⁓ and especially for those cases, they get a much better look at the pedicle to tie off, but there was, there was things like that. And, and so I was nervous going into that second spay neuter program in Boca Stelto, because dr. Jonathan wasn't there anymore.

I was the guy running it. so now I had to get used to all these drugs and giving an injection of quercetol, which I didn't know what that was at the beginning. And quercetol's a blood clotting product basically that they give them a shot. Every dog gets a shot of it. ⁓ So, you know, our big issue was, you know, the, you know, me being nervous, but having to step up to the plate, which I ended up doing. So I learned a lot. ⁓

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (24:21)

Yeah.

Okay.

Dr. Cliff Redford (24:50)

But the communication and having no, like, it was very different than what you went through. It was myself and again, a new veterinarian from the U S who was sort of learning, teaching herself or learning more about spays and neuters and wanted to do it while volunteering. We were the only two surgeons and no, technicians. Like Emily, Emily was monitoring anesthetic depth and more sedative depth. was.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (25:14)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (25:20)

It was propofol and you would, you would drop them with ⁓ ketamine and xylazine and then maintain them on propofol. And they got a shot of, I can't remember the other drug right now. It was also all in Spanish. So there was just, you know, you know, after the first two hours of the circus, that was day one in Bocas del Toro, I had to pull Raul aside and say, this is not, we're not going to get anything done. This is taking way too long.

And so we had to quickly have a, okay, this is how you put on a muzzle. This is how you give an IM injection. I'm going to give the IM injection. I'm then going to go and throw a catheter in that other dog. Then I'm going to come back, throw a catheter because they didn't know how to throw catheters in. Right. ⁓ so was this, this process of teaching everybody, but boy, does it make you a better veterinarian and a better technician and a better person. Like.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (25:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I agree.

Because even the thing that you mentioned, right, is you have to step up to the plate. Whether you're in Panama, Costa Rica, or in your own country, there's going to be a moment as a tech or as a veterinarian that you're going to be that go-to. And I remember mine as well in the ER. I'm like, you know, no one can get this IB catheter. Nobody can get this particular procedure done. Like, you're the only one who plays central lines. It's up to you now. And it's hard.

Dr. Cliff Redford (26:31)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. There is

a, there is a situation on the very, the very last day, focus del Toro. So now this is the fourth day out of the two, the two spay neuter clinics and Dr. Kim, this, this young veterinarian, her very last surgery. I'm just finishing up mine. think it was a dog neuter and Emily quickly rushes over and says, dad, we need you. And I rush over there and her face is white and she's almost like frozen with.

with fear or just shock, right? The catheter had come loose on the dog. So they're having trouble getting propofol into it. So it was unfortunately starting to feel this surgery and she had dropped a pedicle and the abdomen had filled with blood. And it was kind of quickly like, all right, I had to walk her through the process of, I could have just jumped in. She was like, just come, help me. I'm like, no, no, no, you need to learn how to do this.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (27:24)

Oof.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Dr. Cliff Redford (27:42)

You know, so

I'm going to focus on the catheter. You know where the pedicle is. Even if you can't find it, you know, it's in that quadrant of the body. Take the largest wad of gauze you can and just press as hard as you can and just hold it. And I'll quickly get the catheter and thank goodness, all it needed was a little adjustment and a little flush and feed, you know, flush and advance. ⁓ and then instead of again, me gloving up and coming to the rescue.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (28:03)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (28:12)

I said, okay, I'm going to walk you through this. And it was, you know, step a step B step C. What are you going to do? Okay. Do you feel better now? You've clamped this off now. What do you, okay. Now I want to, I want to finish the spay and then I can focus on tying off this pedicle. I'll leave the clamp to it. And the dog ended up doing fantastic. ⁓ she even was like, you're dismissed. We figured it out. Now you're dismissed. ⁓ I went and ate watermelon.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (28:33)

Yeah.

