Students Head ‘West’ For Production Tour, Internships, Research
Twelve students from the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM) have headed to the Panhandle this summer as part of the college’s collaboration with West Texas A&M University.
Through the Food Animal and Rural Practice Summer Internship Program, second-year veterinary students Jess Lawton and Kate Jimerson and third-year veterinary students Elizabeth Lake and Brooke Kehlenbrink Orsak are spending eight weeks in West Texas gaining hands-on experience in agriculture operations.
For four weeks, Jimerson and Lawton will be working in a feedlot in Happy, Texas, while Orsak and Lake will be working in the dairy industry.
For another four weeks, both groups will join mixed-animal practices working with rural practitioners in Panhandle, Texas, and Dimmitt, Texas.
“The purpose of this program is for students to learn about the opportunities in food supply veterinary medicine by working in these agricultural systems for four weeks with food animal populations in dairies and feedlots,” said Dr. Dan Posey, academic coordinator for the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Center (TVMC) at West Texas A&M. “The students get to learn about these agricultural businesses by working with the managers, animal caretakers, ag workers, cowboys, and veterinarians. They’re actually working in the feedlot and dairies to understand the industry itself.”
In May, seven third-year veterinary students spent six days in the Texas Panhandle learning about the opportunities in food supply veterinary medicine, animal agriculture, and rural veterinary practice as part of the annual Food Animal Production Tour. They include Brianna Boyle, Karly Brightwell, Wendy Garcia, Amber Matula, Cortney Pease, Alicia Robinson, and Luke Tomaso.
The tour exposes students to the opportunities in modern food supply veterinary medicine and the veterinarians’ roles in feedlots, dairies, swine operations, and rural private practice. The tour also acquaints students with opportunities for setting up future externships with food supply veterinarians and rural veterinary practitioners, which will improve their ability to work within food supply veterinary medicine.
“The tour is for students who are interested in food animal careers and want to know the scope of work done by mixed animal practice and food supply veterinarians,” Posey said. “This could include everything from the diagnostic lab, to veterinarians who work in the food animal area, to even rural practitioners who are part of food supply—mainly in feedlot, dairy, and swine concentrations—to show what the opportunities are in food supply veterinary medicine.
“The focus of the tour is to show student the possibilities of the career paths that are available,” he said.
Students who apply and are accepted for the program can see multiple types of production units within a relatively short time; access to prototypical, well-run operations, showcasing career opportunities in the field; and learn food animal industries production concepts and terminology.
Animal Production Tour stop.
One of the tour’s main objectives is to take the student out of the classroom to explore experiential learning; students are introduced to concepts in food supply veterinary medicine in the classroom, experience it in the daily tour events, and reflect on the concepts through open discussion and journaling.
“The learning experiences that are part of our Food Animal and Rural Practice Summer Internship Program and our Food Animal Production tour are some of the best in the nation. Students meet and work with large animal and rural practitioners, as well as in local dairies and feedlots; intermingle with the Texas Cattle Feeders Association; and gain experience working in the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory,” Dr. Eleanor Green, the Carl B. King Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. “These learning experiences are unique to our program, and I cannot express enough my thanks to everyone involved in this excellent program. Meeting the needs of the rural communities in Texas through this program is just one more way the students and faculty in the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine are serving this great state.”
In addition, in July, second-year Kendall Schaefer will work with AgriLife Research, West Texas A&M professors, and a local practitioner as part of a Food Animal Summer Research program.
Over two weeks, Schaefer will conduct food animal research while spending half of her days at the West Texas Research Feedlot facility and the other half with rural practitioners.
