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.
Instead of working directly with animals in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center, the students on the Beef Production Medicine clinical rotation headed out to area farms.
There the students interacted with local producers, each of whom gave a different perspective.
“It was very useful getting to see the producers side of things that we may take for granted being in veterinary medicine,” said fourth-year student Alexis Bordy.
Those different perspectives range from the cost of vaccines, implants or other treatment procedures.
“The thing from this rotation that will stick with me the most is remembering that every situation can be viewed from many different angles,” Bordy said, “and I must take into account these differences to be a successful veterinarian.”
In addition to observing beef cattle facilities up-close and personal, the fourth-year students also learned about the consulting side of the veterinary profession.
“We were able to evaluate records from local beef producers and practice evaluating different parameters of their herd,” said fourth-year student Rachel Moseley. “This rotation gave me real-life problems I will experience in practice and made me work through them with a team.”
In addition to visiting local farms, the vet students received didactic lectures on a variety of beef cattle topics including benchmarks for producers, abortion investigation and vaccine protocols.
The students even conducted Johne’s testing of a beef cattle herd. Johne’s disease is an infectious and incurable gastrointestinal disease that can result in weight loss in cattle.
Bordy said the Johne’s discussion was her favorite part of the rotation.
“Johne’s was a confusing subject for me to tackle in the classroom, but having an actual herd situation to apply it to made the concepts much clearer regarding initial diagnostic steps as well as long-term prevention and management for the herd,” she said.
December 2025