You can leave. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (28:41)

⁓ was

a nice thing too. They all bring you food, right? Like all the locals feed you. my God.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (28:44)

my God, yes. Yeah, they all invited

us. All the local restaurants were like, we're cooking for you tonight. Like everybody was like, that was all taken care of because that's kind of their love language. And mine too. Yeah, they, they are. We felt like we were part of a big Costa Rican family. Like everywhere we went after like day one, day two, whatever, like everybody was waving at us and they were so, so kind and so inclusive with us, which was a really refreshing thing to see him to be a part of. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (28:51)

Yeah, they're so appreciative. They're so appreciative.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Do you, when you go back in November, is it the same place? Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (29:16)

It will be the same place.

There's still plenty of pets left. And so we will have a really good general idea of what we're getting into, what we need to bring and how we need to prepare. Even though I think this first time around went great. But I do want to touch on something else you said, which I think is fantastic. You you brought your ego with you, which I often tell people there is no ego in veterinary medicine. It serves you no purpose. Confidence, yes. Ego, no. And I think we did the same thing. We walked in there and we're like, we're...

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:39)

Mm-hmm.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (29:44)

our medicine is perfect, A plus gold standard, no one can touch it. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to do this our way as well. And again, we were open minded enough to combine forces, but I love that you said that, you know, that that was the first thing you mentioned was ego, because that's good advice for anybody going into any veterinary medicine field is leave your ego at the door because you're going to screw up. And then that slice of humble pie is not going to taste good. ⁓ but yeah, I love that.

Dr. Cliff Redford (30:04)

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I pride myself in knowing that I, I learn as much, arguably more from the non veterinarians than I do from the veterinarians, the wildlife rescuers that I work with once a week when I volunteer here. And then, you know, my very first surgery ever abroad was in Jamaica on a 100 pound Akita named Augie, who was also a bleeder who had a pylometra. It had ruptured.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (30:24)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (30:41)

⁓ as I was going in there, it had already ruptured and the technician and they don't have the same, ⁓ certification. He was just a, ⁓ shelter trained technician, the technician, Mr. Henry, everyone called them. ⁓ like he taught me, he was just like, no, these are bleeder dogs. He's going to be okay. You know, you're using too much suture. Make sure you tie here a second time. And he was right. You know, and he was right. And I'm a very good surgeon.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (30:54)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (31:11)

So, you know, I pride myself in learning from these people and learning from everybody and keeping my mouth shut, which is hard to believe right now, keeping my mouth shut and my ears open. ⁓ It was when I screwed up. And it's not the first time I've screwed up, we all make mistakes, but it was the first one that was a little more in my face. ⁓ And so my ego got in the way because I was just like, no, no.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (31:21)

Same for me, guilty.

Dr. Cliff Redford (31:40)

I can handle this, I can go back in. And I had to remember I'm gone from this place in a week. This guy, Dr. Jonathan is there forever and it's his ass on the line. Like he is my mentor and he is my license. And if I screw up, he gets in trouble. yeah, was, ⁓ I needed it. It was wonderful. ⁓

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (31:47)

Yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, no,

I agree. And I wish you could teach that without, you know, people having to, uh, we have a beautiful saying in Dutch that a donkey or a jackass doesn't hit his head on the same stone twice. Um, I wish I could learn my lessons. Yeah. Well, I think we both were kindred souls. I think, you know, I wish I could learn lessons more freely without hitting my head on the same stone four or five times.

Dr. Cliff Redford (32:18)

Which one am I?

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (32:32)

but I'm a knucklehead and sometimes I do, but veterinary medicine has humbled me severely because, you know, it's not about if you make a mistake, it's about when you make a mistake and then the question is, is this mistake fixable or are you going to be on the line for something very serious? And I don't want anybody to go through that feeling because it is the most demoralizing, the most dehumanizing feeling. You just melt into a puddle of yourself and it is

Dr. Cliff Redford (32:33)

Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (32:59)

People walk out and don't come back to Vet Med because of it and I don't wish that upon my worst enemy, I truly don't.

Dr. Cliff Redford (33:04)

No,

no, especially because we need, we need people, we need animal rescuers, we need animal, ⁓ animal caregivers, ⁓ technicians and ACAs and veterinarians and everyone in between. ⁓ we need them, but, yeah, it's, it's tough. mean, I was quick to, you know, by the end of the day, I'd forgiven myself and I'd invited Jonathan and his team out and beers were on me and, ⁓ we made amends and

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (33:08)

Yeah.

