Despite being accredited by the AVMA, the Utrecht veterinary program is extremely different from ours. Students begin the six year program right after high school, and admission is primarily decided by a lottery system unless an individual has extremely high grades or very specific interests. Grades are on a 10 point scale and a 5.5 is considered passing. If a student fails a course, he or she can retry until a passing grade is earned; in fact, some students take 10 years or more to complete the program. Additionally, the method of teaching is all systems based, meaning instead of covering various subjects (anatomy, physiology, pathology, medicine, etc.) they cover body systems and organs (renal, hepatic, digestive, etc.). Instead of taking five or six classes for an entire semester, each course only lasts about six weeks, and students take two or three at a time. While lectures are still given, learning is much more group-project and individual-study based. Finally, the students do not have to pay for their own education; the cost of attending a university is covered by taxes.
While this system, to us, may seem like a vet school utopia, it has its advantages and disadvantages. If necessary, students can take time off from school and restart at nearly any time without being set a year behind, or they can repeat a course if needed. However, by our standards, the students did not seem to take the program as seriously as we do; they party a lot more, and when they took us out for a night on the town (on a school night!) we just couldn’t keep up. We ended up dragging them away from the party at 2:30 in the morning, although many of them would have preferred to stay until 4:00 or 5:00.
During our visit, we toured various areas of the vet school and heard the story of Androclus and the Lion.
The veterinary symbol in Utrecht is based off of an ancient myth in which a Roman slave, Androclus escaped the city. Outside, he sought shelter in cave, but in that cave, he found a wounded lion. Androclus removed a thorn from the lion's paw, drained the pus, and bandaged the wound. Later, Androclus returned to the city, where he was sentenced to die. The emperor placed the slave in a pit to be eaten by a lion. However, the lion remembered Androclus and did not attack. Impressed by the bond between the slave and the lion, the emperor pardoned Androclus, and he was allowed to live in the city with the lion. This legend is sometimes considered the birth of veterinary medicine.
Everyone in our program was blown away by the anatomy study room available at Utrecht. The skeletal and plastinated specimens were more numerous and were of much higher quality than ours. The study room was set up like a museum, or Body Worlds exhibit, with displays in glass cases and written explanations available for each display. Plastinated models were available to study abdominal topography, blood vessels to the brain, and other topics that are difficult to study on dissected specimens. Students had access to the room at any time, and computers were available for reviewing notes. It is truly a shame that A&M does not have a similar facility available. Students could effectively study any aspect of anatomy without having to pull out formaldehyde soaked cadavers, put on gloves and lab coat, and lock themselves in the anatomy lab for hours on end.
We also toured the very impressive equine clinic at the Utrecht vet school, which was much larger than the large animal clinic at A&M.
In the evening, the Utrecht veterinary students held a barbecue for us. We ate a variety of grilled meat and vegetables, drank wine and beer, and got to chat with our Dutch colleagues. I think everyone enjoyed discussing the differences between our programs, and despite those differences, we clearly shared a common bond through our experiences in veterinary school.
After the barbecue, our Utrecht hosts took us to a Vet-Inn party. Thankfully for me, the DJs were not playing the normal R&B/rap and instead were playing hard techno. I got quite a bit of dancing in, but I’m not sure the regulars knew what to make of me. Despite much synthy-crunchy-goodness, the music eventually just felt too repetitive, and many of my classmates were really ready to leave, so I found Tom, and Sarah and I headed to his place to crash.
That Friday included a full day of lectures at the vet school. We listened to a public health talk from a speaker who was actually extremely interesting; he discussed the differences in food safety procedures based on economy and level of development in a country, and he explained to us the concept of vertical farming. Next, we listened to a talk on animals in science and society, and we learned how veterinary clinicians can use the research that is currently being conducted at Utrecht about animal emotion and cognitions. The researchers hypothesize that there is a correlation between an animal’s anxiety and its perception of pain, so that a more anxious animal will feel more painful after a surgical procedure. I find this research fascinating as Dr. B. often adjusted drug dosages slightly based on an animal’s behavior. We also got to meet many of Utrecht’s lab animals, and we watched this little guy stuff the pouches in mouth full of food pellets – so cute! After lunch, we heard a talk on veterinary history, which I also found very interesting.
Unfortunately, I had to cut out of the program a bit early to catch my train to Leipzig for the weekend; so, I missed the rest of the tour around the Utrecht facility.
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