AVC vet campers ready to learn about veterinary medicine!
The Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) at UPEI is geared up to host the wildly popular Dr. Tim Ogilvie AVC Vet Camp, introducing junior and senior high school students to the exciting world of veterinary medicine. The program, which includes four one-week camps, begins July 10.
For the first time, there are two camp coordinators leading the pack of campers—third-year AVC student Lindsay Gallant and second-year student Julia Skinner.
“I knew I wanted to pursue a career in veterinary medicine when I attended the AVC Vet Camps in 2011,” said Gallant, who comes from Prince Edward Island. “These camps will always hold a special place in my heart, and now I’m excited to see new campers have fun and learn.”
Skinner, who hails from Nova Scotia, wishes that she had known about the camps when she was younger.
“It’s a unique camp that offers students a great overview of the veterinary profession, giving them an opportunity to do really cool things like fish and heart dissections. I would love to have done this when I was a teen.”
Gallant and Skinner, along with four other counsellors, will guide 221 eager campers from grades 7–12 over the course of the month, giving them a chance to experience the world of veterinary medicine. There will be a variety of hands-on activities, such as learning how to do physical examinations on dogs and suturing on a silicon suture pad, as well as educational labs, field trips, and discussions with staff at AVC.
While all the Vet Camp sessions have an educational component, there are some that will stand out as an experience of a lifetime. Falconry demonstrations, a field trip to a dairy farm, and even learning about how to care for animals with disabilities are geared toward helping the young campers learn how to care for their own pets while also appreciating the care and work veterinary medicine professionals do each and every day.
For the camp coordinators, they hope the camp inspires a new crop of students who aspire to become veterinarians.
“I hope to work with some of the vet campers in the future,” Skinner said.
