By guest author Alexander W. Strauch, DVM ('17), MBA. Strauch is a staff veterinarian at the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association and a poultry veterinarian at Four Star Veterinary Service, LLC, as well as a member of the MSU CVM Alumni Advisory Council.

For this blog post, I thought it fitting to borrow the phrase “time, talent, and treasure” after hearing a close veterinary colleague, Dr. Stephen Steep of Oxford Animal Hospital, mention it during the most recent Alumni Advisory Council meeting. This succinct, categorical description perfectly summarizes the resources that we as veterinarians possess and can share with veterinary students and veterinary colleges. There are multiple ways to effectively engage DVM students, LVT students, and veterinary colleges with a win-win-win goal in mind—to generate student, College, and veterinary industry benefit.

Effective engagement between the practicing veterinary community, veterinary colleges, and veterinary students should be a net gain for all involved. It’s valuable to consider this “triple bottom line” approach when assessing the cost-benefit ratio of giving time, talent, or treasure to students. By engaging with students, whether through volunteer work or honorarium, professionals can gain non-monetary benefits such as strengthening their network, increasing practice visibility, enhancing public relations, and experiencing personal fulfillment—all valuable forms of 'pay-back' for stepping away from day-to-day case management. It should also be noted that student engagement includes interacting with DVM and LVT students, which broadens the audience for practicing DVMs and LVTs to share the “three T’s.”

Some examples include:

• LVTs providing a dentistry Lunch-and-Learn to LVT students
• DVMs leading a vaccination wet lab for DVM students
• DVMs giving a talk to LVT students about the physical exam process
• LVTs teaching phlebotomy to DVM students

A pre-existing avenue for these types of student engagement opportunities already exists in the form of the famous “Lunch-and-Learn” —where practicing DVMs and LVTs can travel to the College and present on a particular topic, usually to a particular audience in the form of a veterinary club, during the mid-day lunch break. In these instances, students receive educational content and networking access to the presenters, the presenters receive networking access to the student attendees, the College receives supplemental training of their students, and everyone gets lunch. These Lunch-and-Learn opportunities are often underutilized by the practicing veterinary medicine community— I recall most of the sessions I attended during veterinary school being led by industry representatives. In an ideal scenario, a practicing DVM and LVT combo could take a half-day trip to the College, present for 45 minutes, exchange contact information with multiple students, and foster relationships that could lead to summer interns, externship participants, and even future employees. Results may vary, but the infrastructure is already there —it’s available if one chooses to take advantage of it.

Below are three personal successes I’ve had with veterinary student engagement that have branched across the categories of time, talent, and treasure.

Serendipitously, I was able to host a group of fourth-year DVM students who were in their Production Animal Clerkship during my monthly visit to a layer farm client in West Michigan last year. This half-day field trip (time) allowed me to give students access to a commercial egg farm (treasure) and teach them my standardized field necropsy approach for adult laying hens (talent). The connections made between me, the farm manager, the professor, and the students were valuable enough that another iteration of this on-farm wet-lab is scheduled for later this year.

I’m always happy to see invitations to speak (time) at the MSU CVM Food Animal Club Lunch-and-Learns when they appear in my inbox. With my email address passed down from E-Board to E-Board, it would appear that the students have liked my PowerPoints on laying hen medicine (talent) enough to invite me back year after year. A lot of the value for me comes after the presentation, when I get to meet the obligatory, sole poultry-curious student from each graduating class. Fortunately, some of these connections have evolved into industry colleagueship (treasure).

I also look forward to my annual pilgrimage to Fee Hall on MSU’s campus every winter (time). As part of the didactic portion of the students’ curriculum, I provide an interactive live lecture to third-year DVM students (talent). Unsurprisingly, the case report that I lead the students through involves a flock of chickens; however, the overall emphasis is on applying the clinical case investigation approach used for individual patients in a hospital setting to a herd health scenario, regardless of species. While I add all of these lectures to my CV (treasure), meaningful value also comes from the inspiration I feel watching students connect the dots in real time and realize their own capabilities.