It’s been a while! Since I have last written, I have spent time seeing a mixture of exotics and small animals, as well as horses – mostly horses.

During my exotics rotation, I got to spend time learning about bunnies, guinea pigs, lizards and a variety of birds (mostly parrots). I had the opportunity to help with their treatments and do physical examinations. I also saw many small animal cases (cats and dogs), which was wonderful in the middle of this horse-filled summer!

Don’t get me wrong, horses are wonderful creatures. However, they are dangerous, and performing medical procedures on them is not my passion. Thankfully, I made it through two weeks of equine lameness (think poking needles into joints to remove feeling in them, using a freezing agent) and two weeks on internal medicine (think passing stomach tubes in through the noses of sick horses) without getting injured.

I don’t regret my decision to pursue such a large volume of equine cases. If anything, it has made me a better (future) small animal veterinarian having seen a large breadth of species and cases. Not to mention, this has been mentally challenging. Horses scare me a bit, at least their hooves do. This summer has been an opportunity to push myself through things that I am fearful of, thus building my character and my confidence in the process.

Currently, I am in the midst of a diagnostics rotation – where we have been looking at x-ray and ultrasound images. At the end of the month I will be headed to my surgery externship (a rotation I set up myself, my school did not offer it) in the US.

In addition to all of these clinical rotations, I have begun studying for the big licensing examination at the end of November – 6+ hours long with 360 questions. Wish me luck!

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.

The Monday following my trip to Mexico, I started my first day of my final year. The start of my clinical rotations began with pathology. Pathology is “the study of disease”.

During the first week, the focus was on post-mortem examinations (aka autopsies). We had some cases to work through and find out the cause of death. It might be suprising to find out that people do send their animals to find out why they passed. It is fairly common, especially if the animal died suddenly. Your veterinarian was likely trained how to do this at some point, and many clinics do offer this service for those wanting answers. More often than not, post-mortems are done on livestock animals who suddenly fall ill or die. This is because the farmer often needs to find out why one animal died, to help protect the rest from the same illness if it were a contagious disease.

The second week of my pathology rotation was focused on “clinical pathology”, which is essentially learning how to diagnose disease based on laboratory findings such as bloodwork. Bloodwork in general terms often involves running a blood sample through a machine which will measure the values of certain electrolytes, proteins and cells. Oftentimes, bloodwork is run alongside a urinalysis in order to get a full picture of a

patient. During the week, we worked on cases where we diagnosed diseases based on bloodwork values. We also worked on evaluating urine, and cytological samples. Cytology involves looking at cells under a microscope – this can be blood or tissue. For example, if your dog has a large lump on their skin, your veterinarian may recommend doing cytology. This involves using a needle to poke the mass and get a sample. The sample is then spread out on a slide and stained before the veterinarian looks at it. It cannot always give us the answers we are looking for, but it is a good start. Usually a biopsy is the next step, which is often sent to a specialist to interpret.

This most recent week has been my first of two at a local animal shelter. We have been doing wellness examinations on many puppies and kittens, which includes giving them their vaccines and deworming medications. Vaccines are incredibly important not only for your pet, but some vaccines prevent diseases that we can get from them, such as rabies, which can be fatal. Certain parasites such as tapeworms can travel from pets to humans, which makes it important for everyone’s health to deworm your pets!

This upcoming week, I will have the opportunity to do anesthesia and surgery at the same shelter. The surgeries will be primarily spay and neuter procedures, but could include other things depending on what comes in the door. I look forward to it!

I have just returned from my missions trip with Christian Veterinary Mission to San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico. Below will be an assortment of experiences and stories from the past week.

