Modern Careers in Veterinary Medicine

1. Modern Careers in Veterinary Medicine Jobs of a different stripe…

2. What do veterinarians do? • Veterinarians are trained to do three things: • Prevent disease • Diagnose disease • Treat disease • Obviously there is a lot that goes into each of these categories!

3. Classic Veterinary Job • When you think about a veterinarian’s job, what comes to mind? • Working in a clinic? • Vaccinating pets? • Performing surgery? • Saving animals’ lives? • Veterinarians do that, and a whole lot more!

4. What do veterinarians do? • Today’s veterinarians have more career options than ever before. • And it all comes back to our knowledge about the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease!

5. Preventing Disease • An ounce of prevention is worth…. • A pound of cure! • Many veterinarians work to prevent disease in both animals and people. • Let’s look at a few examples…

6. Preventing Disease • Veterinarians may work in academia, or a university setting. • These vets may be training the vets of tomorrow! • They are also involved in research, discovering the causes of diseases and finding ways to prevent them. • They are also educators for the public.

7. Preventing Disease • Veterinarians may work in private industry. • Many companies employ veterinarians to help ensure that their products are safe! • It is all about quality control. • Can you think of any recent problems we have had with contaminated food? • Veterinarians may also be involved in lobbying or influencing policy on behalf of industry.

8. Preventing Disease • Veterinarians may work for the government. • Government agencies such as: • Food and Drug Administration • US Department of Agriculture • Centers for Disease Control • Department of Health and Human Services • State Health Agencies • State Animal Health Agencies • and many more employ veterinarians!

9. Preventing Disease • Disease Eradication • When the government or animal production industry decides that it wants to get rid of a disease, it launches an eradication campaign. • Diseases which have been eradicated from all or part of the US include: • Classical Swine Fever, Foot and Mouth Disease, Screwworms, Texas Cattle Fever, Bovine Brucellosis, Bovine Tuberculosis Life cycle of the screwworm fly:

10. Preventing Disease • The military also employs many vets! • And I don’t mean veterans… • Veterinarians in all branches of the military work: • To make sure our troops are safe from zoonotic and foodborne diseases • To care for service animals • And serve as our frontline of defense against foreign and emerging diseases!

11. Preventing Disease • Zoonotic diseases? • Foodborne diseases? • Foreign and emerging diseases? • What does it all mean???

12. Preventing Disease • Veterinarians may also work for public, non-profit, or non-governmental organizations. • Many vets volunteer their time and resources to work in other countries. • Organizations such as the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Organization for Animal Health all employ veterinarians.

13. Preventing Disease This is an example of a veterinary team that volunteered to go to Mexico. They offered free parasite control and vaccinations.

14. Diagnosing Disease • So what about diagnosis? • Many of the same jobs apply. • Veterinarians work to develop diagnostic tests to help us identify sick or diseased animals in a population. • This type of research is done at government, university, and private laboratories around the world.

15. Diagnosing Disease • One example: • Cattle tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium, Mycobacterium bovis. • The tests most often used to find cattle infected with M. bovis will be positive if the animal was exposed to M. avium and M. paratuberculosis. • Dr. Janice Miller, who works for the US Department of Agriculture in Ames, IA developed a new test using PCR that can distinguish between these bacteria.

16. Diagnosing Disease • Veterinarians are also critical in discovering and diagnosing new diseases. • Can you think of any diseases that have been recently introduced into the US? • West Nile Virus, 1999 • Monkeypox, 2003

17. Treating Disease • Veterinarians research new ways to treat diseases. • For example: • Vacuum-assisted closure for treatment of a deep shell abscess and osteomyelitis in a tortoise Published in JAVMA, Oct. 15, 2007 by M. J. Adkesson, et. al.

18. Treating Disease • This turtle had a bad infection following an injury to its shell. • Treatment of these types of injuries is usually very long, complicated, and expensive. • These veterinarians wanted to see if they could find a better way to treat this turtle.

19. Treating Disease Even after cleaning out the wound, it looked pretty bad. The veterinarians decided to use a vacuum-assisted closure system to help the turtle heal. The veterinarians cleaned and bandaged the wound for the first 19 days. Then they filled the wound with a special pad, covered it with plastic, and applied negative pressure with a special suction hose. The pad still had to be changed regularly.

20. Treating Disease • After just nine days (picture A), the wound looked much better and was beginning to heal. • After 55 days (Pic. B), the vacuum-assisted closure system was removed. The wound had healed so much that all it needed was a scrub once every few days to help keep it clean. The turtle recovered completely. • These veterinarians wrote about their treatment in a research journal so that other veterinarians could learn about it too.

21. Veterinary Careers • Working in a veterinary clinic is only one of the many exciting career opportunities available to veterinarians today. • Now, that you know the A-Z of veterinary careers, what kind of vet do you want to be?

22. Any Questions?