Editor’s Note: In their fourth and final year of veterinary school, students are required to complete a series of two-week clinical rotations in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. This article is one in a series that highlights those rotations.
As the only academic center devoted to swine medicine, the Swine Medicine Education Center (SMEC) attracts fourth-year veterinary students from across the country.
Kendall Sattler, a fourth-year student at Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, was one of those students.
Sattler recently completed a two-week clinical rotation in Advanced Swine Medicine along with several other veterinary students.
“The emphasis that Iowa State places on hands-on learning as well as the opportunity to see multiple different production systems under the guidance of experience veterinarians made it an easy decision to take this rotation,” Sattler said. “I had heard great things about the SMEC program from other practicing veterinarians and know that Iowa State has a strong reputation in swine medicine.”
During the two-week rotation, Sattler and her fellow veterinary students traveled to multiple swine farm sites. There they not only assessed the sites, but they developed diagnostic plans.
But it was the hands-on experiences that really made a difference. Zoe Mason, a veterinary student at the University of Arizona, also participated in the rotation.
“I did not really have any hands-on skills in production swine medicine and this course gave me the opportunity to jump and experience what being a production swine veterinarian is like,” Mason said. “I feel this rotation gave me a good understanding of how to approach a case and farm and the different people and resources available to me in practice.”
Students were able to discuss their findings with veterinarians as well as diagnosticians in Iowa State’s world-class Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory on multiple occasions when they learned about the sample submission process and interpretation of diagnostics results.
This part of the rotation was what struck with Iowa State PhD student Laura Solia Avila.
“The rotation helped me deepen my understanding of herd-level diagnostics, production data interpretation, and communication between veterinarians, producers, and diagnostic laboratories,” she said.
According to Sattler, the interaction she and others had with swine veterinarians will be beneficial long after the rotation concluded.
“I was able to build professional connections with veterinarians whom I may collaborate with and ask questions of after I graduate in a few short months,” she said. “It was also great to hear different perspectives from a room full of experts in swine medicine.”
October 2025