Vet Gazette

As a graduate student in the College of Sciences at OSU, Dr. Connie White (Class of 1997) found the encouragement she needed to finally pursue her long-time dream of becoming a veterinarian. In return, throughout her career as a practicing veterinarian, and more recently as a guest lecturer at the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, she has payed that generosity of spirit forward to veterinary students.

When Dr. White graduated with a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1981, veterinary college seemed like an unattainable goal. “As a Massachusetts resident, there wasn’t a realistic option,” she says. “Tufts was much too expensive.” So she pursued her interest in biology research as a graduate student at the University of Oregon. In 1990, she was accepted to a Ph.D. program in genetics at Oregon State University, and that changed her life.

“I found a home in Carol Rivin’s lab in the genetics program, where I had the freedom to pursue my research ideas while getting great mentorship from her and others,” says Dr. White. “She gave me the confidence to pursue veterinary medicine while finishing my Ph.D.”

Once enrolled in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. White found a similar group of encouraging faculty. “It felt like moving from one branch of a family to another branch of the same family,” she says. “Drs. Michael Huber, Erwin Pearson, Jill Parker, and Cathy Carter were particularly important to me. They modeled the highest professional effort while keeping your sense of humor, especially at 3 a.m.” Her gratitude for the supportive faculty at OSU is one reason she is involved in the college now. “I felt like I was a valued member of the community,” she says, “but with that came the expectation that I would contribute back.”

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Dr. Nicole LeBlanc, Assistant Professor of Cardiology, will be presenting a continuing education seminar for veterinarians on Thursday, November 1, 2018, 7 pm – 8 pm in room 102 of Magruder Hall. A Heart to Heart About Cardiac Biomarkers will cover the use of cardiac biomarkers as a diagnostic tool for veterinarians, and as a screening test for acquired heart disease in asymptomatic patients.

The seminar is sponsored by the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine and the Willamette Valley Veterinary Medical Association. Light appetizers will be served starting at 6 pm. Magruder Hall is located at 700 SW 30th Street, Corvallis.  R.S.V.P. to sara.smith@oregonstate.edu by October 24th.

Eilea Delgadillo, Class of 2021, spent her summer placing catheters, drawing blood, and baking rattlesnake cookies. Wait, what?

While spending the summer shadowing veterinarians at the Cinder Rock Veterinary Clinic in Redmond, Oregon, Delgadillo developed a community engagement project that tackled the growing problem of pet danger in the urban/desert interface. Central Oregon has a rapidly growing population, and a corresponding increase in recreational activities that often put pets into contact with wildlife. Delgadillo researched and produced pamphlets outlining effective methods for avoiding contact with coyotes, porcupines, birds of prey, deer, and rattlesnakes. The pamphlets included information about common locations, active hours, local laws, and what to do when wildlife is encountered. To make the pamphlets more appetizing, she baked dog cookies in the shapes of those animals and attached them to the pamphlets, then distributed them to clients at local veterinary clinics.

The pamphlets were a side project while Delgadillo gained veterinary practice experience at Cinder Rock helping with patient care, scrubbing into surgeries, interpreting radiographs, and learning about practice management. She ended the summer with three big takeaways:

• You can’t save them all.
• Respect your techs.
• Do what you can for those who come behind you.

When a young dog with hemorrhagic gastroenteritis died after many treatment options were tried, the doctor on the case felt bad. “She had only been in practice for four years. I could see that she was feeling guilty,” says Delgadillo. “I heard a senior doctor comfort her, saying a PCV of 80% was not sustainable. I hope when I am in practice, I remember what it was like to look at a situation from the outside, and be kind to myself when I can’t save them all.”

Delgadillo also observed many interactions between doctors and techs. “I could see that doctors who took the time to thank a tech, and acknowledge when they did something well, had techs who were willing to go above and beyond to provide support,” she says. “I could see how this made the day go smoother and I believe that patient care benefited.”

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The anatomy classroom at the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine recently went high tech thanks to the Coit Family Foundation who donated $80,000 for purchase of a Anatomage virtual dissection table.

