Current Events For Interviews

[sbpettech]

Hey Everyone,

I was hoping we could start a thread of current events that are being asked about in the interviews. It sounds like they might ask anything vet or non-vet related. For those that have gotten interviews I know there could only be a few days after finding out before the actual interview. It would be great to have some ideas just to think about while waiting for schools to respond.

Thanks

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[lailanni]

Great idea! I second it!

I know the horse slaughter issue has been talked about -- but I don't know much about it. Could someone point me to a good place to get info?

 

[RockStarKDub]

Horse slaughter:
http://www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/unwanted_horses_faq.asp

In general, the AVMA is a great site for all of your current veterinary issues wants & needs:
http://www.avma.org/issues/default.asp

 

[bovine]

In my interview at Ohio State I was asked about veterinary issues in the news recently. The most recent news topics were related to horse slaughter and avian influenza, but they were looking for me to talk about hoof and mouth and BSE even though they had not been in the news lately.
I guess that is a round about way of saying don't just look at the most recent issues go back a little farther also.

Hopefully I make some sense. Its late and I am tired but I can't sleep. So what better to do than post on SDN

 

[sbpettech]

Does anyone know a good "beginner" article for these diseases. I'm a small animal guy and don't have a lot of experience with the food animals. I remember looking last year for a few articles and found some good ones but forgot where they were.

I was also thinking of the pet food recall, national shortage of vets in food animal field, and how animal euthanasia has been compared to lethal injection.

happy brainstorming

 

[DaNNo]

Avian flu was mentioned at my OSU interview.
UPenn didn't mention current events, etc.

 

[rustysmom]

this just got posted on AVMA's web site yesterday about bovine slaughter -
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/mar08/x080315a.asp

this thread is a great idea! hadn't even thought about avian flu but since I have an interest in public health, I probably should read up on it.

Found this FAQ about BSE on the AVMA web site: http://www.avma.org/communications/brochures/bse/bse_brochure.asp

another topic that may come up is pets being abandoned in foreclosed homes. I live in Michigan (our economy is not well and we have many, many foreclosed homes ) and they had a brief story about this subject a few days ago on the local news. Since I'm interviewing at Mich. State next week, I am somewhat expecting this issue to be brought up. There's a FAQ on the AVMA web site about this... http://www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/pets_foreclosed_homes_faq.asp

good luck to those of us with interviews this weekend and next week!

 

[FlyOnTheWall]

Topics to avoid:

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/family-life/pets/top-10-pet-stories-2007.html

 

[fargeese]

For foot and mouth, look up news stories from the UK, as it was a major economic disaster over there. In fact they just had a small outbreak in Surrey recently, but suspect it had to do with humans from the FMD research facility nearby, which of course brings up the topic of zoonotics as possible terrorist weapons. I know if anyone ever figures out how to make tuleremia (rabbit fever) easily spreadable most of us would die, and painfully.

I spoke in my interview about the need for more veterinarians in government, as we can't watch everything now, and something like 60 percent of those gov't vets are within 10 years of retirement. It's great that our dogs and cats will be well, but it's going to suck when we have to cull millions of cattle because we didn't catch a disease coming in from abroad because there weren't enough PH vets to track the disease.

Animal rights versus Animal welfare is always interesting, especially now that PETA is giving money to the ELF (a homegrown terrorist organization that started out as tree huggers and now likes to blow up power plants).

The avian flu is good to talk about as well, as it's popping up everywhere, and just needs a mutation or two to be easily passed from human to human.

I like this website for reading about different public health issues, it is updated daily:

http://www.usaha.org/index.shtml

Good luck. FYI, I was able to reference an article I had read on Wednesday from that website in my interview yesterday, it was so money (though I did know it, ha ha)

 

[lailanni]

Animal rights versus Animal welfare is always interesting, especially now that PETA is giving money to the ELF (a homegrown terrorist organization that started out as tree huggers and now likes to blow up power plants).

Off topic, but... stupid ELF torched one of our buildings on campus a few years back. Destroyed the whole building and ruined lots of research.

But there were some cornsnakes inside the building. They took the cornsnakes outside.....and then torched the place.

ELF (earth liberation front) and ALF (animal liberation front) are indeed terrorists. Jerks.

 

[VelcroSky]

Just a side note here...I was checking out the articles on the AVMA site. There is one about preventing dog bites. A paragraph that explains what to do if bitten by a dog:

If bitten, request proof of rabies vaccination from the dog owner, get the owner's name and contact information, and contact the dog's veterinarian to check vaccination records. Then immediately consult with your doctor. Clean bite wound with soup and water as soon as possible.

Do you recommend chicken soup or cream of mushroom?

 

[shuvball1]

HAHA perfect, what a comical error!

Anyway, I was asked about West Nile, the tiger escape, and cock fighting. Maybe some things to take a look at. I've not been asked any questions on BSE or AI yet. Maybe at MSU?