Leanne Dempsey

Skills/attribute/
knowledge developed
Understanding medical
records

Recording information

Identifying different
pathogens

Preparing faeces for

analysis

Animal handling

Example that demonstrates this action

Every day, some animal had to be weighed
and administered medicine. Reading
understanding the weights was very
straightforward. However, some on the
animals in the intensive care unit required
supplements and medicine administered in
different ways. It took me a couple of weeks
to understand and be allowed to administer
these.
Throughout my work experience is was very
important to notice and record anything
unusual about a particular animal. The
weight of the hedgehogs and what food
they had eaten had to be recorded every
day, as can be seen in my evidence section.
There were different sections for
supervisors to record medicines/baths and
their observations and for volunteers to
record anything unusual.
Every Friday a faecal analysis was
completed of the animals in the hospital. I
sat and recorded observations of different
pathogens found. Eventually, I was finding
it very easy to identify these between the
other residues seen down the microscope.
Every Thursday, the faeces had to be
prepared for analysis the next day. This
involved adding floatation fluid to the
faeces and sieving it to get it to a point
suitable to observe on a slide.
Working in a wildlife hospital, different
animals would come in every day. In the
morning I would have to clean out all the
animals in U1, U2, ICU, the avaries or B3.
Most of the rooms had hedgehogs or
pigeons so I gained a lot of experience in
handling these animals. I also handled
squirrels, different mice species, different
seagull species, many song bird species,
and different species of corvid. I became
more confident handling animals
throughout my work experience and gained
experience handling a wide variety of
animals.

Leanne Dempsey
Instructing people

Identification of British
wildlife

It was very common for new volunteers to

come in so after I had been working at the
hospital for a few weeks I would be paired
with them to teach them how everything
works and tell them what basic jobs need to
be done every day. I was given the
responsibility of leading a team of
volunteers for an afternoon. I was given a
list and had to make sure it was completed
by the end of the day with the help of 5
other volunteers.
Being exposed to different species of British
wildlife every day of my work experience
allowed me gain experience in identifying
them. I can fairly confidently identify many
different species of birds and learnt species
of pigeon that I was unaware of before.