And the mistake was fixed.

The mistake was fixed. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (33:33)

And the mistake was fixed and the dog did great. And, you know, then

when the situation was turned around with the other veterinarian in, in focus del Toro, ⁓ I was able to, to, to help her out. So, ⁓ yeah, I just, as long as I learn, you know, I hope I learn more, obviously I will. I hope I get kicked in the ass more, ⁓ just as long as it's not at the risk of an animal.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (33:54)

Yeah.

Well, and I love too what you said that you forgave yourself, right? Because so, so often are we the ones that are going to kick our own ass for much longer. And I always ask people, you know, like, how long would you kick my ass if I made this mistake and you were standing next to me? And they say, you know, probably not that much because you're already doing it for yourself. And I'm like, then why are you giving yourself that, that treatment that you would never give somebody else? You know? Yeah, you have to forgive yourself, be kind to yourself, be patient with yourself because you would do that for the next person too. And

Dr. Cliff Redford (34:17)

That's a great way of turning it around. Yeah. That's a great way of turning around. Yeah.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (34:26)

⁓ Newsflash, you are gonna hit your ⁓ head on your pillow at the end of the day with you, with yourself. There's nobody else, you know what I mean? Like you better learn how to be nice to yourself because if you don't, you you go down a deep dark rabbit hole. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (34:31)

on that rock again and again. Yeah, true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I

think I'm with, I think I will be accompanying myself until the end of my life. So ⁓ I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be here. So until I'm not, and then I don't have to worry about it. ⁓ Yeah, so that's a great point. Yeah, I mean, this has been so great chatting with you. And when I saw that trip that you went on,

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (34:46)

Yeah, you're going to be there. I promise. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (35:01)

⁓ what great memories ⁓ it brought up and that it makes me itch ⁓ to get out there again ⁓ we'll see

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (35:07)

Yeah, it's it's fantastic.

Honestly, Doc, I'd love to have you out there. This project is going to continue to grow. We are working with some pretty big sponsors now and we are also looking for donations and that's something that the next phase is going to be because a lot of this stuff came out of ⁓ out of the pockets of the people that were organizing as a pilot program. But yeah, we are absolutely going to start looking for donations and you know if anybody is interested, obviously shameless plug. It's the Pets Rule Care project. You could find it on Instagram and.

Dr. Cliff Redford (35:25)

Hmm.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (35:36)

and reach out if it's something you are interested in helping ⁓ pets that otherwise wouldn't get this medical treatment, this medical service. And, you know, it's the only reason we're doing it. There is again, no ego here. There is no, I'm doing this because ⁓ of any wrong reason. This is truly because we care about the animals and the pets that are running around there that need our help. And that's what we're doing. And I'm super grateful for the opportunity and I get to do this and I get to be a part of it.

Dr. Cliff Redford (36:04)

Yeah, we're blessed brother, for sure. Excellent. Let's end it there. I'll make sure I put some info on the little episode summary about how people can get involved and how they can follow my good friend Joffrey. And ⁓ it's going to be excellent. Let's do this again ⁓ soon.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (36:06)

Yeah, absolutely we are.

Yeah.

I would love it.

You know, I'm always, I'm ready when you are. Let's do it. Maybe next time we do it from Costa Rica.

Dr. Cliff Redford (36:30)

Yeah. We're going to meet, going we're going to, we're going to, we're to have more interviews prior to then. ⁓ My urgent care stuff starts up at my clinic mid September, at least formally. We're already doing a bunch of urgent care, but I want to talk to you about that before that begins. You can give me a bunch of, a bunch of advice, but it's, it's been, it's been fun growing and learning and stumbling for sure. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on.

Geoffrey AKA AINT DOIN RIGHT (36:31)

Yeah. ⁓

For sure, for sure.

Let's do it.

Would love that would love nothing more. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. sure. Thanks,

Doc. My pleasure.