Beacon Emergency Veterinary Hospital, FL

Description of Elective Experience: 

During your externship, you can expect to participate in cases with direct mentorship by a DVM who will meet with you to establish your goals on day one, keep track of your progress throughout your stay, and review your accomplishments before you depart. Our goal is to provide you with a set of tools that you will use for years to come. We encourage active participation from externs, introducing them to our clients and truly making them part of our team. If there are certain technical skills you are looking to improve upon, let us know so we can place emphasis on these areas. We strive to provide the ideal environment for you to gain confidence while managing both routine and complex cases on the ER floor. We request that externs select one interesting case to research and present to the veterinarians for further discussion in rounds. These case discussions help our teams learn and grow together; further emphasizing that mentorship is a two-way street.

Institutional and Educational Resources - staffing, equipment, etc.: 

6 full time emergency clinicians, surgeon, 15 full time nurses, 7 full time assistants

ultrasound, multiple in house laboratory tests including cbc, chemistry, coags, snap tests, urinalysis, and AI pathology reviews.

reference laboratories for send out testing

surgical suite with bipolar cautery, ligasure, and GITA stapler

endoscopy planned summer 2024, CT pending

Student Responsibilities - what is expected of students in terms of hours, days of the week, shadowing or actual support?: 
  • Roughly 40 hours/week (3-4 shifts/week)
  • Obtain a thorough patient history, conduct a physical exam, and formulate a plan for diagnostics and treatments on emergency cases.
  • Manage hospitalized inpatients and assist with procedures and surgeries.
  • Participate in daily rounds with our residing veterinarians and skilled nursing staff.
  • Interpret point of care, in-house diagnostics including digital radiographs, ultrasound imaging, cytology, urine sediment, blood tests, etc.
  • Order and analyze more advanced laboratory tests and results through multiple reference laboratories.
  • Weekly round table, journal club, or M&M rounds (virtual and/or in person)
  • Create an end of rotation case presentation. We encourage externs to select one to two interesting cases to research and present to the other veterinarians for further discussion.
Supervisor: 
Ellen Buerkett
Website: 
https://www.beaconer.vet/
Contact email: 
Address: 
2909 4th Street N
Saint Petersburg, FL 33704
United States
Specialties: 
Practice or Institution Type: 
Is student housing available?: 
No
Hours of supervision by a licensed veterinarian per week: 
40