Getting Prepped for Clinical Year

Cassandra Hoy from Ross University speaking about her recent externship experience.

Over the semester break I had the opportunity to extern in a private practice with the help of a Professional Development Fund scholarship from the RUSVM SAVMA board. This was my second time working with them to gain hands-on experience. Overall, it was a wonderful opportunity to see the kinds of cases I would expect to see in a general practice setting. Morning appointments were covered by one veterinarian while the other veterinarian handled the surgeries of the day. Both were very welcoming and happy to explain their methods of diagnostics and patient work-ups. A typical surgical caseload included a couple of neuters, spays, mass removals and 6-7 complete dentals with or without tooth extractions. Most of the room appointments related to gastrointestinal upset, itchy skin, wound lacerations, tumors, or wellness exams. I acted as the technician by assisting in restraining pets for their physical exams and got to see how each vet established a strong rapport with their clients. 

Some of the more interesting cases involved a HBC Labrador showing neurological signs, an older dachshund who needed a canine tooth extraction, a geriatric shepherd mix with colorectal neoplasia and a rabbit neuter. Client communication was integral to ensuring everyone understood the plan going forward.  Throughout my externship, I was given the opportunity to perform blood draws, insert intravenous catheters and place endotracheal tubes. As I get closer to 7th semester, I feel much better prepared for surgeries and moving on to clinical year!

My SAWorldVets Conservation Experience

Brian Tighe, Ross University

Experiences, Honorable Mention 

Often times when a person says you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with a multimillion dollar industry, the opportunity to take care of animals that run into the tens of thousands of dollars per individual, a lot of feelings can come rushing towards you.  Excitement at the opportunity, disbelief in the trust placed upon you, anxiety over the possibility of a single mishap ruining your entire career, but the one emotion you would never expect is complacency.   Sable antelope, Hippotragus niger, is a species of antelope found in the savannahs of Africa.  Its rarity is dependent on the subspecies, spanning the spectrum from critically endangered to least concern, but that “least concern” label didn’t happen by itself. 

The farmers of South Africa have learned what valuable assets these animals can be, allowing offers from wealthy folks all over the world to spill in to purchase them for a variety of reasons, the most being hunting.  This gave great incentive to increase their numbers.  So when this student says he grew complacent seeing these creatures, he wasn’t bored or uninterested in them.  It was the sheer fact that on any given day as he drove threw the country, visiting farm after farm, these animals were everywhere.  Ever been to Pennsylvania and seen all the white-tailed deer?  Or how about sheep in New Zealand?  Or castles in Ireland?  It was kind of like that.  By the end of the trip we had seen so many Sable antelope we stopped taking pictures of them.  And you know what other emotion that made us realize on our journey back?  Pride in the efforts of conservationists, farmers, and veterinarians who were able to take an animal who used to have such low numbers and blow them up into a common sighting.

            I was one of fourteen students who went on an excursion to South Africa to follow a wildlife veterinarian as he worked to help farmers and maintain conservation of the animal species there.  The group was called SAWorldVets and was worth every penny.  Essentially we were following him on a day to day work schedule, awakening each morning before sunrise to whatever was scheduled, lunch, going out to calls, and then finally coming back in the evening to crash around the campfire.  Luckily for us, we just so happened to arrive two weeks before a giant auction that would involve many of the farmers in the area and, of course, they all wanted their animals in top shape.

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My SAVMA Symposium Experience

Adam Silkworth, Ross University

Experiences, Entry

After spending the last 2 years on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts attending Ross University, the little snow that we received in Loveland, Colorado at the 2014 SAVMA Symposium was a welcome reminder of the world outside of the beaches and oceans that I had been currently living.

Traveling from such a long distance made the trip there in and of itself an adventure alone. We had to sprint through the Dallas airport, making our connection by mere seconds, due to our Miami connection being delayed. But not before we got Wendy’s in the Miami airport that we had all been talking about for days leading up to the trip.

We didn’t land in Denver until 11:10 p.m. the night before Symposium was to kick off and still had over an hour ride to the hotel. Let us not forget the time difference between the Caribbean and Colorado. By our body clocks, we didn’t land until 1:10 a.m. and arrive at the hotel until well after 2 a.m. Oh and did I mention that breakfast was at 6 a.m. No sleep ‘til Symposium!

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My SAVMA Symposium Experience

Lisa Corsale, Ross University

Experiences, Entry

If one has an opportunity to attend the SAVMA Conference next year, then it should be taken.  The trip not only helps you network in your field with different social activities but also there are wet labs, day trips, and lecturers.

You get to meet many specialists during the lecturers. For example, I was able to attend a large animal behavior talk given by Dr. Temple Grandin.  From her lecture, being able to read the behavior and interpret correctly how the animal feels, I am able to incorporate that same lesson into small animals. No matter what area of veterinary medicine you are interested in, there was a lecture for every topic imaginable.

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A review of Veterinary Research in Epigenetics

Rebecca Zaremba, Ross University

Cases/Abstracts, Honorable Mention           

 For many years, millions[ACL1]  of healthy women and their families have suffered from miscarriage, which is openly defined as the loss of a fetus under 20 weeks of age (The March of Dimes). The trauma of miscarriage often impacts entire families, from expectant mothers and fathers to siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Many factors can cause miscarriage, and most of these are poorly understood. It is important to determine etiologies of miscarriage and it is also equally important to be able to understand that these tragedies do not disappear after the loss of the baby. Fortunately, the veterinary field has helped immensely in determining specific point mutations which are thought to be responsible for such tragedies in humans.

            One of the long-term goals of the Lossie lab is to understand the genetic and epigenetic causes of miscarriage. In an effort to understand these mechanisms, we have characterized two lethal mutations in mice known as l11Jus1 (L1) and l11Jus4 (L4). L1 and L4 are two separate mutations in a gene called Notchless (Nle1), which is a component found downstream to the Notch pathway (Baumgarner et al. 2007). These two mutant lines survive through the blastocyst stage (Figure 1) and are able to successfully implant into the uterus. However, neither L1 nor L4 survive past implantation; they arrest prior to gastrulation, which eventually leads to an immature body.

Figure 1. Implantation

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