CEDA and University of Minnesota Host Vet Clinic in Blue Earth

By Joshua Schuetz

Veterinarians are critical to the economies of rural communities. This June, the City of Blue Earth partnered with the University of Minnesota Extension and the Faribault County EDA to increase interest in veterinary work as a career path for local students.

CEDA team member Amy Schaefer led the push for the project. Schaefer has been active in working to bring veterinarians to the Blue Earth area.

The veterinary camp helped local students better understand the work veterinarians do.

“Having a veterinarian is important because our agriculture producers rely on local veterinarians for animal health-it affects the health of our food supply,” Schaefer said. “Not having a local veterinarian puts our producers in a predicament of whether to continue being producers, and it affects other local businesses that rely on those producers.”

Schaefer worked with the University of Minnesota Extension to bring a veterinary camp to Blue Earth. Students from the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine traveled to Blue Earth and provided instruction for 35 middle and high school students.

A Blue Earth Area student participates in an exercise at the veterinary camp, hosted by Blue Earth and the U of M.

Each age group spent half of the day with veterinary students, who guided them through a series of exercises meant to simulate real-life scenarios veterinarians encounter. Some of these exercises, such as blood drawing, entailed the use of dummies to replicate clinical settings.

Schaefer said Compeer Financial provided funds for students to tour local farms and ag businesses. She noted the impact of losing producers due to the veterinarian shortage; not only farms are affected, but so are businesses that rely on those farms, such as butcher shops, stockyards, lockers and banks that service agriculture producers.

Attending students were engaged and enjoyed the experience, as did the veterinary students teaching them.

“The students were very engaged and everyone did awesome-the University’s veterinary students did awesome too-they put together a program that kept people engaged for four hours,” Schaefer said. “At the end, attending students said that they loved the experience and wanted to have it again.”