2014 SAVMA Symposium Experience

Tara Farrell, Ross University

Experiences, Honorable Mention

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I arrived in Colorado for the SAVMA Symposium.  Coming from a tropical island, I was immediately met with freezing weather.  This was a nice change from the hot, humid weather I had been in the last couple of months. I also did not know what to expect from people and the atmosphere at the conference since I had never been to one before.

From the very beginning of the symposium, it was busy.  My friends and I started off with the volleyball tournament at the CSU recreational center. This was a lot of fun and we met some very nice people from Wisconsin and other schools. Since the lectures didn’t start until Friday, I was able to explore Fort Collins with some friends and take a tour of The New Belgium Brewery.  Thursday night I explored the nightlife of Old Town Fort Collins by going on a pub-crawl.  My friends and I were able to eat some actual American bar food and have some delicious beer after being in the Caribbean for 3 months. Later that night, my group of friends met up and hung out with some of the people that we had met at the volleyball tournament earlier in the day.

Friday morning was another busy day from the beginning. I had my Small Animal Medical Procedures wet lab, which was an awesome experience. I learned techniques like urine catheterization, bone marrow aspirations and other procedures that I had not yet learned at Ross.  Later in the day I was able to attend some of the lectures and meet up with one of my friends who is a veterinary student at CSU.  We also saw and met up with some of the people we had done our Master’s program with at CSU.  That night, the symposium took us into Fort Collins for a Casino Royale Night.  This was a great opportunity to meet and mingle with people from other schools.  Coming from the Caribbean we had our own unique way of meeting people, which was by hula hooping. It was fun because people from other schools would come up and try to hoop and the few people from Ross who were good at it put on a little show. Casino Night was very fun, even though I did not gamble, but I did enjoy meeting people and hanging out with my friends.Volleyball at the Rec Center

On Saturday morning, my friends and I were met with a surprise outside when we woke up. It was snowing! This was fun to see, since we don’t have any seasons in the Caribbean and I hardly get to see snow at home because I live in Arizona.  I was also able to finally relax a little and attend some of the lectures in the morning.  Later that morning I met up with my sister, who had driven up from Denver. It was great to hang out with her and explore Fort Collins a little more in the snow! That night was the closing ceremonies, so we put on our best dress and got ready to have a great time.  The dinner was delicious and the speakers were all very good. The keynote speaker was Dr. Stephen Withrow, who gave a very good and inspiring speech.  He told us about his journey and how he was able to open the Cancer Center at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital.  He showed us how we can open doors in veterinary medicine that might lead to advances in human medicine.   This is important because the human-animal bond is even stronger these days.  

This whole experience has made me want to be a veterinarian even more and has made me more excited to be apart of the veterinary medical field. I think that any veterinary student who has a chance to attend the SAVMA Symposium should attend.  It is a great opportunity to learn more about the different fields of medicine and learn different types of medical procedures and skills.  This was also a great place to network with other students and lecturers. I would not trade this experience for anything in the world even if I did end up missing a test. I was able to grow more as a veterinary student and am more excited than ever about being apart of the veterinary profession.