Hmmm. So, you acknowledge that one of the primary goals of these trips is to provide people a unique experience, i.e. tourism. You say you do 30-50 surgeries a day there--but how many days of the year is that? And what is the homeless animal population? The sad fact is that even 30-50 surgeries a day for six months a year wouldn't make a dent in some of these populations, since population growth is exponential.
In fact, we were told this at school--that many of these groups (not necessarily VIDA specifically) exist mainly for the touristy-type experience and for the volunteers to feel good about themselves--when in fact impact studies are lacking or disprove any benefit, depending on the community. I haven't done the research myself, but just crunching some basic numbers I can agree with this.
Having one veterinarian per pair of "students" for even a single day (20% of the trip duration) doesn't seem very efficient to me. Might the veterinarians be able to spay more animals more quickly than untrained personnel?
With no anatomy knowledge, what happens in the event a pedicle drops? Or a ureter gets ligated? Or when a patient has weird/unique anatomical variation?
I'm not saying third-world animals shouldn't be spayed/neutered, I'm just wondering about the purpose of these trips.
Do you think your experience will cause you de-value your future veterinary education in your own mind? "Oh, spaying, piece of cake, anybody can do it."
I have some classmates who were illegally allowed to perform surgery prior to vet school. Overwhelmingly they say that they didn't know nearly enough to be as scared/respectful of the situation as they should have been. They express gratitude and relief for not killing something when they knew 0.0001% of what they know now.
My roommate last year spayed a few cats before vet school. He thinks junior surgery will be no sweat. Looking forward to seeing how stressful it is for him...
Just stirring the pot...
Nothing personal to anyone.