Out of the classroom…and back into the classroom

By: Becky Lee

UC Davis, Class of 2012

The summer after my first year of veterinary school, I traveled to Honduras with VetMerge, an organization that provides veterinary services in areas with limited access to veterinary medical care. Along with a small group of veterinary students and two doctors, we traveled to a town with a population of 7,000 called La Villa de San Antonio.

School was out, and I was excited about this trip. It would be a great opportunity to leave behind the lecture hall, abandon the books, and get some “real” clinical experience. We learned that the ranchers relied on their livestock as an important source of income, and we would have a chance to help them. Months before our trip we raised money and gathered supplies. Arriving with our suitcases stuffed full of medical supplies, we were ready to get to work!

Like the stereotypical vet student, I had lofty goals. I couldn’t wait to deworm whole herds and vaccinate every dog and cat that I saw. Before the trip, I had a sense of urgency to complete as much veterinary work as possible during our short ten day stay. I imagined that our most important work would be done on ranch calls or in our makeshift clinic. However, I soon came to realize that the individual medical treatment of animals was only a portion of trip; public education was something equally, if not more, important.

As a part of our education of the public, we would visit a local grade school. We would teach the kids more about what veterinarians do and also about taking care of their pets. We would have presentations and an event involving the students’ personal pets in which we would split into small groups to tell them about the care of the animals they had brought. I remember one boy, all smiles and clearly extremely proud of his pet turtle. I hid an inward cringe at the mother’s casual, one handed-hold on the startled, upside-down reptile. I made a mental note to discuss handling with the group. In our presentation, we stressed the importance of good nutrition, proper hygiene with pets, and also signs of illness in their pets. Initially, they could only tell us that they knew their pets were sick when they were “triste” or sad. By the end of the session, they could quickly give us a list of specific signs. The children’s interest in the animals reminded me of how I felt about animals as a child.

As the children listened to their own hearts with the stethoscopes and then compared it to what they heard when they listened to their animals’, their eyes lit up. I remember one child was so excited that he got in line several times just to have extra time listening with the stethoscope. We had also brought an old microscope with us (for our fecal samples) and a slide with a flea on it, the children were fascinated.  I couldn’t help but hope that to some small degree we were promoting their interest in the sciences. At the very least, we had given recommendations that could potentially benefit the health of their pets. At the end of the event, the parents and children thanked us and left with their pets (right-side up this time, of course.)

Since service trips are so brief, it only makes sense to leave behind something that improves the conditions of the area and has some permanence. Education is something that can be shared and has a longer shelf-life than most vaccines. Whether we are in an exam room or a Honduran grade school, our interactions with owners are an essential part of veterinary medicine.