CSU Food Animal Internship Program

Internship | Program Details | Participants & Projects |

CSU Food Animal Internship Program
Colorado State University offers two Food Animal Internship positions through the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians Internship and Residency Matching Program (VIRMP). The official announcement of this internship program is provided below. We hope that you will feel free to pass this information on to any students or practitioners who may be interested in this program.

The CSU Food Animal Hospital has been offering the Food Animal Internship program since 1995 as part of the Integrated Livestock Management (ILM) Program. The internship is a broad based food animal program that includes training in individual animal medicine and herd production medicine for dairy, beef, small ruminant, and camelids. The internship is divided between hospital and field services. The program consists of a minimum of 23 weeks hospital service, 19 weeks dairy ambulatory service, 2 weeks beef calving management, 1 week beef pregnancy palpation, 1 week bull breeding soundness, and 1 week ram breeding soundness. The remaining 5 weeks are tailored to the intern's interest and can include additional time in hospital service, dairy ambulatory service, beef and dairy nutritional management, beef production management, necropsy, lambing management, clinical pathology, anesthesia, and other CSU VTH services.

The intern will work closely with faculty clinicians that will provide supervision and training in ruminant medicine, surgery, herd health, and production medicine. The intern will assist in the instruction and supervision of veterinary students in clinical rotations. The program is divided into approximately 50% in-hospital case management and 50% ambulatory field service. Clinical duties will include night and weekend emergency duty for food animal cases. Additional participation in equine emergency service and up to 2 weeks in equine elective rotations is available but not required. As part of the overall training, the intern will be expected to participate in case rounds, graduate seminars, and teaching laboratories. In addition, the intern will develop and complete an investigational project, the results of which will be presented to the food animal section at the end of the internship. This internship training provides the first phase of the Integrated Livestock Management program, a multidisciplinary graduate training program at CSU that may be pursued by some interns.

The caseload of the CSU Food Animal Hospital varies between 700 and 900 cases per year and consists of about 50% dairy cattle, 20% beef cattle, 30% camelid, small ruminant, pigs and exotic ruminants. The dairy ambulatory service provides reproductive, herd health, and production management programs for four local dairies ranging in size from 500 to 1500 milking cows. The CSU Food Animal Hospital is directly supported by 9 faculty members, and 2 technicians. The food animal faculty consists of 5 board certified internists (Dr. Frank Garry, Dr. Dave Van Metre, Dr. Tony Knight, Dr. Rob Callan, Dr. Jennifer MacLeay), one board certified theriogenologist (Dr. Bob Mortimer), and one diplomat of the ABVP, food animal practice (Dr. Page Dinsmore). Dr. John Wenz provides dairy reproduction and mastitis work along with herd record analysis, herd health, and production medicine. Dr. Tim Holt provides general food animal medicine and surgical service and teaching. He is a nationally recognized authority on pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) testing and breeding management for the control of high mountain disease in beef cattle and incorporates this expertise into the services provided by the hospital

 

Livestock Internship Rotations

Veterinary Teaching Hospital – Livestock Service
Dr. Rob Callan, Dr. Dave Van Metre, Dr. Tim Holt, & Dr. Jennifer MacLeay
The CSU VTH Livestock Service provides veterinary care for cattle, llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats, swine, and occasional wild ruminants. The livestock hospital service sees around 800 cases per year consisting of approximately 45% dairy cows, 5% beef, 36% camelid, and 10% small ruminant and 4% swine. The interns work closely with faculty clinicians that provide supervision and training in ruminant and camelid medicine, surgery, herd health, and production medicine. The majority of diary cattle cases originate from four local dairies that have established a veterinary service and student teaching contract with the CSU VTH. The close association with the contract dairies provides many routine cases involving GI disease, displaced abomasums, respiratory disease, metabolic disease, or lameness. Daily schedules include morning and afternoon case rounds with the students. The caseload includes elective cases that are scheduled for the morning and early afternoon. The service also sees a significant number of acute or critical care cases that originate from the contract dairies as well as local and regional veterinary referrals. The intern assists in the instruction and supervision of veterinary students in clinical rotations and teaching laboratories. Since there is no livestock residency, the interns provide direct supervision, medical management, and client communication of all cases. Emergency duty is evenly distributed among the interns and consists of 3-5 cases per week. Large animal emergency faculty provides direct support of the after-hour emergency service.

Dairy Ambulatory Service
Dr. Page Dinsmore, Dr. John Wenz
The CSU Dairy Ambulatory Service provides veterinary services and herd health management to four local dairies. The dairies range in size from 400 to 1500 milking cows. The service activities include

The Dairy Ambulatory Service schedules weekly or biweekly visits to each of the contract dairies and is also available for emergency calls. The interns are integrated into these activities with supervision from faculty clinicians. The interns also play a critical role in assisting and training senior veterinary students participating in the rotation.

SPECIAL PROJECT ROTATIONS

These are rotations that are seasonal in occurrence to optimize intern and veterinary student learning opportunities.

