Vet Students Impacting Environmental Health - April Winner

Congrats to Sierra Bouchard from Cornell University for winning this last month's "Vet Students Impacting Environmental Health" challenge! Read below about her commitment to making SAVMA more sustainable!

"Last spring, when our SAVMA Symposium 2020 planning committee was looking for Symposium Chairs, I volunteered to assist in making the symposium more sustainable - and thus the SAVMA Symposium Sustainability Chair was born! By working alongside the other chairs as a sustainability advisor, I was able to suggest green alternatives to improve sustainability in five specific areas: accommodations and venues, transportation, food and beverage, material use, and merchandise. Some of our major accomplishments included composting for all meals, providing reusable dishware (no disposable cups, plates, or cutlery), working with vendors to provide reusable day trip containers for meals instead of single-use wrapped to-go lunches, local and sustainably sourced food, sustainable merchandise, digital event tickets and lecture materials, provided recommendations to attendees so that they too could be more sustainable throughout symposium, and much more! Though symposium was unfortunately cancelled, I know that my work will be used by future planning committees to provide sustainable symposia, and have already received positive feedback from our vendors about how their views on sustainability have changed, and the role it will play in planning other events. For example, by working with us on such a large-scale event, Cornell Catering is now confident that they can provide sustainable options for any event that they are hired for in the future by providing non-disposable options, improving composting availability, and sourcing their food and beverages from local and sustainable sources. Small individual changes have a ripple effect - resulting in improvements in environmental health over time!"

Well Worn

These beautiful photos were submitted by Katerina Herzberg from the University of Minnesota.

Students Combat COVID - The Virtual 5k

Are you looking for some motivation to get active, or looking for a way YOU can help all the incredible heathlcare providers in the frontlines? Well, look no further! SAVMA (due to the hard work of our incredible GPHO's!) has teamed up with AOSA (American Optometric Student Association), APTASA (American Physical Therapy Association Student Assembly), and SOMA (Student Osteopathic Medical Association) in order to donate to an incredible cause AND have some fun! Your donation is your "registration" fee. It is not required, however, all money raised will be donated to the CDC! You can decide to complete the 5k however you choose, whether that be running, walking, biking, skipping, dancing... we just want you to get active and get outside!

The student organization who raises the most money for the CDC Fundation wins glory and bragging rights... pretty awesome! This will be going on for the whole month of May. Directions are below, and the link to donate can be found here! Have fun with it!

Step 1: Use the above link and click Donate.

Step 2: Select the amount you wish to donate, and fill out the additional information below. Feel free to remain anonymous if you so choose!

Step 3: MAKE SURE YOU DONATE TO YOUR TEAM! Click the drop down and look for SAVMA!

Step 4: Have the best time completing your 5k!

Fun at the vet?

Kari Schultz from St. George's University seems to have an unhappy pup on her hands. As vet students, we know we aren't always our patients' favorite people, but we always do everything we can to make them comfortable!

Effects of injectable analgesics on selected gastrointestinal physiological parameters in rabbits

Debosree Pathak, a student at Oklahoma State Unversity, submitted her abstract about analgesics in rabbits! She is working on the full manuscript now, but check out a sneak-peak of what she found!

~Don't forget to submit your abstracts or cool case studies for a chance to win $100 for Issue 3~

Pathak D, Di Girolamo N, Maranville R, Womble W, Sypniewski L, Hanzlicek A, Brandão J

From the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University, 2065 W. Farm Rd., Stillwater OK 74074, USA.

Abstract

In rabbit medicine, it has long been postulated that analgesics, particularly opioids, decrease gastrointestinal motility. However, comparative studies investigating the gastrointestinal side-effects of different analgesics are lacking. This study sought to evaluate the effects of injectable analgesics (buprenorphine, hydromorphone, methadone, and meloxicam) on selected gastrointestinal physiological parameters in New Zealand white rabbits when compared to an injectable placebo (saline) and baseline data. In this randomized, blinded, complete cross-over controlled trial, ten healthy New Zealand white rabbits randomly received subcutaneous buprenorphine (0.1 mg/kg), hydromorphone (0.2 mg/kg), methadone (0.2 mg/kg), meloxicam (1 mg/kg), or a placebo (saline [equal volume to buprenorphine]) over a period of 10 weeks. Every 24 hours from day -1 to day 3, the rabbits were physically examined. The food and water intake, and fecal and urine output were recorded each day. Baseline data was obtained on day -1, and treatment was given on day 0. Day 1 to 3 were used to observe the treatment effects. A minimum 72-hour washout period between treatments was allowed. Generalized linear mixed models were employed and statistical significance was set at P<0.05. Buprenorphine decreased food consumption up to 72h and hydromorphone up to 24h. Fecal production (weight and/or pellet number) was decreased with buprenorphine up to 72h, and with methadone and hydromorphone up to 48h. Buprenorphine and hydromorphone decreased water intake up to 72h. Urine production was decreased with buprenorphine up to 48h and methadone up to 24h. Knowing the comparative effects among different analgesics will improve the medical management of rabbits.