Hey! Illinois newly branded 4th year! I'm not interested in practicing equine medicine post-graduation (horse people be crazy), but I have been an active member of our student chapter of AAEP. I also took all but 2 of the equine electives. Also
@SportPonies would be a good source of info cause she is actually considering these psychopaths as viable patients. lol.
Overall, our horse patient load is probably about middle of the pack as far as total cases go. We acquired a new equine facility from an alumni and have started utilizing that clinic to boost our case rates. We've had the clinic somewhere around a year, and 2020 was the first class to utilize it, so they're working out the kinks still I believe. With that being said, 1st and 2nd years are required to do an equine rotation during either 601 or 606, and then all fourth years are required to do 2 weeks (1 block) of equine surgery and 2 weeks of equine medicine. Then we have what are called "directed electives" where people do species specific off campus or on campus rotations. On campus equine DE include equine theriogenology and equine farrier. Off campus, you can go to up to 2 blocks for a single species at an approved facility. I was originally going to do 4 weeks at an equine facility in CO during by B and C blocks, but that was all cancelled by the facility, then by the university, about two weeks ago due to COVID. Originally, I was going to have 8 weeks (4 block) of equine in my 4th year schedule, and there's definitely ways to get up to 14 weeks also using "free electives" (where you do what you want essentially).
We have several people get into equine internships and residencies every year. Many of them aren't through the match, but that seems to be standard in the equine world.
There's a tone of equine electives. A ton. The only reason I didn't get all of them is because our equine lameness was during the same time as another elective I was more interested in, and the other (equine junior surgery) is a lottery elective because it is so popular. I honestly feel like these electives really helped me in our main coursework as I somehow always seem to score higher on our equine sections than almost anything else. lol.
Equine is what we use as our hindgut fermenter model throughout the curriculum. So at least half of groups will dissect a pony during 1st year (the other half of groups dissect some sort of ruminant). Then horses make up probably somewhere between 25-33% of our main lectures through first, second, and third year. We have a once a week in class live animal anatomy for 2/3 didactic quarters in first year, both of which involve horses. People have to go down to ward 3 and work with our teaching horses for anatomy, which is then tested in palpation quizzes.
Our AAEP chapter is stunningly active. Definitely in the top 5 most active clubs on campus, and arguably can make it into the top three depending on how ambitious the executive board is that particular year. I did wet labs on shoeing and their implications, joint injections, etc. I was an active member every year for our Equine Emergency Team, which you can participate year round. The one summer I stayed in Champaign, I was on call for EET from 5 pm Monday to 7 am Tuesday, and 5 pm Friday night to 7 am Monday morning. I was called in something like every 27 hours I was on call that whole summer because the equine interns and residents really needed the help and they ended up just saving my phone number after the second week lol. Many colics, surgeries, lacerations, a few dystocias. I was also active during the school year, particularly for foal watch. The lunch lectures were always on point. They also supply externship money retroactively for summer and 4th year externships. The only requirement of you is to 1) help with Horseman's clinic which is the biggest fundraiser of the year and 2) if you want to get into wet labs, you need to earn points by going to lunch lectures and helping out with random odds and ends the exec board may request. We also send a group of students to the AAEP conference every year with reimbursements or some other monetary support.
There's a ton of equine research opportunities as well. A 4th year bestie did equine research one summer with Dr. Foreman; another girl in 2020 did lameness research over several years with several clinicians; a guy in my class did therio research for several years as well.
Overall, I would say that we are middle of the pack or a bit higher compared to other schools as far as basic equine curriculum goes. However, our outside classroom opportunities more than make up for it compared to schools that may have a higher case load due to their locations. I like the vast majority of our equine clinicians, who I feel like are very understanding that there's a wide range of horse experience per class. One of my electives this last quarter was equine neonatology, which had a whopping 3 people in it. One was a big horse dude who was part of our AAEP exec board and had been around horses since he was a fetus, then me where I had some horse experience when I was younger, and then someone who has 0 horse experience, but just likes babies. The clinicians presented the lectures and cases in ways where we started basic and they helped us apply basic principles that apply to all babies, then worked our way up to foal specific concerns.
We are also expanding our equine surgery suit in the coming years (after our small animal teaching hospital expansion is complete). We currently have two surgery prep and surgery tables. Our expansion is going to add another surgery prep site and table.
I normally say vet school is what you make of it, and our equine life at Illinois is definitely a good example of that. We aren't the best or worst equine wise (and are working on improving it every year), but the students can certainly get help bumping their equine experience if they put for the effort.
Now my soapbox: Illinois is middle of the pack as far as out of state tuition (I'm an OOS student from CO). Ohio is definitely more expensive the first year, but is much less expensive the subsequent 3 years due to being able to change residency in Ohio. With the upcoming economic uncertainty linked to COVID19, I *strongly* urge you to take Ohio over Illinois. Equine veterinarians already 1) have an unspoken rule of needing internships/residencies at a lot of places and 2) have some of the lowest salaries in the profession. You will get equine education at both locations that will most likely be relatively similar due to similar regionality (though take that with a grain of salt, obviously, since I don't go to Ohio). If there's a significant difference in money saved, Ii would absolutely suggest the cheaper school, regardless of how much I love my school.
