Stabbed by an Acacia Tree

Mike McEntire - Texas A&M

Foot in Mouth Disease - Winner

Best Overall Submission - Winner

 

It’s not every day you fall victim to the excruciating schemes of a tree.  But then again, it isn’t every day that you are tasked with saving a Cape Buffalo from drowning.

Last summer I was fortunate enough to spend several weeks in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province on a study abroad working with some of the most amazing animals on the planet.  After days of lectures on capture techniques and immobilization pharmacology, our team of eager Texas A&M veterinary students were prepared for our first wildlife immobilization on four Cape Buffalo Bulls.

Because the Cape Buffalo of South Africa harbor many of the diseases that could decimate domestic cattle production such as Foot and Mouth Disease, Theileriosis,  Tuberculosis,  and Brucellosis all Cape Buffalo must test negative for these disease before being sold or shipped.  Our goal was to immobilize these four bulls so the State Veterinarians could carry out the testing.

The first two went down easy enough.  But the last two decided they’d go for a little swim before the drugs took their full effect.  That meant we had to run in and hold their heads above water to stop them from drowning. 

There really isn’t a lot of time for thinking in a situation like that.  You just run and that’s exactly what I did.  My extra-long coveralls hadn’t really proven to be too much of a problem until I got to the water’s edge.  That’s when they decided to act like little slip n’ slides.  They took me down – right into an acacia tree and then into the water hole. 

There it is. The tree on the left. Small, but deadly.Now just so you can fully understand what happened to me, acacia trees evolved thorns up to four inches long that cover their branches to protect them from all the browsers in Africa that think they are tasty - or in my case from blundering veterinary students moving too quickly for their own good.

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The Nacho Deer

Kate Connell - Penn

Foot in Mouth Disease - Winner

Best Overall Submission - Winner

         I’ve often found that the most interesting cases in the veterinary field appear on the necropsy table. Unlike human medicine, we can’t always afford to run all of the necessary diagnostics to find our disease. So the most baffling cases literally open up for exploration once the patient is deceased.

            The case that I’ll lay out for you today features a deer that was brought in to a wildlife clinic in Guatemala (yes, there are deer in in Central America). At first glance, he took your breath away. Magnificent twelve point buck, glistening coat, bright eyes, and…morbidly obese. We might be used to seeing overweight cats and dogs coming to our offices, but let me tell you, seeing a fat deer is something that makes you scratch your head. 

            The police confiscated the deer from a man keeping it in his backyard, where it had been raised on a diet of Frito Lays and Pringles (how the name “Nacho Deer” came about). Once he was with us, Nacho Deer acted like a typical only child that had been allowed to eat cookies for breakfast and stay up late watching TV in his room. When given his vegetables, he kicked them around his pen in a bitter rampage, and volunteers weren’t allowed in the enclosure with him after too many charging incidents. 

            Needless to say, no one shed a tear when Nacho Deer was found suddenly dead one evening. Because it was too late to investigate cause of death, we locked him in the office (no deer-sized refrigerator in the facility) so that scavengers wouldn’t pick at him overnight. We returned to do the necropsy the next morning, and I’ve never seen such a bizarre combination of pathologies.

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Congratulations to our V:50 I:3 Winners!!!

Please join us in congratulating our new winners for Volume 50: Issue 3!!!! We will starting publishing submissions ASAP so look out for them!!!

The school with the most overall submissions was.... Texas A&M!!!!!

Once again, we had too difficult of a time selecting the winner for best overall submission so we went with a tie!

Best overall submission:

Kate Connell - Penn - Foot in Mouth Disease
Michael McEntire - Texas A&M - Foot in Mouth Disease

Trivia (correct answer was: Peter Ostrum - winners were randomly selected):

Victoria Neff - Mizzou
Analisa Edell - Western

Creative Corner Winners:
Hannah Fearing - Georgia
Stacy Caffey - Texas A&M
Brooke Creech - Western
Andrew Tsai - Western
Laurel Eckstrand - VT-MD
Marc Silpa - Edinburgh

Life as a Vet Student:
Ava Kilburn - Ross - Winner
Patricia Wonder - Texas A&M - Honorable Mention 
Caitlyn Lennon - Western - Honorable Mention

Foot in Mouth Disease:
Michael McEntire - Texas A&M - Winner 
Kate Connell - Penn - Winner 
Morgan Jacobson - Western - Honorable Mention 
Chanel Baron - UC Davis - Honorable Mention

Experiences:
Anika Farina - Tufts - Winner 
Meaghan Ryan - Texas A&M - Winner 
Brian Tighe - Ross - Honorable Mention 
Stephanie Massey - Texas A&M - Honorable Mention 
Catherine Lang - Texas A&M - Honorable Mention

Abstracts/Cases:
Annette Louviere - Georgia - Winner 
Jessica Xu - Texas A&M - Honorable Mention 
Jennifer Storer - Tennessee - Honorable Mention

Reflections on Life in Vet School

Therese Gavin, Texas A&M

Life as A Vet Student, Entry

Not long ago, an old friend asked me what the theme of my life in veterinary school was. The question caught me by surprise, but what surprised me more was I honestly did not know the answer. So, I did what one typically does in such situations, and said something I knew wasn’t wrong, but also wasn’t quite right—“Contentment,” and hoped my answer wasn’t questioned. Yet, the question remained on my mind and I soon discovered why.

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Demodex...

Joyce Huang, UGA

Foot In Mouth, Entry

One day, I was talking to a non-vet school friend about what I learned at the vet hospital and I mentioned Demodex.  I thought nothing about it, until I saw her worried expression.

Me: "..so, this dog came in and it had Demodex. The doctors were showing me how to find it with a scrape."

Friend: "..."

*5 minutes into the conversation*

Friend: "Wait. Did you say Demon X?? What kind of bugs are there in the vet world???"

Me: "...Demodex? Though...Demon X sounds like a good name for it too..."