Vet for a Day: 4-H Students Visit OSU’s Veterinary Center

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Thirty-one 4-H members from across Oklahoma spent the day on Friday, June 15, trying their hand at veterinary medicine at Oklahoma State University’s Center for Veterinary Health Sciences.

Students and their parents listened to a presentation by Anna Teague, admissions coordinator, on what it takes to be accepted into Oklahoma State’s DVM program. Then it was time for students to get their hands into some real veterinary medicine exercises.

The veterinary center’s Duane R. Peterson Anatomy Learning Center, with overhead screens to facilitate group instruction, was the first hands-on activity. Here Dr. Jill Akkerman, associate professor of anatomy in the Department of Physiological Sciences, supervised the budding veterinarians as they dissected a cow’s eye.  

At the veterinary center’s Boren Veterinary Medical Hospital, Dr. Todd Holbrook, equine section chief and internal medicine veterinary specialist, demonstrated how to use an endoscope to examine a horse’s esophagus and gastro-intestinal tract. He also discussed the horse’s heart, performed an ultrasound on the heart, and showed students how to listen to the heart. Each 4-H member had an opportunity to listen to one of three resident horses.

Activities concluded with a tour of the veterinary center, the only veterinary college in Oklahoma.

Special thanks to Drs. Jill Akkerman, Todd Holbrook and Amy Lovett, research technician Christopher Pivinski, registered veterinary technician Miranda Skaggs, and the following veterinary students for helping make this one-day program a success for all: Josiah Dame (’20), Cori Hoffman (’21), Julia Jordy (’20) Layna Tarpalechee (’20), Cassidy Vander Molen (’21), and Greg Yoast (’21).