We have 3 doctors who see mainly small animal patients, pet pigs, and poultry in the clinic and a large animal doctor seeing equine, bovine, caprine, camelid and ovine patients mostly ambulatory with some in-house appts for all but cattle. We see general medical and surgical cases but also refer to small animal and equine specialists. We are 45 minutes from the University of Minnesota. Large animal caseload is approx. 50% equine,30% bovine, 10% and growing caprine, 10% camelid and occasional ovine.
Students are expected to be at the practice by 8AM and will ride along on farm calls until calls are completed, hours are highly variable but 10-14 hr days are common from March thru July. After getting to know the student they will be encouraged to get as much "hands on" as they would like. Efficient routine exams, coming up with rule outs and diagnostic plans, blood draws, injections, trimming feet, palpation, ultrasounding, power floating, etc. are commonly addressed. I push the students as they become more comfortable to be "the doctor in charge" on calls. We discuss the case as we are driving and the student runs the show once we arrive on the farm. Students have hated this at first but by the end of their stay with us feel that experience was extremely valuable as so much of veterinary schooling is following others and not necessarily being in charge. Most of our externs are interested in mixed practice and typically spend most of their time with Dr. Oscarson seeing large animal cases. He is off on Mondays when students can spend time in the small animal hospital.
If necessary students can possibly be housed across the street from our clinic in a guest house on the property of a client whose estate is managed by a trust foundation. The availability depends on if the owners have other guests at the time. Very nice facilities. No pets allowed. No smoking.