We are an AAHA small animal hospital focusing on cats and dogs. The students' experience will include contact with the public through office calls/appointments and the art of communication to clients. They will have the opportunity to communicate to clients reporting (only) normal laboratory results. Outside of the exam room, students will be questioned regarding their ideas on individual medical cases. And they will be exposed to abnormal lab results and given a chance to give their list of differentials. Students will have exposure to and active involvement with a variety of surgeries, digital radiology, dental prophies and oral surgery. And they will be guided through anesthetic protocols and anesthetic monitoring. We want any student's experience to be a combination of hands-on techniques as well as a primary focus on SOAP based thinking.
Our veterinary staff includes: Elaine M. LaForte, DVM - graduate of Cornell '82 and Internship in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery at LSU '83 and John Kearney, DVM - graduate of Cornell '90. Our veterinarians have over 65 years of experience and are very comfortable with difficult cases that include internal medicine, neurology, ophthalmology, dermatology, cardiology, respiratory and infectious diseases. Our support staff includes 2 Licensed Veterinary Technicians who are very adept at pulling bloods, placing catheters, anesthetic monitoring, dental prophies, surgical room technical assist. etc. Two veterinary assistants hold the patients. Equipment includes: Two isoflurane anesthetic machines with alarm sensors added, IV fluid pumps, Digital radiography, a free-standing floor-based pneumatic dental unit, a large anesthetic-monitoring unit with esophageal stethoscope, as well as a small hand-held pulse oximeter. We use electrocautery as well as suction. All surgical equipment is double-wrapped and autoclaved. Veterinarians cap, mask, gown and glove. All animal are surgically prepped and draped. Our veterinarians are comfortable with a wide variety of surgeries including abdominal, ophthalmic, oral and reconstructive. Traveling specialists provide in-house ultrasounds.
Students will be expected to work a 40 hour work week, Mon through Friday. It will be a combination of shadowing and hands on support. We do not expect students to do the work of technicians, unless we feel it will add to their skillset as a veterinarian. During office calls, students will take histories from the clients and they will stay in the exam room during the exam. If there is time during an appointment, students will be allowed to do their own physical examination. It is expected that students will be forthcoming in their opinions on medical cases (outside of the client's earshot). It is our intent to help students learn to think. They will be expected to help with and have an understanding of radiographic postioning but we will also want them to try and interpret radiographs. Students will be expected to give injections. On surgery days, students will be scrubbing in to assist in surgery, but we will also allow them to intubate patients and we will discuss anesthesia with them. During dental prophies, students will be instructed and allowed to clean teeth with a high end dental unit. Dental extraction techniques will be discussed.