[using an anesthetized Great Dane to warm up pediatric surgical patients in the MAWS clinic, Botswana]

During my time in veterinary medicine and animal care, I’ve worked with many sizes of patients; from elephants, cattle, and horses to hummingbirds, guinea pigs, and mice. There is something strange and special about the difference in their normal parameters, how a heart rate of 30 beats per minute is to be expected in the adult Asian elephant while the mouse’s can vary from 250 to almost 800 beats per minute. And yet, both are essentially the same — an evolutionary template of form and function that matches the one inside our own chests. And both need the same care under anesthetic. 

“Small Things and Large” tells the story of routine surgery on our smallest patients.