Utrecht

May 23, 2010

I really enjoyed our stay in Utrecht, but I wish we could have stayed a little longer and seen more of the city. The train to Utrecht left Bonn early in the morning, so I slept the whole way there. As soon as we arrived in Utrecht, we toured the veterinary school there and learned how veterinary medicine is taught in Europe. I did not realize how different it was from American schools until now. Students here must be fully committed to one particular field within veterinary medicine (small animal, farm animal, or equine), but once they are accepted to the university then they do not need to apply to the veterinary school separately after receiving their Bachelor’s degrees. The first three years at the university earn them their Bachelor’s degree, and the next three years earn them their Master’s degree, which is all that is required in order to practice veterinary medicine in Europe. In addition to only needing six years to complete, it is also much more affordable than school in the U.S.! The teaching styles are also different. I like how professors cover all aspects of a single organ system before moving on to the next one, without using lectures as their primary method of teaching. At A&M, the information on each organ system is divided up and spread throughout different courses, such as anatomy and pathology, which are taken over the course of several years, and professors tend to use primarily lectures. Based on my experiences in veterinary school so far, I think maybe I would do better here in Europe! I was amazed when I saw their anatomy study room full of skeletons, plastinated models, and other preserved specimens. If I had had these kinds of resources to study, anatomy would have been so much easier! I might even have enjoyed studying it. I was also really impressed by their equine clinic; everything looked brand-new and state-of-the-art.
After the tour the Utrecht veterinary students had a BBQ and a party for us, where we met our hosts for the night. At this point, I was so tired I had been hoping to go to bed early. We all had a good time, though, and I enjoyed getting to know some of the Utrecht students. However, getting from the party to my host’s apartment for the night was an adventure. As we wandered the streets of Utrecht late at night, looking for a bus stop where we could catch a bus at that hour, we ended up walking down a dark, quiet, empty street. It was empty except for very tall, very drunk man who began walking beside us muttering to himself. My classmate Kat and I weren’t sure what was going on; we thought he might have known our host Tom somehow, since Tom seemed to know everyone. Then the drunk man started shouting at us, and most of it was either incoherent or not in English, maybe both. “This is my street!” was all we could really understand due to his slurred speech. At one point he gave Tom a little shove, so Tom calmly and politely apologized for walking down this street, explained that we hadn’t known the street belonged to him, and told him we would leave. Then we left as fast as we could, and luckily, the drunken man didn’t follow us. We decided to pay for a taxi to take us the rest of the way.
Early next morning we attended two presentations, one on public health and one on animal research. Although I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, I found both of these presentations interesting. Having suffered through two courses in veterinary public health already, I did not think I would enjoy Dr. Frans van Knapen’s lecture; but he really changed my opinion on the subject. In the next lecture, I was happy to hear about some research being conducted to improve the welfare of laboratory animals, which has always been a concern of mine. Our stay in Utrecht ended that afternoon with a tour of another part of the veterinary school where we saw, among other things, a historical exhibit of different horseshoes from those used in ancient times to modern ones used today. I was impressed by the sheer number of them, all in different shapes and made of different materials.