The Border

The Mexican border cross from San Luis, AZ to SLRC, Mexico is an interesting place. There are many people who live in Mexico, but cross the border on a daily basis for work and school. By car, crossing back into Mexico can take up to 8 hours (depending on the time and day). When our host Rene told us that we would be walking across the border, I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. It is generally faster to cross the border on foot, so that was the plan. We unloaded the large van a couple blocks from the border, and then the vehicle was parked before we headed across. We were a bit concerned because one of our bags contained donated medical supplies. If the border patrol finds out that you are medical professionals, they want to make some money off of the imported supplies. This is not like in Canada where there are general import fees that go to the government, these import fees are more like bribes. Sometimes they can be as much as 50% of the value, just because the border guard would like to make a bit of extra cash. We were told to keep walking and not make eye-contact. Obviously if they ask you questions, you answer, but to just keep walking. So we did. The border guard was looking down at her cell phone as we walked past. Neil, our trip leader was at the end of the line and got stopped and searched. Thankfully, the border guard was not corrupt and allowed him to cross without issue, even though she found out he was a veterinarian. Another missionary on the mexican side picked us up in the small bus we rode in for the following week.

We also walked back across to US, which was very different. We waited in line outside for about an hour and a half along with many people who were crossing into the US to cash their paycheques (for the people who work in the US and live in Mexico). Along the border wall, there were a bunch of people living in tarps – waiting to be able to cross permanently into the US.

On the topic of the “US/Mexico border crisis” – it is crazy. There are people from Mexico who have applied to immigrate to the US, and it can take months to years to be processed. On the other hand, if you cross illegally at the US border and “peacefully surrender”, you get processed way faster – and are given accomodation, a living allowance, food stamps, education for your children, etc. Meanwhile, the people waiting legally to gain acceptance into the US have to wait even longer because of how backed up the immigration services are with illegal immigrants. Even one of our hosts were brought over illegally as a child from Mexico into the US to be processed faster, so it’s a tricky subject. 

In Mexico, once a student is high-school aged, tuition has to be paid by the parents (even though it is mandatory to go to high school). Since this is often unattainable for people, students either drop out or parents send their kids to school in the US, using a relative’s address. This results in both cheaper and better education for their kids. In order to get to school on time however, kids often leave their house at 3am in order to get across the border on time for school at 7am. I can’t even imagine how tiring that would be. Workers who cross into the US daily for work have a similar situation.

The Clinic

This same trip has been going on for years on an annual basis – but was pursued by Auburn University students until the past couple years. We were the first team there since they stopped going, and the first ever Canadian CVM team. The clinic was often held in a feeding center in the inner city of SLRC. Three weeks prior to our arrival, our host Rene confirmed with the feeding center our plans. He was to return the day of to get the key. The day we were going to be setting up, the organization said that it would no longer be possible to host us. This was a bit concerning. Thankfully, Rene decided that we would host the clinic on the outskirts in the bulding used to store supplies for the various free clinics held by I Care Inc. It worked out amazingly. We didn’t have to truck supplies over to another location, the layout worked so well, and there were many things we found use for throughout the week that we wouldn’t have had access to at the original location. Yahir, a young law student helping us made a beautiful sign to direct people to the proper location – for those who had signed up in advance with the city.

The Children’s Feeding Center

Cristina is this wonderful woman who runs a children’s feeding center on the outskirts of SRLC, near the dump. She feeds children (and leftovers for their parents) twice per week after a church service with her husband. She has anywhere from 30-80 kids show up to a meal. Once a week she also brings food to the people working at the dump. Cristina has a unique story. She used to be an illegal drug runner and then spent years in prison as a result. While in jail, she commited her life to God, and made a promise that if she ever got out, she would spend her life serving him. Well she did get out, and now she and her husband use most of their resources to fund the church services and serving people meals who desperately need it. They run a mechanic shop to source their income. We had the opportunity to help serve the meals on two occasions, and even help with a delivery of meals to the people at the dump.

What struck me most was how joyful the people were being served. We were essentially in the most poverty-stricken place of the city, yet the kids had smiles on their faces and were just happy to be. Even their families, although they were living in difficult conditions, still spoke about the gratitude they had for how the Lord blessed them in their daily lives.

The Dump

The people working at the dump were not hired. The landfill is open and people go there  in search of resources to sell back to the recycling plant. This can mean bottles, metals, etc. Sometimes, in order to find the metals, they will burn piles of garbage to find the metals that remain behind. This makes for an incredibly smokey environement that is difficult to breath in. Within minutes of arriving there with Cristina, all of the 100+ burritos were gone.

