FINAL DISPATCH

Block 6: Serving with Christian Veterinary Mission in the Navajo Nation. 

This externship was very special to me because it allowed me to return to the Navajo Nation for the second year in a row to provide veterinary care to communities that have little or no access to veterinarians. 

Over two weeks, we visited three towns and provided preventative care to thousands of animals. I had the opportunity to vaccinate and deworm many herds of sheep and goats, spay and neuter dogs and cats, vaccinate and float teeth on horses, and even stitch up a chicken. Some of the highlights of the two weeks were completing my first solo dog spay, wearing traditional clothing to church thanks to our amazing hostess, getting really comfortable with the power float and sedation protocols for horses, and seeing many familiar faces. 

Although our vet work is important and greatly appreciated by the communities we visit, the part that had the biggest impact on me was the relationships that have been built between our group and the Navajo people over the past 24 years. Everywhere we go, people feed us, ride with us so we don’t get lost and spend time volunteering to make our clinic run smoothly. People everywhere have a special bond with their animals, and this shared love and stewardship of our animals can draw us together. 

Christian Veterinary Mission provides a unique opportunity to pair faith and veterinary medicine together. It has reminded me that veterinary medicine is more than just a job, but a calling and a way to serve others. When faith is combined with a passion, it creates a unique purpose that is hard to match anywhere else. 

This externship allowed me to work alongside amazing friends and mentors, and I hope to one day be able to pay it forward by serving communities with limited access to veterinary care and teaching the next generation. 

ROTATION THREE

Block 3: Cardiology! I had been looking forward to this block for a long time, and it was my first rotation spent in the hospital with my classmates. It did not disappoint at all, and I feel much more confident listening to hearts, diagnosing cardiac disease and treating heart failure. 

During my first three years of vet school, I worked as a surgery tech during after-hours emergency surgeries. The coolest procedure I got to see during that time was a heartworm extraction done by the cardiology service. The patient was a young, otherwise healthy dog that was close to death from an overwhelming number of worms in his heart. The patience and precision required to carefully remove almost 60 worms amazed me and gave me a new understanding of the capabilities of veterinary medicine. 

On this rotation, I had the opportunity to see patients in every stage of mitral valve disease, which is the most common heart disease in canine patients. I spoke with owners, watched echocardiograms, wrote take-home instructions and listened to a lot of murmurs. It is amazing to see the improvement that cardiac medications can make in these patients’ quality and length of lives. 

Although mitral valve disease is the most common complaint, we had a large variety of cases throughout the block. There were cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dogs with dilated cardiomyopathy and even a few patients with congenital cardiac defects. Some of these patients were candidates for procedures to fix the congenital defects, and I was able to see a balloon catheterization procedure. It is a tense few seconds as the balloon inflates and completely cuts off circulation in the heart, but the immediate difference in heart pressures is incredible to witness and life-changing for the patients. 

Rounds were an opportunity to sit with a cardiologist and learn the ins and outs of all the major diseases we can expect to see during our careers. How to recognize them and treat them and the resources we have for referrals to hospitals like NC State. Walking through the diseases step by step and understanding the drugs we use was very helpful for putting it all together and “thinking like a clinician.” 

I am so grateful to my fellow students, clinicians, house officers and technicians for making this rotation a wonderful and memorable experience. I’ll be stopping by cardio whenever I’m in the hospital!

ROTATION TWO

My second rotation was an externship with Flat River Veterinary Hospital in Rougemont. Flat River is a large animal practice that sees a variety of species both at the clinic and out on farms. One of the things I got to learn a lot about was equine reproduction. Horses are long-day breeders, which means they can get pregnant only when there are many hours of daylight. That’s why the spring and early summer are some of the busiest times of the year for equine vets! It was really interesting to see ultrasounds in real time and learn about all of the different factors that go into deciding the next step to take for the health of both the mares and the foals.

An interesting group of patients I had at Flat River was a handful of emu! Surprisingly, emu need to be vaccinated for a group of equine diseases called Eastern, Western and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis. These are mosquito-borne diseases that can be fatal to emus and horses. Luckily, the horse vaccine is effective in emus! 

During this rotation, I had the opportunity to do a lot of physical exams, vaccinations, hoof trims, teeth floats and castrations. These are some of the most common procedures I’ll get to do as a veterinarian, and it is great to be able to learn tips and tricks from various veterinarians who have been practicing for years. Dr. Emily Wahl and Dr. Cathy Mittenson were great teachers, and I left my two weeks even more confident and excited to be in this field.

ROTATION ONE

At the May Wildlife Rehab Clinic, I had the opportunity to gain hands-on experience caring for and treating orphaned and injured wildlife from a wide variety of species. 

My absolute favorite patient was a crow that was found on the side of the road and brought in because he was not flying and appeared to have no fear of humans. This was during my first few days, and I hadn’t had a lot of prior experience with birds other than chickens, so I was very nervous about grabbing him out of the box on my own. He didn’t care at all, though, and I was able to hold him and complete a physical exam by myself. His exam was completely normal other than his mentation because he wasn’t trying to escape and his eye, which had blood in the anterior chamber also known as hyphema. 

We hospitalized him and he steadily improved over the next week. The hyphema disappeared slowly, and he began hopping around the exam room and eventually flying away from us. By the end of his stay, I had to use a net to catch him in his outdoor enclosure and carefully wrap him in a towel to avoid getting a finger pecked. It was amazing to see his progression, and it felt like we were growing together, him in his suitability for release and me in my ability to care for nondomestic animals. Toward the end of my second week, he was cleared for release and taken back to where he had been found. 

A difficult but important part of wildlife medicine is euthanasia. It is often the most humane choice for an animal that will never be able to fully recover from an injury and that would be very stressed if kept in captivity. It was an element of my two weeks that I struggled with, even though when the time came I always knew that it was the right choice and would end the pain and fear for my patient.

Being able to see the crow be released back into the wild was an amazing feeling of accomplishment and a welcome success story. Overall, I learned that wildlife medicine can have very high highs and very difficult lows but in the end is incredibly rewarding.

Some more highlights:

We had a large variety of woodpeckers, including downy woodpecker fledgelings, a yellow bellied sapsucker and a pileated woodpecker. They are feisty little birds that love to peck anything in sight and are incredibly endearing. Other birds included an adult redtail hawk, baby Eastern screech owls and a variety of songbirds.

There were also many orphaned opossums that needed to be tube-fed every four hours. It took a lot of dedication and patience to get through all of the feedings and help them make the transition from mom’s milk to formula. Luckily, there was an amazing group of staff who were passionate about the work they were doing and went above and beyond, often taking the babies home to feed through the night.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have had this as my first rotation. I plan to be a mixed-animal veterinarian and am excited to be a resource for people with a large variety of species (think James Herriot from “All Creatures Great and Small”). I now feel empowered to work with a wildlife rehabber or help clients who have found injured wildlife get stabilized and connected with the right resources. 

Thank you to the amazing staff, students, volunteers and veterinarians, Dr. Sam Young and Dr. Miranda Torkelson, who I had the opportunity to learn from at MWRC.