Vet students.

[kenny thomas]

Yesterday a professor and 5 vet students came to my farm to preg check cows, semen test bulls, and castrate a few calves. The professor is also my vet.
These were 4th year students and stated they had already passed their tests to become a vet. I guess what they are doing now would be clinicals.
1 student from Clarksville TN seemed to have done it all. She said she and her husband had cattle and he backgrounded some calves. Very satisfied that she will be a good large animal vet.
The other 4 were nice people but had never seen a semen test preformed, never preg checked a cow, never castrated a calf, never took and diagnosed fecal tests. These students have passed their tests to become vets.
Maybe i expected to much of them but it surprised me.
For the vets on here, is that how it is nowdays?

 

[simme]

Do you know if those 4 plan to do any large animal work? Most vet students today will never see a large animal other than a little exposure in vet school.

 

[kenny thomas]

Do you know if those 4 plan to do any large animal work? Most vet students today will never see a large animal other than a little exposure in vet school.

I only ask the one lady that seemed to be good. She said she had a job at a clinic but planned to open a dual clinic. Both large and small.
Other 4 were from various cities including San Diago CA so i doubt she will be doing any large animals

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Money to be made saving the family dog or cat, no money to be made with cows

 

[Lucky_P]

Kenny,
I'm presuming these students were from LMU or UT-K?

For the last 30+ years, 80% of applicants to veterinary schools, across the country, have been from urban/suburban settings, with full intent to return to a similar urban/suburban environment and practice 'companion animal' medicine. Even the 20% of applicants from rural backgrounds will not all return to rural sites or practice food/large-animal medicine. Many of them will have student loan debt (current avg is $154K - but realize that 18% graduate with no debt, so the 'average' would be skewed much higher if you discounted that group) that will not allow them to take the low-paying jobs available in most rural area, and many will have quality-of-life desires that won't be met in an isolated rural community. ( I don't know, who - other than a farmer/rancher - wouldn't want to work 60-80 hr/wk for low pay?).
I'm not denigrating female veterinarians - I grew up surrounded by them, my wife is one, many of my closest friends are female DVMs - Simme's daughter is one - but they often do not stick with veterinary medicine full-time forever. Face it, child-bearing and the bulk of child-rearing often fall on the ladies, and many find that they can't juggle/balance veterinary practice - especially rural, large animal practice - and the demands of raising a family.
My class, graduating veterinary college in 1985, was 65% male/35% female; but for the last 30 years - nationwide - most veterinary classes have been 80+% female. Veterinary medicine has largely become a 'second-income' profession. Most college-age men no longer view it as an economically-viable career path - delaying one's entry into the workforce for an additional 4 years, often at lower pay scale than many kids graduating with a BS pull in. When I see class photos of current classes at my alma mater, you have to look hard to find the guys.

 

[Lucky_P]

As best I recall (it has been 40 years!) we took our National Board licensing exam and Clinical Competency exams in December, prior to our graduation in June, while we were still undergoing our clinical training in the teaching hospital and before we were sent out on a 10 wk 'preceptorship' to work in a private veterinary practice before graduation.
I never remember more than one or two students in a class of 100-120 not passing the exam on their first go-around, but evidently low pass rates have become a bigger issue recently.
Passing the North American Veterinary Licensing Exam does not guarantee clinical competency... only that you learned and retained enough basic and clinical information to pass the exam. For many of us, it still takes months to years of 'practice' to become fully competent at our craft.

'Distributive model' vet schools, like LMU, which are being built all over these days, do not have a veterinary teaching hospital with experienced, board-certified clinical faculty... they 'farm out' the students to private and specialty practices around the area - or country... LMU sends students to off-campus clinical sites in 35 states, for twelve 4-wk rotations. Student may get great mentoring and see lots of good cases at some site, but get poor support and only get to 'observe' at others. I worry that they don't get the broad exposure that students attending a 'traditional' veterinary school with a full-service teaching hospital with accomplished and world-class clinical faculty can provide.

 

[kenny thomas]

Yes Lucky_P, the students were from LMU. The vet/teacher is great and was raised on a farm. She came back to LMU from private practice because she loves teaching large animal. I trust her 100% to do my vet work also.
I ask if there were any local students and they said 1 lady was local out of the full class.
I totally understand that they may not do large animals forever but somehow i expected them to learn how to castrate a calf or preg check by their 4th year. Heck, even i can do that. They seemed to be great kids and tried hard and i appreciated them coming. But other than doing BSE on the bulls i could have done it all.
The company that builds the Imobolizer should give me something. The teacher had never seen one but was going to request the college order one today.

 

[SBMF 2015]

I have Black Hawk college Beef Science class coming next Thursday. They are going to lean to pelvic measuring, freeze branding and we'll let them Preg check some cows that I know are 8 months pregnant. The look on their faces the first time they touch a calf is pretty awesome!

Good job @kenny thomas for letting those students come out and learn something. There's not a lot of producers who are willing to host college students. Especially for what these cattle are worth now.

 

[kenny thomas]

I have Black Hawk college Beef Science class coming next Thursday. They are going to lean to pelvic measuring, freeze branding and we'll let them Preg check some cows that I know are 8 months pregnant. The look on their faces the first time they touch a calf is pretty awesome!

Good job @kenny thomas for letting those students come out and learn something. There's not a lot of producers who are willing to host college students. Especially for what these cattle are worth now.