There were also many dogs at the dump. Unfortunately, they weren’t a part of our spay/neuter clinic this time, as we went to the dump after we had finished all of our surgeries. The dump dogs were incredibly friendly, happy to receive scratches (yes, you aren’t supposed to pet the dogs, but we had been touching dogs there all week – I had already been exposed to ringworm) and one of the dogs in particular (a pitbull dog who had what appeared to be a terrible allergic skin condition) wanted to play. The dogs were mostly huddled around this water tank – where some of the people set up some large basins (old camping coolers) and filled them up for the dogs to drink from.

The Surgeries

Prior to starting the clinic, I was pretty uneasy about the anesthetic. In school we are taught to be very worried about anesthesia, as it does come with risk. In Canada, the standard of care is for dogs to receive a sedative, then an injectible anesthetic while a tube is pushed down their windpipe. The tube delivers oxygen and inhalant anesthetic gas for the duration of the surgery. The animals are also given intravenous fluids through a catheter to keep them hydrated and help them maintain good blood pressure. During the surgery, a dedicated anesthetist (usually a veterinary nurse) monitors a variety of parameters to ensure the patient is doing well while the surgeon does their thing, with a full sterile gown, gloves, instruments, etc.

At our clinic, a patient was injected with what would be considered a horse tranquilizer (telozol and xylazine) in the muscle, which lasted most of the surgery (depending on whether it was a cat or dog, and how long the surgery took). Someone would listen to their heart beat and check the eye position and jaw tone once in a while – but was often divided between multiple patients and surgeries. If the animal moved while the surgery was commencing, the local bylaw nurse was called for and the same drug was given again. No tube for oxygen, no monitoring equipment other than stethoscopes, and no sterile gowns (still sterile gloves and instruments of course). No IV fluids were given (except in one case where I placed an emergency catheter and delivered fluids while surgery was happening because there was a lot of bleeding). If you were to check the gums, which should be pink in a normal patient, the gums were pale to white. This is because any anesthetic decreases how much oxygen is getting around the body, and without supplementing oxygen, this problem is quite evident. You would think that considering this, we would have at least a few animals die during surgery or recovery. By some miracle, every single patient made it through. 109 sterilization surgeries were performed in 4 days. We were there most of the days from 9am-4pm.

Prior to this trip, I had done a small handful of spays/neuters over the past year. While in Mexico, I performed 14 surgeries (1 cat neuter, 1 dog neuter, and the rest were spays). For clarification, a spay generally refers to a female sterilization surgery, where the ovaries and uterus are removed. It takes longer than a neuter and is more invasive (meaning that you have to open the abdomen). A neuter can refer to either a male or female sterilization, but generally we use it to describe a male sterilization surgery, where the testicles are surgically removed (also known as a castration). Every student who went on the trip did surgeries (by themselves), which is pretty cool. We had one student who just finished first year, three students who had just finished second year, and three of us who just finished third year. We had a boarded specialist surgeon and a general practitioner go with us. We also worked with the bylaw veterinarian and her nurse.

Whenever we had an issue in surgery, we called for the boarded surgeon veterinarian to  come and help us out (he was often re-sterilizing our surgical instruments with our host Rene). Many of the dogs bled a lot. The bylaw vet told us that ehrlichia was pretty common there, which likely was the cause of the reduced clotting (especially of the skin). Ehrlichia is an infectious organism that infects the blood – and causes the amount of platelets to be reduced. Platelets are responsible for clotting the blood when a cut happens, which stops the bleeding. So if a dog or cat is infected, it will take longer to clot. Ehrlichia is very rare in Canada, and when it is seen, it is usually in a dog who was adopted from Mexico.

