|
TAMPA, Fla., -- May 8, 2004 – A new 24-7 emergency medical clerkship program designed to provide University of Florida veterinary students with intense, real-life experience handling emergency and critical care for pets and their owners was announced here tonite at the 11th annual Pet Week dinner.
Starting this month, two students at a time will begin two weeks of mostly overnight shifts and interactive learning under the supervision of experienced emergency and critical care experts from Florida Veterinary Specialists & Cancer Treatment Center (FVS). During the first year, 50 studentswill complete this innovative clerkship. UF veterinary college Dean Joseph DiPietro, D.V.M. described the program as a “landmark agreement that is the first time our college has officially collaborated with an established private practice to provide an ongoing rotation for our students.” He said that it was developed in direct response to requests from veterinary students for “more exposure to animal patients needing emergency care.”
“Our Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital is primarily a tertiary referral facility,” DiPietro said, “and in a big city the volume of emergency cases is significantly larger than in Gainesville giving our students far more opportunity to experience firsthand all aspects of emergency and critical care.” FVS sees an average of 700 emergency cases every month.
Sonja Olson, D.V.M., the FVS veterinarian and UF-affiliated faculty member who will be the students’ primary supervisor, said that students who successfully complete the clerkship will have gained confidence in the areas of leadership, responsibility and authority. They will work directly alongside clinicians who are experienced in both emergency medicine and critical care, two related but separate disciplines.
Emergencies are urgent situations, such as a dog hit by a car or a cat suffering a severe allergy attack at 3 a.m. and not allowing its owners to sleep. Olson said that critical care is more likely to involve a pet that is now stable but whose condition requires continued management. “This might be a pet with a severe bleeding disorder, on many medications, in our intensive care unit receiving oxygen therapy,” Olson said.
Neil Shaw, D.V.M., a UF veterinary college graduate who founded FVS and serves as its medical director, said “FVS has worked closely with the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine for many years to help improve the training and educational experience provided to its students. This new program is one of our most ambitious joint undertakings, and significantly expands upon our partnership efforts and mutual commitment to the profession and to pet owners.” Shaw said that the demands that are placed upon veterinarians who choose to specialize in emergency and critical care are among the profession’s most rigorous. “They not only need to understand the medical care and treatment of the animal, and be able to make quick decisions under pressure,” he said. “They must also have excellent people skills to be able to deal with the emotional needs of the pet’s owners.”
Florida Veterinary Specialists & Cancer Treatment Center, the largest veterinary practice in the southeastern United States, is a 24-hour critical care facility that also serves as the primary veterinary cancer center for the State of Florida as well as the primary emergency and referral center for the Tampa Bay area. The facility sees cases strictly by veterinarian referral in the specialty areas of Emergency, Critical Care, Internal Medicine, Surgery, Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Neurology, Behavior and Dermatology, Radiology, Ophthamology and Avian/Exotics. More than 15,000 new patients are seen annually. The staff includes 30 full-time veterinarians, two part-time veterinarians and 75 support staff including 26 certified veterinarian technicians.
Back
|
