SAVMA Public Health/Community Outreach Grant Summary

Editor's note: The following is a trip summary from a veterinary student that received a grant from SAVMA's Public Health and Community Outreach Committee to participate in an externship in an underserved area.  If you are interested in receiving funding for your own externship, please contact the committee at savma.phcoc@gmail.com.  Applications must be received 45 days prior to the externship experience.

Lori Newman
Tufts V’13

I recently returned from a Rural Area Veterinary Services (RAVS) trip to San Carlos and White Mountain Apache Reservations in Arizona.  I participated in a field clinic providing vaccination and spay/neuter services for dogs and cats living on those reservations.  

RAVS was incredibly valuable for me. I gained experience in several technical domains, including placing intravenous catheters, performing intubation, administering injections, performing physical exams, and running anesthesia cases for surgery. I saw cases that I am unlikely to encounter at Tufts, such as puppies suffering from parvovirus and animals covered in ticks or sarcoptic mange. I learned that tick-borne diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever pose a health risk to not only dogs but also people on the reservation. Several children have already died of this disease, and the tribe is working closely with the Centers for Disease Control to fight it.

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The Future

Alicia Agnew
Virgina-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, '13

As third years, we are encouraged to practice writing out SOAPs for all case discussions.  I think that I can take it a step further and apply the SOAP principle to all my life problems, including that of what the h--- am I supposed to do after graduating?  Hopefully, a logical, medically oriented SOAP can solve the problem.

S: Subjective

Patient reports stress and nightmares in her sixth semester of vet school.  Most nightmares involve missing an exam or showing up unprepared at surgery where she then gets yelled at. Patient has received her block schedule for fourth year and is happy to have a perfect schedule, exactly what she hoped for.  She was recently married, and so now has limits to where she can find a job after school, and plans to move to Florida after graduating to join her husband where he is starting a job this summer.  This has increased her job finding stress as she will be far from family, and has to move a herd of twenty goats to Florida as well.

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Lesson from the Roman Empire

"We receive hundreds of emails each week, we study on computers (likely with earphones in our ears), some of us have fully computerized notes, we navigate with our GPS, communicate with Skype, and do just about everything on smartphones. What do you think of all this technology in a vet student’s life? Making things easier or more complicated? Do you prefer to communicate and study electronically or would you be much happier unplugged?"

Oneal Peters
Colorado State University, '13

Tap tap tap. This is the noise of vet school. Facebook flashes by on the screen of a classmate sitting in front of me, no doubt updating her status from sitting in Equine Medicine and Surgery to sitting in Bovine Herd Medicine, I guess it’s pretty big news. To the left of her someone is taking actual notes during class on their laptop, adding to the already text happy power point slides that the professor is reading to us. I shouldn’t criticize; I am watching all this while I peer over my own computer screen. This is the new look of vet school.

About sixty percent of my classmates take electronic notes. The other forty percent spend money each month purchasing their paper notes, print outs of the power point presentations that will be given by the course professor. As long as you have a working computer, taking electronic notes saves you about $100 per semester since electronic notes are free.

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The Tragic Tale of Fifi the Dog

David Kim
UC Davis

The Tragic Tale of Fifi the Dog
by Pickles da Goat

Heroes old and new have arisen
Throughout the sands of time
Achilles, Macbeth, Gizmoduck
To 2014’s Jon Levine (god he’s so FOINE~)

But all these do pale when compared
To the terrifying trifecta who dared
Wage war with the wily wretched worms
Many lives taken, over a billion deaths confirmed

So if you will so permit me to share    
My tale and melodious ode
Hear of Boyce, Conrad, and Houston
Slayers of the hated nematode!

Fifi the Pom had a problem
A coprophagic addicted to poop
Risk of disease ran high yet she still rolled the die
Until a problem arose in her crap chute

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Students at Oregon State learn how to rescue horses from ravines, and much more!

Editors note: SAVMA's Public Health and Community Outreach Committee offers a grant every spring to a veterinary school that is hosting a disaster preparedness activity.  The latest winner of the grant was Oregon State University. Read below to hear more about their event, and if you are interested in funding for a disaster preparedness activity at your own school, please contact the Public Health committee at savma.phcoc@gmail.com

Oregon Veterinary Students participating in a disaster preparedness course spponsored by SAVMA's Public Health and Community Outreach Committee

By: Ashley Galen
Oregon State University, Class of 2013

Last summer I participated in an externship at a local equine practice where I met Dr. Shannon Findley, a recent graduate of UC Davis with a lot of enthusiasm for equine emergency response.  During veterinary school she took courses in large animal rescue and participated in their Veterinary Emergency Response Team (VERT).  Her drive to spread awareness to clients and fellow aid workers, veterinarians and firemen alike, showed me how important it is to be prepared for emergency situations.  

This drove me to set up an SC-AAEP workshop at Oregon State on equine emergency response, focusing on what can be done in an average practice to be prepared for a disaster of any magnitude.

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