The Problem

It seemed from driving through SLRC that most houses had dogs. For many of them, it appeared that they had at least 3-4 in their yards. It makes sense to have them for security especially, as many of the houses are very small and not the most secure. The problem lies in that many of the dogs are not spayed/neutered, resulting in a lot of unwanted puppies. There isn’t much of an “adoption culture” there like there is here in Canada. The poverty combined with the overpopulation of dogs makes it difficult to find someone who wants more animals. The puppies that are born are commonly put into a sealed garbage bag and disposed of. This sounds horrible, but if you were in a situation in which your dog had a litter of puppies at least every year, and nobody could take them, and you could barely 

afford to feed your one dog, the last thing you can consider is to accumulate 10 more dogs annually (who will also create even more puppies, so that is a steep underestimate). This is where sterilization surgery comes in. Nobody wants the emotional damage that comes with having to dispose of living puppies. In addition, by sterilizing just one female dog, this prevents the birth of up to 67,000 puppies in only six years (you have to consider how many puppies will be a result of her offspring, and their offspring, and so on). Sterilizing just one female cat can prevent up to 370,000 kittens in the same amount of time (female cats can have more litters in a year than dogs).

All of the animals that we did surgery on were owned. The city vet already does surgeries on a daily basis, and can do as many as 10 per day. People who cannot afford to get their animals spayed/neutered were given the opportunity through the bylaw program. We were able to work alongside her and get far more done than she could have alone in the same amount of time (and we provided the resources for the surgeries down while we were there, such as suture, which costs more than you would think). The people were so grateful to be able to provide veterinary care for their animals. It was so evident how much they cared for them, and wanted what was best. Even with the risk of anesthesia and having a student perform surgery – people were so grateful.

My Reflections

Part of why I have taken a while to publish this is because I have still been processing the entire thing. It is one thing to write an objective account of what happened, but another entirely to consider it all.

The biggest thing I felt while there was inner peace. I could have been so worried about a patient dying on the table, but I wasn’t. I could be so worried about walking across the border, but I wasn’t. I could have spent the week worrying about if I had passed my exams that I had just wrote, but I wasn’t. For me, this was a big deal because I am always worried about these kinds of things. Yet it was so evident to me that we went there with a purpose, and that things were going to work out because we were supposed to be there.

Christian Veterinary Mission is an incredible organization that wants to share God’s love through service. It is really important to them to be focused on how we can serve people, and do it well. We were talking to a missionary who lives in SLRC, who was telling us that sometimes groups come down to “help”, start building a house for someone, run out of time and then leave, with the project incomplete. Then people are left with this half-finished house, that in addition to being unfinished, was built by people without much, if any training. This missionary (who is a contractor by trade) goes and basically fixes the damage that has been done, and finishes building things along with some local volunteers. It is clear that the best way to help in an international setting, is to work alongside those who are already doing things, rather than invade, “help”, leave and really just make things worse.

As I reflect on this week, I have had a perspective shift in terms of what life really is about. What I thought was most important such as success and comfort is no longer, and has been replaced with having tasted true joy and satisfaction through the service of others. We worked hard, slouching over tables that could not be adjusted, not taking any breaks throughout the day, and yet the fullness I felt was so immense that I had no desire to complain about a single thing. My soul has been satisfied.

I certainly see myself going back again, and again. I know that I am in veterinary medicine because I am supposed to be. I am excited for what the future holds, and am so grateful for this opportunity. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen – my teammates and leaders, our hosts and local workers, and everyone who donated. You have all contributed immensely to helping the people and their animals.

A couple verses from the Bible that relate to this trip:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

“With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”  – Psalm 91:16

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Phillipians 4:7

This month flew by. This is likely because of how busy it was. At the very end of February we had our “Feline Frenzy” day – where we neutered (castrated) over 30 cats! A feline neuter surgery is a fairly quick procedure – I tried two different techniques which took under 10 minutes. On surgery days, we have to write medical records to accompany our animal – anesthetic records, surgery reports, examination reports and instructions to go home with the pet. All of our companion animal surgeries are performed on pets that get referred to us. We spay or neuter their pets for free – with the caveat that a student will be performing the surgery. It’s a great opportunity for us to help the community while learning. In addition to cat neuters, this month we also castrated horses and spayed female dogs for members of the community.