Beef Calving Management
Dr. Bob Mortimer
Calving management is a 2 weeks rotation spent on large beef operations in Nebraska. Interns work with students, producers, and faculty in the process of calving out large numbers of heifers. Training is given in personnel management, decision making for obstetrical intervention, techniques of obstetrical management, calf care, and disease management are but a few of the opportunities available on this rotation. In addition, time is spent on heifer development and production management considerations of replacement heifers. Although some C-sections will be done, this rotation is primarily to teach good decision making during calving from a producers perspective so the Veterinarian is in better position to advise clients rather than just from what is presented at the clinic. Interns typically are in supervisory role during the week with some faculty/producer backup depending on their individual skill level in these practices.

Bull Breeding Soundness
Dr. Bob Mortimer
Bull Breeding Soundness is a 1 week rotation discussing and evaluation bulls reproductively on large Colorado, Wyoming, or Nebraska ranches. This provides large enough numbers for the student and intern to develop a good degree of knowledge and expertise in the area of male reproduction. Areas include not only semen evaluation but bull development, herd health management, and reproductive relationships with herd productivity and economics. Students and interns will learn and practice collection techniques, palpation of male reproductive organs and other physical areas as well. Interns provide some discussion and supervisory assistance as necessary.

Beef Pregnancy Palpation
Dr. Bob Mortimer
This is a 1 week rotation emphasizing the management practices that are common at the time of pregnancy examination in large beef herds. Students and interns are trained not only in rectal palpation techniques but also ultrasound techniques used in pregnancy evaluation. Students learn animal handling techniques plus the economics of reproductive evaluation. Numbers of cattle vary from 2500 to 6,000 per week with the number of students altered accordingly. These ranches are located in Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado. Interns, students and faculty are all involved in routine management practices that must be done along with the evaluations.
Interns typically assume a supervisory role during the week depending on their individual skill level in these practices.

Beef and/or Dairy Nutritional Management
Dr. Bob Mortimer
Beef and/or Dairy Nutrition is a 1 week rotation that allows the interested student or intern to explore areas of nutrition that they feel week in. This is handled as both a discussion as well as independent research in areas the student or intern is interested in. Thus, flexibility in the rotation is student/intern dependent. The objective is to improve the knowledge and understanding of nutritional management in beef or dairy operations.

Beef Production Management
Dr. Bob Mortimer
Beef Production Management is a 1 week rotation that allows the interested student or intern to explore a variety of areas of beef management. The objective is to allow the student/intern to broaden their knowledge and understanding of production management in beef operations. This is handled as both a discussion as well as independent research in areas the student or intern is interested in. Students will use computer technology, research, and management decision problems to develop methods of making recommendations with economic justification under different management situations.

Ram Breeding Soundness
Dr. Dave Van Metre, Dr. Tony Knight
This is 1 week rotation spent traveling around western Colorado, and sometimes into Utah and Wyoming working with medium to large sheep producers with their ram management. Work is with producers on site providing reproductive evaluation of rams including; physical, scrotal, penile, and semen evaluation. In addition, herd health and production management of sheep operation is discussed. Interns are active participants and provide some supervision when appropriate.

Lambing Management
Dr. Dave Van Metre, Dr. Tony Knight
This is a one week rotation with time spent on large sheep operations dealing with the lambing and herd management problems that are associated. Interns and students participate actively in the decision making and handling of lambing problems.

Additional Elective Rotations
Up to 4 weeks of the internship may be used for elective rotations. These electives are tailored to the intern's interest and can include additional time in other hospital and outside opportunities. Some of the elective opportunities include:

Teaching Laboratories
The Interns participate in teaching the Junior Veterinary Practicum Laboratories. These include the core Livestock Physical Exam and Procedures Laboratory (LAPE) and an elective Food Animal Diagnostics and Surgery Laboratory (FAX). The LAPE laboratory includes Physical Exams, Restraint and Procedures i.e.; blood collection, urine collection, stomach tube passage, CMT, and milk culture sampling. FAD/X laboratory is an intense two week laboratory concentrating on Ruminant procedures i.e. Breeding soundness examination, dairy epidemiology, hematology, anesthesiology, and surgical procedures

Investigational Project
Each intern will work with faculty members to develop and complete an Intern Project. This may be a clinically oriented project or a specific research project. The goal is to provide exposure and experience in performing clinically relevant research. At the end of the internship, the interns prepare an intern project paper and present their project in a seminar to the faculty and students.

Information on the CSU Food Animal Internship Program
Additional inquires regarding the CSU Food Animal Internship program should be directed to Dr. Rob Callan (rcallan@colostate.edu, 970-297-4471). Additional information relative to the CSU Integrated Livestock Management program can be obtained from the web site listed below or by contacting Dr. Frank Garry (fgarry@colostate.edu, 970-297-0371). Individuals interested in applying for the food animal internship are directed to the AAVC VIRMP web site that is listed below.

Colorado State University Integrated Livestock Management Program:
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/ilm/.html

Match Program for the CSU Food Animal Internship Program
Veterinary Internship and Residency Matching Program:
Apply to Match Program
For additional information, contact Dr. Rob Callan, Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, (970) 491-0384 (rcallan@colostate.edu). Colorado State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and complies with all Federal and Colorado State laws, regulations, and executive orders regarding affirmative action requirements.