This past month has been full – of equine medicine! Seems like I am a horse girl after all (just kidding – I love small animal medicine, but horses are fun too). I spent two weeks doing an “Equine Community Practice” rotation, followed by two weeks of “Equine Dentistry”. I’m going to be honest, the entire month was mostly equine dentistry – which involved ‘floating’ horse teeth. Horse teeth continually grow, which are ground down as they chew. What happens though is the edges of the teeth (the edges along the cheeks in the upper teeth, and the edges along the tongue in the lower teeth) don’t get worn, and become sharp. The sharp points then can cause ulcers in the mouth, which hurt a lot! Floating is the process of smoothing out the sharp points using a tool that files those down – we use an electric tool called a “PowerFloat”, which makes the job very quick and efficient. In addition to this, I did many lameness exams (finding out why a horse is lame, or not moving quite right), advanced dental procedures, vaccines, and even a laceration repair surgery (where a big cut is sutured up).

Equine Community Practice

During the beginning of June, I participated in UCVM’s first ever Equine Community General Practice Rotation. This rotation consisted mainly of servicing owned horses at two reserves outside of Calgary. Two professors, three technicians and four students (including myself) worked alongside the community members to provide examinations, vaccines, dentals, lameness exams and occasional medicine work-ups.

Prior to starting our work in the communities, we had a discussion with a Blackfoot elder and two members of the U of C Native Center. This was a valuable time that provided insight into the ways of the local indigenous peoples. The most valuable learning I gained from this portion of the rotation was understanding the importance of relationship. It is clearly evident that without placing emphasis on the relationship between us and the clients, services are not going to be received well. This is something that I thought through regularly throughout the two weeks, doing my best to build a relationship with the people and not just get the job done. Having experienced relationship with the indigenous peoples on this rotation, I have found a greater understanding of humanity and a broadened perspective of what is happening alongside life in the city.

Something I have considered before, but that was affirmed during this rotation is the value of animals to people. At one of the reserves, horses were used by children and youth during riding lessons. Many of the people who brought their own horses throughout the two reserves were heavily involved with various competitive events and trail rides. The horses are being used in a way that gives people purpose, business and passion. Helping animals helps people, which is the really beautiful thing about veterinary medicine.

I am grateful for the efforts of the instructors to make this experience a reality. This rotation was no small task to carry out, yet the passion to pursue it and have us students heavily involved makes it so much more valuable. I was given the opportunity to work-up several lameness cases, perform more than a dozen dentals and even work-up a couple medicine cases and perform a laceration repair. I learned so much from the hands-on work, and enjoyed having a large case-load. It was highly rewarding to help people through the care of their animals that may have been cost-prohibitive otherwise. I look forward to see how many more bridges are built through this rotation throughout the years to come.

Equine Dentistry Rotation

During the second two weeks of June, I participated in the equine dental rotation offered by the school. This rotation has been offered for many years and has many of the kinks from the earlier versions worked out. We even had three students join us from other Canadian veterinary schools. Throughout the two weeks, we had the opportunity to go to various summer camps that offer horsemanship as part of their child and youth programs.

Being non-profits, floating horse teeth for 30-60 horses is definitely out of budget. An average equine dental might cost $250 (assuming just a float – not including extractions and advanced work which would add more to that cost – and many camps had multiple horses requiring this) – that’s well over $7000 of veterinary per camp (and some as much as $20,000 or more). This is a really unique opportunity because as students we were able to practice doing dentistry on a wide variety mouths, and the summer camps received veterinary care for their horses. In the two weeks, I learned so much in lectures, researching dentistry-related papers, and performing over another dozen dentals. Equine dentistry is my favorite part about equine medicine (so far) – so needless to say it’s been a great month.

In addition to the medicine – I had a wonderful time travelling around Alberta. Some camps took as much as 3 hours of driving in each direction to get to. Our classrooms during this rotation nearly all had mountain views, and if not were tucked into thick, lush forests. Needless to say, this month has made me fallen even more in love with this beautiful province that I have the privilege of calling home.