At the beginning of the month, we had our annual ‘Vet Ball’ – essentially a fancy dinner and dance with a video competition. Our theme this year was “Mas-Cow-Rade” – as in cow themed but also a masquerade. Our table decor consisted of masks in vases and silver cows. We had an awesome DJ play music, some door prizes to raise money for a local charity, and a fun photo-booth. It is a highlight for both students and staff each year.

An exciting announcement: I wrote my last-ever midterm examination this past week! I will still have 8 final examinations to do at the end of April – and two exams this upcoming final year, but no more midterms! Midterms in my opinion are worse than final examinations because you are in class trying to learn all day, then study all evening. With final examinations, you study and write tests; no more lectures to attend.

As excited as I am to be finished with the classroom learning, I am also going to deeply miss the friends I have spent nearly every day with. We all know the struggles we have gone through, and understand them. I am incredibly grateful to have the friends I do. Luckily, I will be spedning time with each of my closest friends on at least one rotation durign my final year. Who knows where we will all end up after school is finally over?

On Monday Dana will be getting her teeth cleaned. While her teeth are exceptional for a 9-year-old dog, some of her big chewing teeth are chipped. Since it is not possible to tell if the root was affected by this damage, it is really important to get x-rays done to see if the pulp is alive. If the pulp cavity looks too wide (meaning it’s dead), then the tooth has to be removed. I am hoping this won’t be the case. Extractions can take a long time to do – and as with any veterinary dental work, needs to be done under general anesthesia. I will be going to watch the procedure as a student shadowing – to learn but also be involved in her care. If you are wondering how her teeth chipped in the first place, the answer is antlers. We naively thought that antlers would be a good chew for her back before I ever entered veterinary medicine. Antlers are far too hard and caused big slabs of her teeth to chip off. There didn’t appear to be any root exposed from looking on the outside, so we didn’t do anything at the time, other than throw out the antlers. Now that I have a greater understanding about veterinary dentistry, I want to make sure that she isn’t painful in her mouth from the damaged teeth. Pets do a great job of hiding pain, so we have to be careful not to assume they are okay just because they are still eating.

Thank you for joining me on this journey! I am excited to share more about what is to come – Mexico, rotations and how Dana’s dental goes! ♥

Last week was my “Reading Week” or spring break. I was in Las Vegas attending the Western Veterinary Conference for the first 6 days. This is an event in which veterinarians and technicians attend to get their continuing education credits. After graduation, medical staff are required to continuously keep learning in order to keep up to date with the latest medicine. In Alberta, veterinarians are required to obtain 20 hours of CE each year. For students, there are often interesting topics that aren’t covered in depth during our curriculum. At this 4-day long conference I attended the following lectures:

• Mini Pig Basics I
• Mini Pig Basics II
• Mini Pig Anesthesia, Pain Management and Euthanasia
• Coping with Opioid Shortages in the Shelter Environment
• Acute Azotemia
• Top 10 Behavior Questions You Hate to Hear
• Canine Aggression Towards unfamiliar people on Walks and At the Door
• Turtle Medicine and Surgery
• How to Intubate Almost Any Exotic Companion Mammal
• Sugar Glider Medicine & Disease Management
• Common Avian Emergencies
• Radiology of non-mammalian Exotic Animals
• Small Mammal Radiology
• Emergency Stabilization of Reptile & Amphibian Patients

It was so enjoyable learning without the added pressure of writing down every word for exam purposes. I feel as though I will be far more comfortable treating exotic patients (including mini pigs) when I become a veterinarian, and even in the upcoming clinical year of my education.

A highlight of the lectures was learning how to intubate small mammals – this is where you place a breathing tube down the windpipe to deliver oxygen and anesthetic gas in order to perform a surgery or dental cleaning. To do this in a mouse, for example, the vet speaking uses a tiny endoscopic camera in order to see exactly where the tube is going – to make sure it doesn’t go down to the stomach by mistake!

