(Terminal) Surgeries

[soxbox]

This was mentioned in another thread, but thought it deserved its own... and its something that is not easily found on school websites... The amount of surgical experience students get and whether or not the school does terminal surgeries?... So I thought if anyone has answers, we could make a list of surgical experience given to students at different schools as well as if they have terminal surgeries

Here is what I know:

Tufts: 3rd year students perform 2 dog spays (on either shelter or privately owned dogs taking part of this free program). There are several minor large animal procedures students perform. Any additional experience depends on what you get during your surgical rotation during 4th year (ie: what cases there are, what clinician you are on with... usually students get to close up). I know a lot of students try to do an elective at various shelters to gain additional spay and neuter experience. There are absolutely NO terminal surgeries at Tufts. There is a small beagle colony that is kept for teaching purposes (ie: radiology positioning labs). These dogs get adopted out after 3-5 years.

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[sonnyman28]

Ohio State - You spend your first year in anatomy and lecture. Second year there will be a lab with live horses but the majority is lecture-based. The third year you spend half the day with live animals. The small animal portion includes surgical experience with recovery surgeries. There are no terminal surgeries that I know of.
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additional info - There are clubs and electives that you can participate in where you work with live animals prior to your third year including theriogenology club (you are paged in and help if a dystocia comes to the hospital), food animal club ( you can help with displaced abomasal surgeries), and lastly there are is an equine elective class second year where you are on call all quarter for colic cases that come in

 

[birdvet2006]

University of Glasgow:
You get surgical experience during your extramural studies (equivalent to externships), of which you must do 26 weeks in your last 3 years. The amount and quality of surgical experience at your placements depends on the people at the practice, how comfortable you are there and vice versa. I did a good number of cat castrations and a few cat spays (flank spays since it's in the UK), but no bitch spays. I helped with multiple cow C-sections (including suturing and incising).

Absolutely NO terminal surgeries. Your clinical rotations: you get a soft tissue surgery rotation (1 week) and get to do 0.5-1 bitch spay +/- castrations (depending what the cat & dog home has in). The remainder of the soft tissue rotation you get to scrub in and assist, but not actually do the surgery (or even any suturing, in my experience). The orthopaedics rotation is similar - just scrubbing in and "surgical exercises" on cadavers or models. There are a large number of spinal surgeries done at the Uni. of Glasgow, of which you will get to observe. Anaesthesia rotation - lots of hands-on experience (you pick the protocol and do the pre-sx exam, induce and maintain...w/direct supervision).

 

[kate_g]

Davis: (Info from the curriculum coordinator I talked to last summer) You have to do spay/neuter in surgery lab, it's a recovery surgery with shelter animals. There is an *elective* large animal surgery course third year that involves at least one terminal surgery (I believe she said it's on animals that are involved in a research study and would have been sacrificed anyway - you just practice some surgery on them before they're euthanized). There may be other hands-on but non-surgical use of animals in various courses, but I don't know how much and I *do* know that there was a big push a few years back to start using models and simulations for things like practicing venipuncture.

Penn: (Info from interview this year) You have to do spay/neuter in surgery lab, it's a recovery surgery with shelter animals. I got the idea that most of the training exercises and things (i.e. before clinicals) are done on models and simulations.

 

[InfiniVet]

Minnesota and A&M does terminal surgeries, in the 3rd year.

I was under the impression that most schools do terminal surgeries *shrugs*. I have nothing against it. Better to learn now, in school, than on a client's animal.

 

[twosoakers]

at the western interview, i was told that wsu performed terminals third-year as well. ten years ago, penn was doing them, too.

i asked my interviewers if we would be the foci of prejudice because western practices "reverence for life" and uses models and available surgeries at banfield vs. terminals. they said, "probably, but it really doesn't matter, since ca is so vet-deficient that students are getting job offers in their third year."

 

[sonnyman28]

This is copy/pasted from another thread: (Didn't know where this belonged.) My girlfriend is a third year at Ohio State right now, and she is currently in the small animal surgical class. The current program is similar to the one you described, students select their group of 3, and throughout the quarter they do four surgeries (neuters and spays). Each person in the group rotates postitions from primary surgeon, assistant surgeon, and anesthesiologist. All of these surgeries are recovery, in fact if an animal does not survive the surgery, the student that is the anesthesiologist must go to an M and M. The dogs are from a local shelter, greyhound rescue, and a local guide dog association. They are in the developement phase of starting virtual reality surgical program that should be running by next year, in addition to the recovery surgeries. Ohio State was actually one of six schools to be commended for their surgical program and the elimination of terminal surgeries. Your fourth year you also spend a month in small animal surgery and two weeks at a local shelter where you are the primary surgeon.

 

[Capella]

Mizzu does terminal surgeries.

 

[OceanAngel]

I found this website which lists what all the schools were doing as of 2004 so it may be a bit different, but this gives a good overview.

http://avar.org/pdf/vtech/chart_av_school.pdf

 

[soxbox]

I found this website which lists what all the schools were doing as of 2004 so it may be a bit different, but this gives a good overview.

http://avar.org/pdf/vtech/chart_av_school.pdf

OceanAngel.... This webpage was perfect! Exactly the type of info I was looking for... I wonder how much things have changed in 3 years, but I am guessing most is about the same... Thanks again for the post!!!

 

[birdvet2006]

I found this website which lists what all the schools were doing as of 2004 so it may be a bit different, but this gives a good overview.

http://avar.org/pdf/vtech/chart_av_school.pdf

Glasgow isn't there. If they are going to list Canadian schools, why not the other overseas schools (AVMA accredited)?