An Interview with; D. Kirk Eddleman
Assistant Hospital Administrator, Texas A&M
Written by: Sherri L. Barclay of Barclays Arabians
More than 40 veterinarians, 8-10 resident interns and 130 veterinary specialists on staff. State of the art equipment including a Telemetry Unit, ventilator units and an Anderson sling just to name a few. An intensive care unit for both large animals and foals which resembles a human hospital more than an animal hospital. A staffed facility opened 24/7 throughout the year! Sounds like a facility we all wish was close enough to utilize. Well, it may be closer than you think!
Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine was officially established in 1916 by the Texas Legislature. The first hospital barn however was built in 1888. We as Texans are extremely fortunate to have such a cutting edge facility right here in our own backyard. While most people consider the hospital for emergencies only, it is a full service hospital offering all types of services from surgery to reproduction to dentistry and more. They can do procedures from simple floats to animals needing intensive care. We hope to help you see into the walls of Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, see what they have to offer, learn about their equipment and understand how the hospital works.
There are more than five hundred students currently enrolled as professional students in the DVM, Department of Veterinary Medicine, program at Texas A&M University. There are four classes each with 120 – 130 students. Approximately 10 – 20% of those individuals plan to be large animal or equine veterinarians. This number can vary from year to year.
What makes Texas A&M University so unique is that as a teaching hospital they have to be familiar with all the new technology, procedures and medications in order to keep their students on top of the veterinary world. What that means for us as a consumer is that if it is available, Texas A&M will be already utilizing it on a daily basis. This gives both them as well as us the unique opportunity to give our horses the best veterinary and up to date options science has to offer.
The hospital is simply amazing. Mr. Eddleman, Assistant Hospital Administrator at Texas A&M described it best when he said; “We are much more like a human hospital than a private veterinary practice. With multiple departments, services, laboratories, business functions, residents and interns, rounds, etc. our hospital operations are very similar to those in human hospitals. We utilize state of the art diagnostic imaging technologies, such as computer radiology, nuclear scientography, CT, etc. and employ highly trained staff.”
The Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences employs more than 40 veterinarians with specialties in just about every area of large animal medicine and surgery. These include Food Animal Medicine & Surgery, Equine Orthopedic Surgery, Equine Soft Tissue Surgery, Equine Lameness, Emergency & Critical Care, Ophthalmology, Radiology, Equine Dentistry, Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases & Environmental Health, Equine Theriogenology (Reproduction), Zoological Medicine and more. The majority of these veterinarians are Board Certified in their specialties – which means they have complete three years of residency training under a boarded specialist, logged the required number of cases and passed a grueling exam. In addition, the hospital has 8 -10 residents and interns. These are veterinarians who want to further their education and become board certified in a specialty area of veterinary medicine. Furthermore, there are more than 130 veterinary specialists in other disciplines employed by the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences with whom their clinicians can refer to. While most of us may not know what a majority of these specialties are, Texas A&M is ready to put these individuals into action when needed to help save a life.
As some of you may know, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicines veterinarians, technical staff, and facilities are among the best in the world. They have established multiple contingency plans and have systems in place to handle virtually any situation they are faced with. Texas A&M University’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital is open for emergencies 24-hours a day, 365 days per year making it a useful resource we all can utilize.
With foaling season already upon us the remainder of this article will focus on the Neonatal Large Aniaml ICU. I have seen the Large Animal Hospital, ICU and Neonatal ICU personally and it is simply amazing. Words cannot describe what you feel when you witness such a facility and cutting edge equipment for the first time. You hardly feel as if you are in an “animal” hospital at all. It is a place that if given the opportunity you should take a drive and witness this state of the art facility for yourself.
Foals are treated in the Large Animal ICU. Spring is the busiest time for the LA ICU as you can imagine. The staff can be faced with foals unable to stand and nurse to ones with major fractures needing supportive care. Several of the faculty clinicians are experts in the field of neonatal medicine and with board certification in either Emergency & Critical Care or Equine Medicine. In addition, LA ICU technicians receive extensive training in caring for and treating sick foals. A comforting thought when we are trying to save a sometimes very expensive investment.
The LA ICU is equipped with special tools and supplies to care for sick foals. They maintain a large stock of feeding supplies, milk supplements, starter feeds, and other items. It is common for foals to be tube fed or bottle fed when they are too sick to stand. As they improve, they are trained to nurse the mare or in the case of orphans, they are trained to drink from a pan.
Frequently, neonatal foals require continuous oxygen support, and a variety of fluids and plasma products. The LA ICU was specifically designed with foals in mind. The LA ICU is equipped with three large specially designed mare-foal stalls that allow them to separate and treat sick foals without removing them from the mare, ensuring the mare/foal bond as well as a less stressful situation for the foal. In addition, the LA ICU utilizes several rolling foal cages that can be placed inside or outside of the stall or rolled into the neonatal unit as needed. When I saw one of these cages it reminded me of a large steel crib. The neonatal unit is a part of the LA ICU designed to provide care to neonates (especially orphans) requiring very intensive care. Additionally, all the foal stalls and cages can be padded with custom-made pads to prevent the foals from injuring themselves.
Good nursing is crucial when caring for sick foals. Because foals can be so labor-intense, the Texas A&M staff has organized a group of approximately 100 student volunteers which they call the Foal Squad. They are available 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.
Until next month and Part Two of our series on Texas A&M.