In addition to the lecture side of things, I was awarded the Jack Walther Leadership Award – this came with some serious perks including our hotel stay, as well as some breakfasts and a tour of their clinical skills center. I also get a registration that I can use within 5 years of graduation, so I will likely be back again at some point.

During our time in Las Vegas, it snowed TWICE! The second time was the night before we left – it started as rain while we were walking down the strip, then snowed through the night. This caused cancellations of dozens of flights, even though it melted as it hit the ground for the most part. That same day, we went to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. We were mostly sustained on Starbucks and McDonalds, which I can’t complain too much – they have some tasty food, and coffee of course. On Sunday night we went to a talk by Mayim Bialik (Amy from the Big Bang Theory) who has a PhD in neuroscience. She had lots of inspiring things to say about encouraging women in STEM, especially regarding family life in higher education. Tuesday night we went to a Keith Urban concert – limited to about 1500 guests, which was super cool!

This past weekend, I attended Real Life, Real Impact conference in Sundre, Alberta. This is more of a retreat hosted by Christian Veterinary Mission. I have been attending since my first year – although I went to Seattle, Washington the first time as it was not offered in Alberta. This was the first time that Parker went with me. I had the privilege of seeing him on the back of a horse for the first time!

With regards to my trip to Mexico, I am pleased to announce that my personal trip costs (travel and accommodation) are fully funded! Thank you so much to everyone who donated. We are still in need of supplies for the surgeries: suture, surgical instruments, surgical gloves and surgical drapes. Any additional funding in my account will be going towards purchasing some of these items. If you know of anyone who might have these items to donate, please have them contact me as there are forms for donating items for tax receipts as well. You can donate online by clicking here. Thank you again!

 

I have reached the end of a long, grueling 6 weeks. From the start of school at the beginning of January, we have had nothing but non-stop tasks and exams. It is difficult to fully realize what we just emerged from, but alas, we have emerged.

This past week, as mentioned previously, we had our draft. Monday and Wednesday night we stayed at the school until around 8-9pm, which was surprisingly fast. On Monday we picked our required rotations, and on Wednesday our other electives. For my month-long “general veterinary practice” rotations (GVP’s), I will be going to Peace River, Erskine, Cochrane and Calgary. Then for my electives I will be primarily in Calgary, as well as a couple weeks in Rimbey, Wetaskiwin and another in Peace River. Peace River is an 8 hour drive north from Calgary, which is a long drive. Luckily, our school gives us a small travel allowance based on where we go – the further from Calgary, the more they give you for expenses. My externship in North Carolina gets no travel allowance, since I pursued it independently.

When I returned home on Wednesday evening, I showed my parents my new schedule for my final year. My dad exclaimed jokingly, “That looks like an Alberta road trip from hell”. In all fairness, our school does push us to all go to some small town clinics in rural Alberta. That is the point – they want to graduate rural mixed practitioners to meet Alberta’s growing demand. I can’t really object, as I do aspire to be a well-rounded practitioner upon graduation.

After my required rotations were picked, I selected my equine (horse) rotations. I will be doing 10 additional weeks of equine medicine, including a first-nations focused clinic, internal medicine, dentistry, lameness and therio (reproduction). My open electives include a shelter rotation, an exotics rotation, my spay/neuter externship in North Carolina and two additional rural mixed rotations. No, I am not a “hardcore horse” person, however I do love horses and am certain I will enjoy the experience. Not having a small animal program at our school has pushed me out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing. Plus, horses are basically giant dogs with hooves.

Aside from the draft nights, we had our equine midterm Monday, I went to CUPS on Monday afternoon, our health management (pig) exam Tuesday, and the CPR competition on Tuesday night. After the CPR competition, I plugged my block heater in the -37°C air, then stayed in the building to write my assignment regarding my CUPS experience. CUPS is a program in Calgary that is aiming to empower people and end homelessness. Our school sets up clinics for us – 6 students each time. It was a great experience to have a real appointment of my own and be able to send home appropriate treatment without a financial burden for the owner; not to mention the amazing stories these people have to share.

