This time I went out of the country to the countries of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. This was in conjunction with the VIDA Volunteer travel organization. A non-profit organization that promotes human and animal health care issues.
I had the pleasure of going on this trip with some of my classmates and faculty from LMU-CVM along with LMU medical students. It was everything I was expecting and more.
As a veterinary student I was able to assist in small animal clinic days in the manner of student surgeon assistant and student anesthetist. I was able to utilize some of my suturing and ligation skills I had developed in class and put them to work in the small animal spays and surgical procedures during clinic days in Costa Rica...There is nothing as good as pure hands on learning.!!! There has to be a first time for everything and we had plenty of firsts!.. First time to insert a catheter, first time for a tracheal tube...
Probably the Large Animal Days were my favorite. We went to individual farms in Nicaragua and dewormed and inoculated approximately 150 animals from bovine to porcine to equine!
It was a win- win situation for all who participated. The ranchers who were able to get there animals dewormed and inoculated. The veterinary teams from the U.S. and Nicaraguan learned valuable techniques from each other, realizing there is more than one way to restrain a bovine...
