Peter Haworth completes his Continual Professional Development by attending a specialist referral clinic in Las Vegas, and gets an unusual customer.

Vets expect exotic animals to be brought to them for treatment, but it is not often they are faced with an injured tiger to operate on.

That was the memorable opportunity facing vet Peter Haworth from New Era Veterinary Hospital recently when he visited a colleague in Las Vegas to catch up with current and new therapies there.

The tiger in question was from a local wildlife park which had slipped on a rock and damaged its knee cap.

The zoo’s vet had referred the beautiful big cat to the practice for surgery as the animal’s knee cap kept slipping out of place.

Peter said: ‘The tiger arrived in a cage within a horse box and he really didn’t appear to be too bothered about being there.’

Like a number of other cases in America, the tiger had been bought by a rich family as a cub and had then outgrown the place where he was kept.

Fortunately, the tiger was rehomed at the wildlife park.

Peter said that a vet from the practice anaesthetised the tiger, after which the team, including Peter, carried out the surgery involving the tightening up of the ligaments around the knee cap and deepening the groove it sits in.

‘The surgery went well, although we had to use buried sutures and glue to close the skin as it wasn’t as if we could put a bandage on and take it off the next day,’ he said.

Five days later, Peter heard from the practice team that the tiger was doing really well and was up and about already.

It had to remain in a cage for a short time to restrict its activity while the knee was healing.

Peter said: ‘I have performed this same operation many times on dogs and cats, but never on a tiger. It really was all the same, just a lot bigger !’

This is not the first time Peter has carried out work in that practice in America, but usually the majority of patients which he has treated before from that area have mainly been domestic cats and dogs.

As well to visit his friend, Peter’s trips to Las Vegas are also part of the requirement of vets to undertake a certain amount of time each year dedicated to ongoing professional development.

‘The practice I visited takes referrals from other veterinary surgeries because the procedures they perform are more complicated than a vet in general practice would be likely to do,’ he said.

Mr Haworth said that in Jersey, general vets had to be able to do most things as referral was difficult.

‘Seeing a large amount of cases during my two weeks in America keeps me right up to date,’ he said.