College of Veterinary Medicine

Objectives | Faculty & Staff | Prerequisites & Application | Employment & Benefits | Orientation | Advisors & Mentoring | Clinical Service Responsibilities | Teaching Responsibilities | Educational Opportunities | Graduate Program | Research & Scholarly Activity | Evaluations | Specialty College Requirements | Board Certification

Objectives

• Develop comprehensive, state-of-the-art expertise and clinical proficiency in small animal surgery;
• Satisfy the criteria necessary to qualify for Board Certification;
• Prepare for future career goals of teaching, clinical research, scientific publication, or specialized practice; and
• Attain the Master of Science degree in a specified area of research endeavor.

Faculty and staff

Faculty

• Soft Tissue Surgery
  • Dr. Christopher Adin, DVM, MS, DACVS
  • Dr. Mary McLoughlin, DVM, MS, DACVS
  • Dr. Kathleen Ham, DVM, MS, DACVS
• Orthopedic Surgery
  • Dr. Matthew Allen, VetMB, PhD
  • Dr. Jennifer Au, DVM, DACVS
  • Dr. Jonathan Dyce, MA, VetMB, MRCVS, DSAO, DACVS
  • Dr. Bianca Hettlich, metvet, DACVS
• Clinical Instructor
  • Dr. Tatiana Motta, DVM

Current residents

• Katy Townsend, DVM (July 2009 - July 2012)
• Jason Callard, DVM (July 2010 - July 2013)
• Lauren Pugliese, DVM (July 2011 - July 2014)
• Vincent Wavreille, DVM (July 2011 - July 2014)

Current Intern

• Aimee N. Brooks, DVM

Small Animal Surgery staff

• Mary Ross, RVT (Team lead - Small Animal Surgery)
• Kim Palmer, RVT
• Kristie Brush, RVT
• Matt Kerzee, RVT
• Amy Wilcoxon, RVT
• Lynea Lilley, RVT
• Tomi Spyker, RVT
• Tracy Marsh, RVT, CCRP (Team lead - Rehabilitation)

Prerequisites and application

• You must meet admission requirements to The Ohio State University Graduate School without conditions - see Residency Program Handbook, CVM Graduate Program Handbook and Graduate School Handbook
• Applicants must be graduates of an AVMA-Accredited or faculty-approved College or School of Veterinary Medicine with academic standing in the top 50% of the class
• Applicants must have completed a one-year rotating internship or acceptable equivalent clinical experience
• Residents who are foreign nationals (non-US citizens) must be in possession of the appropriate visas and work authorization as outlined in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences – see Residency Program Handbook.
• In addition, foreign nationals must also meet the requirements of the university Graduate school for the Test of English as a Foreign Languages (TOEFL) or Michigan Test of English Proficiency (MTELP) – see Graduate Program Handbook.

Employment and benefits (see Residency Program Handbook)

• Salary
• Health insurance
• Book/travel allowance
• Personal + Professional days leave (from policy)
• External consultation and employment
• Licensure

Orientation

• During the first few days at the commencement of the residency program, all incoming residents participate in a comprehensive orientation program to introduce them to the department, college and university, to complete necessary documentation, and to facilitate integration into our program and activities.

Advisors and mentoring

• Each resident is assigned a clinical advisor at the beginning of the program. The advisor can be changed according to the individual needs and interests of the resident.
• Academic advisor
  • The principal academic advisor is decided once the area of research is decided.
• Thesis committee
  • Once the specific area of research is selected, an Advisory committee will be formed to provide advice in the development of a specific research project, during the project and to completion of the study. Typically, the Advisory committee serves as the Examination committee for the thesis defense. These committees must consist of at least 3 graduate faculty members.
• Mentoring
  • Case management is carried out with the guidance and collaboration of experienced faculty who are recognized experts in their respective fields.

Clinical Service responsibilities

• Program rotations are designed to ensure development of clinical competence in soft tissue, orthopedic and neurosurgical subspecialties.
• Residents rotate every 4 weeks among the clinical services within the Section of Small Animal Surgery. Additional rotations through other clinical services may be arranged during the 3-year program.
• All residents participate with the emergency clinician in operation of an emergency service on a rotating basis on evenings, weekends and holidays.
• Clinical rotations facilitate development of clinical proficiency, clinical skills, and knowledge of surgery through exposure to a wide variety of cases at all levels of complexity. This goal is facilitated by location of the teaching hospital in a large metropolitan area that provides a rich variety of case material as well as a referral base that includes Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Michigan. Case management is carried out with the guidance and collaboration of experienced faculty who are recognized experts in their respective fields. State-of-the-art equipment and facilities are available to develop technical expertise in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
• According to ACVS guidelines, at least 94 weeks of the 156-week program must be spent on a surgical service under the direction of an ACVS Diplomate; of these 94 weeks, at least 12 must be under an alternate ACVS Diplomate. All 156 weeks are recorded in the Activity section of the Resident Training Log.
• Also according to ACVS guidelines, the degree of responsibility assumed by the resident shall be appropriate to the nature of the surgical procedure and training experience. The resident on a surgical service shall be responsible for:
  • Receiving clinic appointments and obtaining history and pertinent information from client
  • Supervising daily management of hospitalized animals
  • Participating in clinical teaching
  • Providing optimal clinical service and prompt professional communications
  • A minimum of 400 surgical procedures will be required in the small animal curriculum. These are subdivided into Core Curriculum Categories. Residents must perform a minimum number of procedures within each of these categories. These procedures are tracked using the Cases section of the Resident Training Log.

