“Dirk” passed her first exam! Today, Dr. Mader of Marathon Veterinary Hospital performed an endoscope on our newest patient “Dirk” who passed with flying colors! Staff learned that Dirk is a female and fortunately does not have internal growth of Fibropapilloma tumors! If the turtle is found to have internal growth, they are humanely euthanized.

Thanks to Dirk’s rescuers Lynne Fieber and Michael Schmale, both professors at The University of Miami, for helping Dirk! Dirk is scheduled for surgery soon to remove her external FP tumors, we can’t wait to get her back on her flippers! Dirk will likely need two tumor removal surgeries to get completely cleaned up and then will wait at The Turtle Hospital for a one year monitoring period for regrowth’s of tumors.