Agreed. But I don't think it makes sense to take that to the extreme of saying "since we can't practice every conceivable procedure under the sun we should just not practice any of them." I would have much rather practiced some of the more common soft-tissue surgeries that I do on a regular basis in school in a controlled, less frenetic, less stressful environment than having to do them for the first time at 2AM on a client animal with a compromised cardiovascular status or other potential anesthesia problems. My first FB (not that you need to give a teaching animal a FB, but you can certainly do an enterotomy, gastrotomy, and then an RnA, etc.), my first splenectomy, my first .... etc.
Some people seem to take that position ("can't learn all procedures, so why do terminal surgeries at all?"), and it doesn't make sense to me.
In school, I did my first procedures like that in one lab on a recently-euthanized pig. They kept saying "Oh, it's pretty similar."
It's not. And now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done terminal surgeries. Even though it's worked out ok. (Which perhaps is a little ... contradictory?)
How many MDs go straight from their 4 years of training out into practice and do things like emergency splenectomies on a patient that's bleeding out? (It's a genuine question: my impression is essentially zero - at the VERY least they would have done a residency, and probably training beyond that. But maybe I'm wrong.) I did my first GDV something like 8 days after graduation - you have no idea how much I swore that night. I was still trying to figure out what drugs I had in the hospital, much less how to do a GDV (admittedly, it's a straightforward procedure.... but nothing is straightforward your first time). So yes, I think it's important to get better surgical training in vet school.