The CPR competition is an annual event held by one of the clubs. Often there is a funny scenario in which you have to find out what happened to the dog, then perform CPR. Each team of six people create a punny name and according costumes. Our team did not revive our dog in the 6 minutes, but we did win first place for best name “Where there’s a will, there’s a T-wave”. A T-wave is the last bump in an ECG – if you don’t have one, the dog is not alive. We dressed up in beachwear.

Friday was our 3rd year research project. As a class we studied some genetics in crossbred beef cattle to see how it affected their health. The paper will be published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal at some point, so I will leave it there. That evening I went to Dr. Connery’s house for dinner with my team who will be heading off to Mexico in a few short months. We videoconferenced the other two veterinarians and technician who will be also going, and who have had experience in the area. It was so exciting to hear what we will doing – primarily spay/neuter clinics in partnership with the city. Targets will be animals who would not otherwise get veterinary care – as we would not want to be taking away from local veterinarians. In the past the city has been so grateful as these clinics have saved them so much money in human medical care and general city services. We are in need of some surgical materials – so for any veterinary people reading this, any leads you have on surgical suture that is unexpired, as well as unexpired surgical gloves, please let me know! We plan to do approximately 75 surgeries in four days as a team, so having adequate materials would be ideal. Thank you to everyone who has contributed. Any additional funds past our basic costs will be used for purchasing surgical materials.

Tonight will mark a celebration of completing a very busy season – I will be at a friend, Stacey’s house to watch Monty Python movies and not allow my mind to think too hard. What a relief. Next up – CFIA certification course all week (along with a couple nights of work at the emergency clinic), and then I leave to Vegas for the Western Veterinary Conference on Saturday! I look forward to writing more while I am there. Thank you for reading!

If you would like to contribute to our Mexico trip as a team, you can give to the group here. Be sure to select “Canadian funds” first and then select “University of Calgary Students” from the drop down on “Where would you like your gift to go?”. If you would like to help fund me individually for this trip, go to this link. All donations greater than $25 are tax-deductible. Thank you!

Hello everyone. I hope to make this a site where you can join me on my adventure. Although I haven’t been writing for you the past couple years, I have had nor the time nor the interesting stories to share throughout school. While I have loved the last few years – updates on what part was dissected in anatomy or what I did an autopsy on may not have been what you wanted to read. However, this upcoming year will be a huge adventure for me – not for the least of which because I will be travelling quite a bit for my final year!

Most veterinary schools have an 8-month final year program, which is mostly conducted in a “teaching hospital” – a large building attached to or part of the school. Each rotation is usually in a separate part of the building. Our school was the first of its kind in North America to try something different – a 12-month final year program, with rotations taking place at a variety of well-established veterinary clinics throughout Alberta and beyond. Both types of programs allow for ‘externships’ – these are rotations arranged independently by the student that go through an approval process so that they are counted for credit in lue of a school organized rotation. The reason for the 12-month program is due to the seasonal nature of veterinary work – equine clinics are busiest in the spring, there is pregnancy checking cows in the summer, calving in the early spring and small animal year round. This gives us a real taste for what a rural mixed veterinarian does – overnight emergencies and all.

My rotations will range from 2 weeks to 4 weeks in duration. Now, I can’t quite tell you yet where I will be – that gets decided this week! Our class gets to stay for multiple extra hours after school on two nights – using a draft-style selection process to ensure that everyone has a ‘fair’ chance at the popular selections. We also have two large exams on the same days.

The end of this semester will be on April 26th. Then my final year will begin a mere 10 days later – on May 6th. It will run until May 1st, 2020, in which case I will have a single month off before officially graduating. During my short in-between break before my rotations, I will be going to Mexico to do some veterinary work with an organization called Christian Veterinary Mission in partnership with the by-law veterinarian of the city I will be travelling to. If you would like to help support me, you can donate by clicking here.

If you don’t want to receive my email updates, just unsubscribe below. Hopefully that isn’t the case, so I will do my best to keep these posts interesting! Thank you so much for joining me. I look forward to writing more!