Veterinary/Vet Tech Students
Northwest Equine Stewardship Center welcomes veterinary and vet tech
students to our facility. In fact, our vet/vet tech program was actually
the driving force behind creating Northwest Equine Stewardship Center!
In veterinary school, humane hands-on learning experiences for
students were lacking. Students in many programs were expected to
practice surgery on healthy animals who were then euthanized at the end
of the lab or the course (‘Terminal Surgeries’). Dr. Hannah was
unwilling to participate in this kind of education and sought out an
‘alternative tract’ or other ways to gain hands-on learning for live
animal surgeries.
"As a vet student I volunteered at local shelters and ended up
getting more live animal surgery experience than my peers," replied Dr.
Hannah. She found that a win-win situation could be achieved by pairing
these rescue animals in need of a variety of veterinary-type of
procedures with veterinary and vet tech students in need of practice.
"I found that equine experience was much more difficult to come by
versus small animal experiences, and since horses have always been my
focus, this was what I needed to do in order to give back," said Dr.
Hannah. "While it took a lot of leg work and time to organize these
learning experiences, the efforts were well worth it."
Research shows vet students who opt out of terminal surgeries
graduate from school with a higher level of compassion for their
patients. This compassion is what motivates vets to do a good job with
every individual case in their practice - and for Dr. Hannah it is one
of the most important components to being a good veterinarian!
For these reasons, NWESC strives to make these types of hands-on
learning experiences readily available to students in need of equine
education. This program provides students with hands-on learning opportunities
in an environment where they are directly supervised by licensed
veterinarians. Students are able to administer vaccines, take blood
samples, assist in dental floats and minor surgeries and gain hands-on
experience with handling a variety of different horses in varied levels
of training and in a vast variety of conditions.
This program is unique in the fact that it directly benefits many
horses that are in need of specialized care and rehabilitation. Because
it is linked directly to our rescue and rehabilitation program it
provides everyone - both humans and horses - with win-win situation!
If you are a veterinary, vet tech student or
school who would like to learn more about this opportunity, please call
(206) 940-8589.