Idiopathic Issues

I got to see Dr. Little speak at the AVMA conference and she really is passionate about ticks.  It's awesome to see a veterinarian completely enamored in his or her specialty, even if I think ticks are disgusting. 

It's important to know the different tick species in your area and the various diseases that they carry.  Owners will definitely bring in tick specimens when they find them and it will be up to you to identify them on the spot.

Lyme disease is an increasingly prevalent tick-borne disease. It is difficult to definitvely diagnose as most of our affordable testing options only measure exposure. Treatment, vaccination and long-term testing regimens are controversial. If you ever want to see a heated debate amongst veterinarians, go to a continuing education talk on Lyme disease. It can get pretty brutal. Both of my dogs have been exposed to Lyme. I waited to treat them until they showed symptoms of fever, lameness and lethargy. Luckily they responded well to therapy.  

It's true that the majority of cases are found in the northeastern region of the United States but

The National Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners (NBVME) publishes a percentage based breakdown of what areas are covered on the NAVLE. All of the numerical information in this article can be found at the NBVME website, www.nbvme.org. Most of the rest of the information in this article is either paraphrased or adapted from the NBVME guidelines and if you are interested in the original text, we encourage you to view the NAVLE website at https://www.nbvme.org/?id=26&page=NAVLE+Test+Specifications

The Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

It’s a simple concept really. By no means am I trying to say that I am perfect and haven’t fallen victim to stress and meanness so don’t go thinking that I haven’t made these mistakes myself. But here is an important lesson that I think you should know before graduation. 

I am the granddaughter of a wildlife rehabilitator. After a career in the military my grandfather, a World War II and Korean War Veteran retired from the Army and joined the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service. He soon became an integral player in the Bald Eagle Reintroduction Project in the state of Maine. To say that I am proud of my grandfather’s accomplishments is an understatement. As a kid I didn’t realize how important his job was, the coolest part about having a grandfather who rescued wildlife was that visiting my grandparents meant checking out all of the cool animals in the barn. He always had an array of birds, transiently living there until they could be returned back to the wild.  He had owls, hawks, ospreys, and herons on a constant rotation.  Seeing those birds up close and personal was absolutely formative to my early childhood love of animals and planted the seed that I would one day grow up to help animals for a living too. I’ve run into many people over the years, most notably a medical doctor, who sighted concepts like “survival of the fittest” as a reason to not help animals.