I’ve been meaning to write this post for a little while now, but school just got so crazy as soon as we got back from reading week! During my week off, I had a really amazing opportunity to go and learn about some vet clinics in the Owen Sound area. My (extremely thoughtful) boyfriend had a family connection to Dr. Nancy Brown, a DVM who currently works for the CFIA. This is an area of interest of mine, and Nancy offered to host us so I could pick her brain. She also set up some tours of clinics and farms for the day.
Nancy was super welcoming and we had a jam-packed schedule! We started our vet clinic tours at Owen Sound Vet Clinic, then Grey Bruce Pet Hospital, Sunset Strip Vet Clinic and North Heritage Animal Hospital.
I was really impressed by the clinics and their obvious efforts to keep up to date with current medicine. Since Owen Sound is not super close to OVC or other big referral centres, the clinics are all pretty well-equipped to handle a wide variety of cases. Ultrasound and in-house labs, as well as some advanced dental machines were definitely cool to see! One other thing I really thought was awesome was that the clinics have kind of paired off in order to share the on-call emergencies so that each clinic doesn’t have to work every weekend. It shares the work as well as fosters a more friendly and open relationship. The staff at each clinic also really seemed to truly enjoy their work and work environment, which is always great to see.
After stopping for lunch, we went to Nancy’s farm where she shared some info about her work with the CFIA. I got a nice stack of resources and booklets about the protocols surrounding certain reportable diseases, had some good discussion about One Health, scrapie and rabies, and I got her duplicate copy of a really cool foreign animal/emerging disease textbook! I was so glad to learn more about the field of regulatory medicine from someone that is very passionate and excited to share the ins and outs of the job. The fact that there is always something new and always new problems to solve is extremely interesting to me.
We then headed for 2 farm tours. Our first stop was the “mouse house,” which is a high biosecurity facility where mice are reared for the reptile food market. The surprising thing is, it runs basically like a mini farm – with basic principles of good management and husbandry resulting in good production. The amount of diseases that the animals are screened for and the amount of biosecurity was quite impressive!
Lastly, we went to a dairy goat farm, right around milking time! I had never seen goats being milked in a parlour like dairy cows, so that was really neat. The smaller udders make it go much more quickly than cows. I even got to help!
It was a really amazing day, and I just want to thank Nancy for organizing everything and being such a wonderful host! And also thanks always to Matt for being so supportive and for making this great connection happen š
Shannon Finn: Student Veterinarian 