IN THE FIELD
{ UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY VETERINARY MEDICINE }
STUDENTS LEARN BY BECOMING THE TEACHERS Often, people find that the best way to sharpen their skills is by teaching others. Janae Nordwall and Chelsea Barker, third and second year students, respectively, in the USU School of Veterinary Medicine, became teachers for a week as they represented USU at the Monument Valley High School Veterinary Science Camp in Kayenta, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation. During the 5-day camp, Nordwall and Barker had the opportunity to share their knowledge and interact with high school students from all over the country. They, along with veterinary students from Colorado State University (CSU), worked with the high schoolers to teach them skills in suturing, surgical instrument identification, blood draws and drug calculations. “They were learning so many important skills that many of
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Summer 2018
us didn’t get to learn until vet school,” Nordwall explained. “Having veterinary students there to help them learn these things correctly is a great advantage and will help them be well prepared to apply for and enter veterinary school in the future.” Throughout the week, the high school students participated in practical workshops that emphasized basic skills and knowledge necessary in the field of veterinary medicine. Nordwall and Barker hosted a workshop on the California Mastitis Test to teach students the significance of mastitis and an easy way to test for it. This test, Nordwall said, is something veterinary students need to be very familiar with if they plan to work in the dairy industry in the future. The high school students weren’t the only ones who