Teaching responsibilities

• Teaching responsibilities include clinical teaching of senior and junior veterinary students assigned to the residents ward or emergency service.
• Residents also participate in teaching small animal surgery skills to junior veterinary students during laboratories.
• Interested residents will be given the opportunity to develop lecture skills by preparing and delivering selected formal classroom lectures to professional students.
• In addition, according to ACVS guidelines:
  • Seminar Requirement: The resident must present a minimum of 6 different seminars during the program. Seminars may not include multiple presentations of the same topic or lecture. These seminars must be documented in the Resident Training Log.
  • Definition of Seminar: An oral scientific presentation that is followed by a discussion period.
    1. Program Directors need to be sure that their residents do in-depth presentations to peer audiences.
    2. Lectures to students that are supervised, attended and critiqued by faculty can be counted toward this requirement.
    3. Unsupervised lectures, case rounds presentations, presentations to audiences consisting solely of veterinary students or reviews of single journal articles will not count towards this requirement.
  • Surgery Residents' Rounds Presentations: The resident must regularly present cases at surgery residents' rounds. The Resident Advisor must attest to the resident's attendance at rounds on a weekly or bi-weekly (every two weeks) basis.
  • Clinical Teaching: The resident is required to participate in the clinical education of graduate veterinarians and/or veterinary medical students assigned to the surgical service rotations.

Educational opportunities

• Numerous specialty seminars, conferences, and journal clubs are available to residents.
• A required weekly case orientated conference provides an opportunity for residents to enrich their clinical problem-solving skills.
• A comprehensive selection of graduate level courses in small animal surgery provides residents with relevant course material for partial fulfillment of the MS degree requirements.

Graduate program (see Residency and Graduate Program Handbooks)

• The residency requires concurrent enrollment in the Master of Science program, and all residents are expected to maintain their coursework without compromising clinical responsibilities. Senior faculty and other residents on the rotation will maintain flexibility in scheduling so as to accommodate the required coursework.
• Original research or clinical investigation leading to scholarly publication is required. Significant research and a thesis are required of residents in the 3-year combined program leading to the MS degree.
• The college's Council on Research reviews proposals and administers funds for research projects. Opportunities also are available to collaborate on extramurally funded research projects with faculty in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Department of Veterinary Biosciences, or in other departments on campus including the College of Medicine.

Research and scholarly activity

• MS thesis ( see Residency and Graduate Program Handbooks)
• Publication requirement: Each resident must submit at least one scholarly paper to a refereed journal prior to completion of the residency program. For specific guidelines for manuscripts that would meet ACVS credentialing requirements, please refer to the ACVS Resident information brochure http://www.acvs.org/Residents/InfoBroch/Resid/
• Residents in the graduate program are expected to prepare and submit their thesis research for publication.

Evaluations

• Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences: Formal Resident Performance Evaluations are completed by December 1st and June 1st each year. Details of the nature and structure of these evaluations can be found in the Residency Handbook.
• A formal resident evaluation form (as adopted by the Graduate Studies Committee) is completed, presented to the resident for discussion. Once finalized the evaluation is distributed to the resident, Department Chair, Section Head and the Graduate Studies Committee Chair as a matter of record.
• ACVS Requirements: Residents must meet with their Resident Advisor at least twice a year for evaluation of performance and progress. The Resident Advisor must document this evaluation as part of the Semi-Annual Review section of the Resident Training Log. Residents should complete entry of all log items in the ACVS Resident Training Log prior to each semi-annual review.
• The ACVS is responsible for: Evaluation of each resident's progress annually as documented in the Resident Training Log, and communication of deficiencies to the Program Director, Resident Advisor and resident. If there are deficiencies deemed to be significant to the Resident Credentialing Committee's (RCC) ability to evaluate thoroughly a Resident's progress, the resident may be required to correct and resubmit training items.

Specialty college requirements

• Develop Residency plan:
  • Must include 94 weeks ACVS Diplomate supervised clinics, 31 weeks Specialty Rotations.
  • Specialty service training – 80 hours in each required specialty (anesthesiology, radiology, pathology, internal medicine/critical care).
  • Identify Resident Advisor during first calendar quarter.
  • Publication/research (Publication must be accepted by approved journal prior to August 1 of the year in which credentials are submitted.)
  • Review Core Curriculum (Forms 2-EQ, 2-LA, 2-SA)
• Initiate and maintain documentation of training using the web-based Residency Training Log. Submit items for verification by the Resident Advisor or approval by the appropriate specialty board Diplomate:
  • Surgery cases
  • Activity weeks
  • Seminars
  • Specialty service rotations
  • Supervisors
• File Registration of Resident Advisor (Form 1b) within the first calendar quarter. Retain copy.
• Become familiar with candidate requirements for ACVS and with the General Information Guidelines of ACVIM

Board certification

• We offer a comprehensive didactic and clinical training program that we believe provides excellent preparation for successful completion of the ACVS board certifying examinations.
• It is important that our residents realize that although eventual board certification is clearly anticipated, our primary goal of our training program is to encourage and assist our residents in becoming highly skilled and expert surgery clinicians.