NAU feeds demand for veterinary techs

By Kayla Gahagan, Journal staff | Saturday, December 27, 2008

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The students in the National American University veterinarian technology program are never alone. There’s Prince Albert, the friendly deaf cat, and Jane, who’s blind and has asthma, and then there’s Buddy, a quiet black dog. They’re always underfoot, begging for attention, lounging in the halls, tiptoeing on tables.

By the end of the students’ two or three years in the program, the animals have become part of the experience. It’s because the NAU veterinarian program has become sort of a humane society catch-all.

While the students complete required courses through a university accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association, they also gain hands-on experience with local pets that have been referred by the Humane Society of the Black Hills or brought in by students, staff and faculty. It’s not uncommon for students and staff to end up with a few animals of their own.

“It seems every vet tech from here has adopted an animal from here,” said Jessie Nelson, who has adopted two dogs.

But the program isn’t all fun and love with animals, said Nelson, who is in her final year of the technician program.

“It’s no walk in the park,” she said, hovered over a microscope in a lab class.

“It’s definitely challenging.”

But it’s just one of the reasons Nelson and lab partner Crystal Madison said they enrolled. Madison is from Adrian, Minn., and also in her final year. She adopted three cats from the program. She is one of about 40 students currently enrolled in the program.

Students such as Madison and Nelson are in demand as fewer veterinary technology students nationwide graduate each year. NAU has seen a decrease in enrollment in the program in the past couple of years, and the school is banking on its reputation to carry it through, said Peggy Behrens, program chair for the department.

The program trains vet technicians and assistants, not veterinarians. Behrens likened it to the training between a nurse and a doctor. Technicians earn an associate of applied science degree in a two-and-a-half or three-year program, and assistants go through a one-year program.

There are only four things technicians and assistants cannot do: surgery, diagnose, prescribe or give a prognosis, Behrens said.

But they can give physical exams, take vital signs, draw blood, take X-rays, put on bandages, give medication, restrain animals, provide anesthesia and properly care for animals as large as a cow and as small as a hamster.

They must also learn the scientific background for medications and disease, bacteria and anatomy.

“Just coming into the program because you like dogs is not enough,” Behrens said. “There’s a lot of science involved.”

One of the best aspects of the program is that students learn how to assist during actual surgeries performed by one of the three veterinarians who also teach at the school. Eighty-five surgeries were completed last year.

“We’re kind of doing a community service,” Behrens said, “and that way we’re giving the students the chance to work with owned animals.”

Dennis Lively, a vet technician professor, said he hopes students learn more than just the basics. He hopes the students leaving NAU are so good at what they do that they enhance and draw clients to whatever vet clinic they work at.

Setting up programs where animal lovers learn how to provide a healthy lifestyle for their animals is one way to go above and beyond, he said.

“It’s a situation where every animal has an owner attached to it,” he said. “We have to work with the owner because we rely on them to take care of the animal.”

Some of NAU’s students go on to veterinary schools. There are no schools in South Dakota, and the closest are in Fort Collins, Colo.; Ames, Iowa; and Minneapolis. For now, the students continue their work in Rapid City, making friends with the animals who call the classroom building their home — such as Frankie, a dachshund who was brought into the humane society with what was thought to be a hernia and was going to be euthanized because of her poor health. Students from NAU brought her to the school and discovered she was actually pregnant.

They ended up delivering the baby during surgery via Caesarean section, Behrens said. “It was perfect timing, because she was ready to have the baby during surgery class,” she said.

Now healthy, Frankie waddles around the room as Behrens feeds cats and snakes and a bird and a pig, all being nursed back to health by staff and students. The dogs and cats are quick to show affection, nuzzling into her legs and arms.

For Annette Audrey, a veterinary assistant who graduated from the program in 2005 and stayed on to earn a bachelor’s degree in applied management, they’re easily the best thing about her day.

“(It’s) just being with them when they’re so happy, so lovey-dovey,” she said.

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com