Students of the Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) have the opportunity to do international rotations as part of their 4th year curriculum. This course introduces veterinary students to the concepts and practice of veterinary medicine in other countries. Students study foreign animal diseases and animal health management practices; they also learn to appreciate the social and economic differences between Canada and the country that they are visiting. Tanya ten Broeke, student of the AVC, chronicled her veterinary adventure in Guatemala in a journal. Tanya spent 3 weeks doing a rotation with Remote Area Medical (RAM), a nonprofit veterinary group. Some excerpts from her journal are as follows:
January 5–6, 2002
... We spent the first day of our free clinic in the little village of Macanché... We vaccinated well over 100 horses and 100 dogs and gave anti-parasite meds. We did 7 castration surgeries, removed 1 melanoma tumor, and treated about 10 other horses for lacerations and fistulous withers... Saturday, we saw 2 cats and 5 sheep, in addition to about 100 dogs and 100 horses. It's been pretty rewarding.
January 7–10, 2002
We took our free vet clinic on the road and went to different villages each day, and people came from miles away to bring their horse, dogs, cats... and even goats... Remote Area Medical has a local guy in Macanché named Manuel whom they hired full-time. He has had some very basic veterinary training [from RAM]... When RAM is not around, there are a few government vets in Flores, but mostly the work is left to Manuel.
We went to different remote villages on Sunday through Wednesday... We also made some unsolicited housecalls when we saw lame horses as we were driving down the road... We were back in Macanché with another free clinic to finish up with the animals there... As we vaccinated and dewormed horses and dogs, we put a red stripe on their necks with a grease marker. It was quite rewarding to drive through the village and see most of the horses and dogs had big red marks on their necks.
January 11–17, 2002
Three of us went to Antigua to do a spay-neuter clinic... We found out that the high-volume spay-neuter vet from Pennsylvania [who was meeting the group here] ... couldn't come, and that the big box of surgical supplies... wasn't shipped because it was too expensive... We will use equpiment and supplies from Susan's [the woman who heading the excursion] vet friend here in Antigua.
We've had a busy past 3 days, with an average of 20 spays and neuters each day ... It's been a fantastic trip and I learned an incredible amount from equine castrations and treatment of fistulous withers, to massive improvement in my confidence in my spay and neuter skills, and cultural enlightenment... I would recommend this rotation to other students, but they have to be somewhat adventurous and definitely flexible!
For more information on the international rotation, contact Dr. Alfonso López, Atlantic Veterinary College, lopez@upei.ca.
Tanya with one of her patients
Tanya caring for a horse