PARTNERSHIPS KEY FOR THE FUTURE OF LARGE ANIMAL VETERINARY SCIENCE

By Katie Duncan

SABRINA VAN SCHYNDEL DIDN’T GROW UP ON A FARM, but rural living influenced her career trajectory from the time she was a little girl.

“From a young age, I was involved in 4-H and owned, showed and cared for animals I kept at nearby farms,” Van Schyndel says. “I was super fortunate to have neighbours and friends in the farming community who put up with my insistence to spend every spare minute helping with chores and working with livestock. My first real job was milking on a dairy farm and I have worked in the dairy industry ever since.”

That persistence would lead her to the University of Guelph, first for a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences, followed by a master of science in epidemiology at the Ontario Veterinary College.

Her master’s research, supervised by Dr. Stephen LeBlanc, included a controlled trial of an immune stimulant to help prevent disease in peripartum dairy cows. The study involved 1,600 cows from six herds – two in Ontario and four in Quebec. She sampled up to 100 cows each week over the course of a year. The study was published in the Journal of Dairy Science with Van Schyndel as its first author. She later analyzed the data from that trial to produce a second paper on the physiology and mechanism of action of the product in her clinical trial, which was published in PLOS ONE. After graduate school, she worked with dairy farmers as a robotic milking adviser for dairy equipment company, GEA.

Van Schyndel began her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) studies in 2020. The program is competitive, accepting just 120 students each year, only five of whom are graduate students.

“I was motivated and determined to get in and I had no doubt the time I spent completing my masters and working for GEA North America would make me a better practitioner,” she says.

Now, as a new graduate, Van Schyndel is practicing as a bovine veterinarian with Kirkton Veterinary Services in Kirkton, Ont. She was also recently awarded the 2023 Nandi Scholarship from the Theriogenology Foundation for her accomplishments and promise in bovine reproductive medicine.

“Sabrina is going into veterinary practice at a large clinic that includes a leading advanced embryo transfer and IVF practice in this part of Canada,” LeBlanc says. “She will surely move quickly and successfully into this area of the practice, putting her years of experience and learning into clinical application.”

Van Schyndel has big plans for the future. “In the next 10 years, I want to help bridge the communication gap between producers, farm workers, nutritionists, animal scientists and equipment specialists in the farming community as we work together using precision technology to positively impact animal health management,” she says. “Veterinarians are a crucial member in this alliance of experts.”

LeBlanc speaks highly of his former student and sees her making an impact as a large animal veterinarian.

“Sabrina has the skills, energy, intellectual curiosity and engagement to be an outstanding veterinarian who will contribute to the application and improvement of bovine theriogenology. Her commitment to food animal producers and their animals will advance food supply veterinary medicine and animal welfare.”