Eades Addresses Large Animal Department Activities During College Hour

Susan Eades College Hour

Susan Eades, head of the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ (CVM) Large Animal Clinical Sciences (VLCS) department, shared an overview of the research, education, and patient care occurring among the department’s 33 faculty, 18 house officers, 10 staff, and nine graduate students.

The presentation, on Dec. 8, was part of the CVM’s College Hour series.

“We have the opportunity to participate in all three aspects of the mission of the college, or the mission of any veterinary school,” Eades said. “Our faculty are particularly passionate about leading-edge patient care, but also with the mission of advancing diagnostic techniques through research and the imparting of knowledge to our students and to others through continuing education.

“We have the opportunity to meld all three of these, to learn from participating in our patient care and to know what are the important problems that impact large animal medicine and veterinary medicine as a whole,” she said. “That guides our research efforts.”

One of the areas of innovative and collaborative research Eades highlighted was in the radiology areas, where VLCS faculty are collaborating with Small Animal Clinical Sciences department faculty on a neurological project that evaluates how MRI can be used to predict outcomes associated with spinal cord injury.

“This is an example of translational research,” Eades said. “Spinal cord injuries are devastating in people and in veterinary medicine; in this aspect, they’re working with canine patients that have been clinically (diagnosed) with spinal cord injury as a way of evaluating that problem.”

In the area of teaching, Eades highlighted the collaboration with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).

Susan Eades Talking

Students electing to take the TDCJ rotation during their fourth-year clinical rotations gain hands-on experience in primary and emergency care through the CVM’s support of TDCJ’s 10,000 cows, 25,000 pigs, 1,400 horses, 1,200 dogs, and 250,000 chickens.

“The students basically direct the care under the supervision of these faculty, making it the largest, most diverse veterinary teaching laboratory in the country,” Eades said.

She also highlighted the food animal faculty’s involvement in mentoring.

“Students with a food-animal interest are identified in their first or second year and assigned to a food animal faculty mentor,” Eades said. “Our goals are to identify and foster career choices for these students, depending on their individual interests and needs, so they’re in a better position to have a successful and satisfying career in food animal and rural practice.

“There are eight students who graduated in 2017 from the food-animal track, the majority of whom are currently in food-animal or rural mixed practice,” she said. “There are currently eight students in the fourth year in the track and 13 students entering the track, in a class due to graduate in 2019.”

Finally, among the innovations in patient care, Eades described some of the applications of the “very busy MRI service for horses,” as well as the work of Dr. Leslie Easterwood, on the community practice service.

“She has brought a new technique to Texas A&M for treating periocular squamous cell carcinomas,” Eades said. “There have been a lot of horse eyes that have improved by using this technique. Interestingly, the reoccurrence rates of the tumor using this technique have been much less than that with other techniques used previously.”

Eades, who joined the VLCS department in May, praised the faculty and their dedication to the three areas, which are closely intermingled with the CVM’s Large Animal Teaching Hospital, adding that the examples she outlined in approximately 40 minutes were just a few of the many, many ongoing projects currently being conducted.

“They are a highly productive group of faculty, and it is my pleasure to be able to work with them,” Eades said.


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