SCVMA SYMPOSIUM 2002 — UNITED THROUGH VETERINARY MEDICINE

Picture it... a beautiful calm and snowy prairie city. A small group of professional cowboys are camped out in the airport terminal, unofficially dubbed the “western WCVM welcome crew.” An outside temperature that was no warmer than a balmy -35°C. That was Saskatoon, the evening of Wednesday, January 23, 2002, and it was the beginning of Symposium 2002. Attendance was excellent from all the Canadian veterinary schools, with 41 students from the Faculte de medecine veterinaire, 22 students from the Ontario Veterinary College, and 8 students from the Atlantic Veterinary College making the trip to Saskatoon for the 15th Annual Symposium of the Students of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (SCVMA).This 4-day event was quite eventful, with marvellous wet-labs, educational and entertaining seminars, a wonderful talk by Dr. Temple Grandin, a hockey tournament, an academic biathlon, delicious food, two-stepping, touring various prairie-related facilities, and mingling with future colleagues. After arrival and registration, the students invaded a local “watering hole” and the social events and mingling began. A pancake breakfast was served bright and early the next morning, and students fueled up with pancakes and sausages, providing a great start to a day of tours. The rest of the day on Thursday consisted of tours of the University of Saskatchewan campus and the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM), which allowed students to either show off the facilities or compare them with those of the other veterinary schools. There was a wide variety of academic tours, including Poundmaker Feedlot, Letourneau Poultry Farm, Cornelius Dairy, Goodale Alternative Livestock Facility, the Synchrotron, the Prairie Swine Centre, the Veterinary Infectious Disease Organization, the Saskatoon Zoo, the Marimba Elk Farm, dog sled racing (Nigel Hill), Wanuskewin, and the Tridale Goat Dairy. As you can see, there was a large selection of tours, which met the wide- ranging interests of the students. The feedback from the tours was very positive and all students claimed that they had had an “excellent experience” and wished that there could have been time to go on more that one tour. Overall, the Thursday tours were a success, despite a disgruntled “sandwich artist” quitting his job just as we needed sandwiches to feed 350 people! You can't come to Saskatoon without experiencing the exciting and unique country nightlife. Everyone was herded down to a local country bar for some Thursday evening entertainment. It was amusing to see some of the eastern folk attempt to dress like locals. Everyone who wanted to learn how to two-step (and maybe those who did not) was surrounded with country music and eager, dance-crazy cowboys. The hockey tournament began at 6:00 am on Friday. In the end, the best team won, and all players received a skate towel and a puck, sponsored by Merial. All who participated were exposed to the early morning Saskatoon air, not to mention the adrenaline rush from the exercise! To ensure that not only the hockey players had some kind of physical workout that morning, participants in the Academic Biathlon had to run through obstacle courses. The biathlon consisted of 20 board-type questions, submitted by various WCVM professors, for the students to answer. Each team consisted of a mixture of students from each school, allowing students from other years and colleges an opportunity to bond with each other. After wacky challenges with western themes had been met, the results were compiled and the winning team received wonderful prizes donated by Iams. In the afternoon, students had the opportunity to participate in a variety of excellent wet-labs, such as bovine claw removal, equine bandaging, medical imaging, neurology, llama and alpaca reproductive examinations, bovine theriogenology, equine artificial techniques, medical and emergency care of reptiles, darting, veterinary homeopathy, and ophthalmology. Symposium 2002 was lucky to have the wet-labs instructed by many of the WCVM faculty. All of the wet-lab instructors did a wonderful job and conveyed a great deal of enthusiasm. The students were pleased with the hands-on experience and many practical techniques were taught. The Casino Night, sponsored by Pet Plan, was held on the Friday night and was a great success. Throughout the evening, there was much betting and bidding with “funny money” for a variety of prizes. The theme for the evening was Gangsters and Spies, and many fine folk made an appearance. The seminars on Saturday morning were well attended and there were rave reviews. Countless numbers of students enjoyed the chance to attend first-rate seminars. Many students, as well as staff and faculty, attended an amazing 3-hour seminar by guest lecturer, Dr. Temple Grandin. We were lucky to have a speaker of this quality attend Symposium 2002. Dr. Grandin spoke on animal behavior, how it is recognized and how behavioral problems can be prevented. There was great interest in attending a talk by such an outstanding speaker, so the seminar was well advertised and highly anticipated, resulting in 350 people being in attendance, limited only by the maximum capacity of the room. Dr. Grandin was an informative, entertaining, and enthusiastic speaker. She helped to make Symposium 2002 a success by providing high quality information at a practical level. Symposium 2002 was thrilled to have had the support from Hill's Pet Nutrition and the Farm Animal Council of Saskatchewan to bring Dr. Grandin to Saskatoon. The farewell banquet was held on Saturday evening at the Western Development Museum. Everyone had the chance to tour the old-fashioned prairie “boom town.” A short program was given, beginning with a lovely welcome by Purina, who funded the fantastic banquet. We were pleased to have the CVMA president, Dr. Michael Baar, in attendance and he gave his best wishes for all of the “DVMs-to-be”! The food was delicious, the dancing was great fun, and a good time was had by all. Unfortunately, it all ended too soon and we found ourselves saying goodbye to our newly made friends. Come Sunday morning, the visiting students were safely on their way back home. It was sad to see it all come to an end, but I know many students are eagerly awaiting Symposium 2003. Best of luck to Jeremy Orr and all the students at the AVC, until we meet again next year at Symposium 2003! (by Alana Shrubsole, WCVM class of 2003, SCVMA Senior Representative; and Renee Scott, WCVM class of 2004, SCVMA Junior Representative)

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.