GENERAL SURGERY: The Cutting Edge of Teaching

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GENERAL SURGERYThe Cutting Edge of Teaching

• Mark J. Stickney, DVM
• Lisa Howe, DVM, PhD, DACVS
• College Hour
• November 18, 2005

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General Surgery

• Required rotation for 4th-year students and
  interns
• Perform surgical procedures commonly seen in
  private practice
• Integrated approach

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General Surgery -- Objectives

• Utilize client-owned animals and service learning
  projects
• Surgically competent graduates
• Ability to effectively communicate surgical
  benefits and risks with clients

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General Surgery -- Objectives

• Understanding of
• benefits of spay/neuter
• pet overpopulation, early-age spay/neuter,
  shelter and trap/neuter/release programs
• Develop community service spirit

This rotation is essential to the surgical
skills of any veterinarian
--former student
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General Surgery

• STUDENTS do everything with oversight from
  professional and technical staff
• Admissions
• Exams
• Communications
• Anesthesia
• Surgery
• Recovery/discharge

Very important to our learning and increased our
surgical skills and confidence.
--former student
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General Surgery

• 12-15 surgeries per student
• Anesthesia/surgery routine
• Patients are generally healthy
• 4 days of client owned pets
• 4 days of shelter animals
• 1 - 2 days of rounds
• /- 1 day of AFCAT

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Procedures

• OHE
• Castration
• Declaw
• Laceration repair
• Aural hematoma
• Microchips
• Retained deciduous teeth

• Dewclaw removal
• Tail dock
• Lumpectomies
• Abscess treatment
• Venipuncture
• Vaccinations

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General Surgery -- Teaching

• 1800-1900 surgeries per year
• Technical aspects
• Surgical skills
• Patient evaluation
• Anesthetic protocols
• IV catheterization
• IM, SQ injections
• Anesthetic monitoring
• Post-Op monitoring and assessment
• Analgesia

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General Surgery -- Teaching

• Professional aspects
• Client Communications
• History
• Procedure and risks
• Post-op discussion
• Discharge
• 3 day follow-up
• Preventative medicine
• Peer Interactions
• Faculty/staff interactions
• Medical record keeping

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Now what do I do??? --current
student
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General Surgery -- Service

• Graduate veterinarians
• Surgically competent
• Understand and play active role in pet
  overpopulation solutions
• Sense of altruism for community and animal welfare

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General Surgery -- Service

• Provide competitively-priced routine services
  400 animals/year
• Assist animal shelters and AFCAT with pet
  overpopulation and compliance with law 1450
  animals/year
• Open House Live Surgery Demonstration
• High school summer camps

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General Surgery -- Research

• Provide patients, tissues and students
• Intern/resident projects
• Collaborative studies
• Educational grants and projects

• Projects include
• Early-age spay/neuter
• Feral cat epidemiology
• Analgesia
• Misc.

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General Surgery -- Research

• 7 grants
• 14 projects
• 15 publications
• 17 proceedings/monographs
• 5 abstracts presented at national meetings
• 2 poster presentations
• 22 national/international invited lectures

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General Surgery The Future

• Include exotic animal surgery
• Partnerships with Community Practice and Oncology
• Educational grant to expand on homeless and feral
  issues
• Laser surgery??

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Even though I do not plan to work on small
animals at all, this is one of the best rotations
Ive had. -- former student