Third-year Bachelor of Veterinary Science students Emma Milligan and Holly Hender.
A Massey University programme that has been providing discounted desexing surgeries for cats has reached 1000 surgeries.
The clinics have been running on Saturdays and Sundays at the Massey Veterinary Teaching Hospital since August 2017 with more than 300 staff and student volunteers involved so far.
The services are provided to community service card holders with a small fee charged to help cover costs of the anaesthetic drugs and surgery supplies, which the programme receives at a significant discount thanks to the generosity of Shoof, Zoetis, and Boehringer Ingelheim. SPCA Palmerston North sponsors free microchipping for all cats while the Massey Veterinary Teaching Hospital provides the facilities and equipment.
Programme coordinator Dr Carolyn Gates says a lot of people have the perception that it takes hours to supervise students through procedures or that the complication rates are much higher.
“It’s been quite the opposite. We had a fourth-year student last clinic spay a cat in under 30 min on her second surgery ever with suture lines that looked as good as mine and our complication rates have been almost no different than those seen in regular private practice. With an experienced teaching vet guiding the students through the entire procedure, there is a very low risk.”
All Massey Bachelor of Veterinary Science (BVSc) and Bachelor of Veterinary Technology (BVT) students can help out in various roles based on their experience level. These range from administrative and assistant roles for first year students (responsible for client communication, patient restraint, and medical record keeping) to anaesthesia and spay surgeon roles for fourth and fifth-year BVSc students.