The table operates like a giant iPad: touch screens and menus bring up different views that can be swiped into new screens and rotated with a fingertip.

Anatomage constructs the tables primarily for human medical education, but they are completely customisable. The table at CCVM arrived loaded with images of a dog and a cat, but goats, horses and other animals can be added by uploading CT images that the Acheson Veterinary Hospital has on file.

“The virtual dissection table is a very innovative tool that can be used in teaching anatomy, pathology and imaging,” says Lois Bates Acheson Dean Sue Tornquist. “It allows students to explore animal anatomy in a way that can be very individualized to their learning processes.” The table can also be rotated into a vertical position for viewing by an entire class.

You can view the table in action on the Carlson College of Veterinary medicine Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OregonStateVetMed/videos/1164139440391085/

Typically, education begins with delivering information to students, who then output that information in the form of exams. Another approach is called Competency-Based Education (CBE) and it starts with the desired outputs then goes backwards to figure out what the inputs should be.

Laura Molgaard, Associate Dean for Academic and Students Affairs at the University of Minnesota College Of Veterinary Medicine, is co-lead of a working group that has developed a framework and tools to help veterinary colleges move toward CBE curriculums. The group is composed of representatives from veterinary colleges from around the world. “It is an entirely volunteer effort that members have done on top of their day jobs,” says Molgaard.

Many veterinary colleges already have elements of CBE in their curriculum. “It’s not completely new,” says Molgaard. “But this is a turbo boost to those efforts. Rather than each school reinventing the wheel, we are saying let’s work together to develop the best wheel that can roll all of us into the future.”

The framework of a CBE curriculum consists of desired outcomes, or competencies, organized into categories. The CBE work group began developing these in 2015.  “We started by saying, ‘By the end of four years, we need these people to be able to do these things’, says Molgaard. “I don’t mean ‘do’ as in technical skills. I mean do what is necessary to be good veterinarians. It’s about clinical reasoning, individual care, communication, collaboration, practice management . . . the whole picture of the veterinarian.”

The work group envisions CBE as the standard for all veterinary colleges around the world. “There is value in having a shared framework,” says Molgaard, “so we can all work together to share tools and compare what is working and what is not working.” Faculty in the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine met with Molgaard last week to learn about applying CBE to the OSU program. “We will be using the principles of CBVE to adapt our curriculum and outcomes assessment moving forward,” says Dean Susan Tornquist.

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According to market research done by the AVMA in 2017, 65% of licensed veterinarians are working in private clinical practice. Another 8% are working for government agencies. Only half a percent work in the uniformed services. OSU alums Kristen Hinatsu and Jake Tidwell are in that small group, and living that famous recruiting slogan: ‘Its not just a job, its an adventure!’

Jake Tidwell, Class of 2015, attended the OSU Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine on a scholarship from the U.S. Army. Following graduation, his first assignment was an internship at Fort Carson, Colorado. One year later he was sent to the island of Guam.

As an Army veterinarian, Tidwell’s primary missions are to care for military working dogs, and to promote public health and safety. “My activities can vary from performing surgery on a working dog in Guam one day, to conducting food production audits of facilities in Southeast Asia the next,” he says. He has also assisted researchers on the island by performing surgery on brown tree snakes as part of a project to control invasive species.

Kristen Hinatsu also graduated in 2015, and married Tidwell soon after. Although not in the army, Hinatsu works for them as a civilian veterinarian. She also provides veterinary services at the Navy base, and at the island’s only animal shelter, where she helped start a spay and neuter clinic.

“It’s interesting practicing veterinary medicine on a tropical island, and diagnosing diseases weekly that would be considered rare back in Oregon,” says Hinatsu. “I see tick-borne diseases almost every day. Heartworm is rampant here, and leptospirosis is very common (including many clients who have contracted the disease themselves). Poisonous toads are always finding their way into the mouths of dogs.”

Due to inbreeding in the stray dog population, Hinatsu also sees a lot of dogs with genetic disorders like cryptorchidism, umbilical hernias, and demodectic mange.

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