By William White

Published: March 22, 2008

Academic and athletic competitions, day trips and lectures filled the last day’s schedule for vet students from across the U.S. attending SAVMA Symposium 2008.

Hosted by the veterinary medical student bodies of Tuskegee and Auburn universities, the symposium brought approximately 1,000 students from the U.S. and Canada to different events at both the Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine (TUSVM) and Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine (AUCVM).

“SAVMA Symposium 2008: Two Schools-One Dream” is the theme for the four-day Student American Veterinary Medical Association (SAVMA) Symposium.

Participants could take advantage of an array of educational and scientific programs, and special events including wet laboratories, day trips, academic competitions, lectures and speakers on topics ranging from clinical to non-clinical subject matters.

Among the academic competitions, students from Iowa State, LSU and Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine participated in a two-part Equine Aging competition Saturday morning.

The first part required the students to take a written test on aging horses and the second involved actually going out and looking in several different horses’ mouths and guessing the actual age of the horse.

Working as a team, four students from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine placed first with the written test. The team included Stacie Boswell, Jennifer Crain, Amy Doernte and Molly Conca.

A single student from LSU, Charles Edwards, who said he is interested in working with sheep as a vet, won the hands-on, age-guessing event.

Along with judging the age of horses, students could compete in a radiology challenge, bovine palpation or in athletic competitions like a tug-o-war, roping, flag football, bowling and golf.

The symposium ended Saturday evening with Dr. Robert M. Miller, a world renowned speaker and author on horse behavior and natural horsemanship, as keynote speaker.