I actually took out several cows that i knew were within 2 weeks of calving. One i missed until she came out of the chute. She calved last night but the calf is fine. Maybe 3 ot 4 days early according to the cows bag. She should fill up good by tomorrow.
Yes, they got excited when they could feel one. I had some at 8 months and then some fall calvers at 2 to 4 months so they got to feel some diffference. Plus 1 cow was open. She earns a trip to town this Saturday .

 

[sstterry]

The company that builds the Imobolizer should give me something. The teacher had never seen one but was going to request the college order one today.

I am amazed that the Vet has never seen one. Are you still using your original plug in or have you gotten one of the rechargeable battery ones now?

 

[kenny thomas]

I am amazed that the Vet has never seen one. Are you still using your original plug in or have you gotten one of the rechargeable battery ones now?

The origional one was plug in but rechargeable but i bought a second one thats battery powered.

 

[kenny thomas]

I have Black Hawk college Beef Science class coming next Thursday. They are going to lean to pelvic measuring, freeze branding and we'll let them Preg check some cows that I know are 8 months pregnant. The look on their faces the first time they touch a calf is pretty awesome!

Good job @kenny thomas for letting those students come out and learn something. There's not a lot of producers who are willing to host college students. Especially for what these cattle are worth now.

If you remember a student from here that was in a class that came to you 3 or 4 years ago, he is now a slaughter buyer for Cargill in Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

 

[SBMF 2015]

If you remember a student from here that was in a class that came to you 3 or 4 years ago, he is now a slaughter buyer for Cargill in Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

I remember us talking about him.
Sounds like he has done well. That's Awesome!

We are only hosting 3 labs this year and I lecture one class period. Between Animal Science and Beef Science there are 125 students in rolled. I unfortunately tend to remember faces but not names.

 

[Little Joe]

Seems large animal vets are getting few and far between. We have a few in my area, one is down the road from me but doesn't answer his phone or text messages in a timely manner. I text him last year about doing a BSE for me and by the time he got back to me I'd hauled him elsewhere. One is a large clinic and have people on call, they deal a lot with show horses, unless you're sure it's something they can save it's too costly to get them out so you might be better off shooting it. There's a local guy that does a lot of daywork and works at 2 sale barns, I'd prefer getting him to do my work but with having to have a script that becomes a problem as well, he probably knows as much about treating cattle as most of the vets in the area and doesn't charge much.

 

[sstterry]

The origional one was plug in but rechargeable but i bought a second one thats battery powered.

I know it has been a few years since we talked about this, but if I am not mistaken (and I very well could be), Butch told me that the original prototype was plug in with a transformer/control box. I will try to remember to ask him the next time I am over there.

 

[kenny thomas]

Mine plugs in but has a small batery inside that charges. Last summer the battery went bad and had to be replaced. $28 for the tiny battery.

 

[kenny thomas]

Show him the price now. That's with the probe only. Mine has clips and probe.

 

[TCRanch]

When we moved here, the Vet Hospital had been a family run operation for almost 50 years. All men. Over the past 16 years, the new vets they hired were initially men - that subsequently took better paying jobs (one as a State Vet, one as a drug rep for Zoetis). They hired their first female vet probably 4 years ago, the owner was wanting to semi retire, and she bought the practice. Her husband helps but he's not a vet. And she had her first baby little over a year ago (that she will sometimes bring on farm calls). Last year she hired 2 more vets, both women, as are all the techs. These women are extremely competent, compassionate and I've been very pleased.

 

[Warren Allison]

When I was at UGA in the late 70's, most all of the vet school students were large animal students, and only a handful that wanted to be equine vets. The university had dairy herds and beef herds, and these students got all of the 1st hand experience with cattle they could stand. Probably 80% of the students were male back then. I was at my fraternity home coming a few weeks ago, and I was shocked to learn there were only 4 concentrating on large animal. One was one of the 4 men enrolled. He and the other 3, who are girls, are going to do equine, though. I think all of the vet students still work the university's cow herds a little. I only know of one vet anywhere around here that is still a "cow doc". He is the sale barn vet at the Calhoun Stockyard and the UGA bull test station there by his office, He is at least my age, though (68), and surely will retire soon. Used o be 4 very good equine vet here, but only one still practices ( the others are now small animal only) and he is 77! I noticed a few years ago, he started seeing cats and dogs etc, at his clinic 2 days a week. His wife told me it lowered their malpractice insurance rates, is why he does it.

Can't blame the vets, really. They all charge about $350 to spay or neuter pets and $200 to "express the glands" of your dog. That is a lot easier work, and pays more money, than coming out in the middle of the night to pull a calf or do a C-section, I guess.

 

[Ky hills]

We have a local vet office with several vets, both men and women. They still do large animals but prefer you bring them in. They will do farm calls and herd work but the it's fairly expensive.
They have always done small animals and that's a preference of most of them probably.
We get medicine from there sometimes and occasionally take something to be checked.
We mainly use a vet from an adjoining county. He does most of our herd work calls, we generally don't call him for random farm calls because of the distance and time but he charges less.
We do call for advice from time to time and go get most medicines from him. His office also does our dog doctoring too.
He brought an intern a few years back when working cows and palpitating. I don't think the kid was very interested in learning about cows, he was planning on small animals.
We are fortunate as our vet has cattle and seems to prefer cattle to other things, but it has taken a toll on his body.
That's another factor is the physical toll and potential for injury of working with large animals.
That said the vet that we used when I was young used to say after we worked the cows, that we were done with the easy part now for hard part that %#&$ dog. My father had a Norwegian Elkhound at the time that had been ran over twice and was very aggressive even towards me.