Veterinary Specialty Center (Bannockburn, IL)

CLINICAL ACTIVITIES:

• Major learning objectives of the externship
  • Receive practical, real-world clinical experience from a large, emergency & specialty referral hospital and VetCOT Trauma Center
  • Gain insight into the career paths of various specialties
  • Refining critical thinking and problem-solving skills by performing patient assessments, assisting with procedures, learning medical protocols, and practicing clinical decision-making
• Expected hours for daily activities (i.e. discussion/rounds, observation, online learning, and/or clinical experience)
  • didactic lectures- one hour daily
  • Patient review/discussion rounds- one hour daily
  • Clinical experience- 8 to 10 hours daily
• Day-by-day schedule
  • Morning didactics from 7am-8am, Grand Rounds 8am-9am, with department specialist until end of day. Internal Medicine is 7am-6pm M-F.  Appointments are seen in the morning and procedures and discharges are done in the afternoon (every day).  We have six total IM doctors and the externs time might be split among all of them, depending on extern's interest and the daily caseload. However, most externs in IM stay with Dr. Noonan for the bulk of their time.
• Volume/type of caseload
  • Hospital-wide, we see a daily average of 124 outpatients, 20 inpatients, 16 surgeries, and 41 emergencies. We are a small animal practice. Dogs and cats only.
• Activities:
  • Students are expected to listen to phone or exam room conversations with owners.
  • We encourage students to familiarize themselves with cases and practice formulating differentials, diagnostic, and therapeutic plans for patients.
  • Accompany the internist to do initial physical exams and (typically) repeat them. Once the patient visit has started, the student may be asked to help with the following tasks:
    • Record history in the medical record.
    • RDVM medical record review, if relevant – transcribe pertinent findings into the medical record if appropriate.
    • Write a physical exam/take exam notes for the doctor – this may or may not go in the medical record, depending on the case and the doctor. Even if the internist would prefer to enter his/her own exam in the record, the student should take the opportunity to write exam notes for every patient seen during the shift.
    • Formulate a problem list with differentials and be prepared to discuss this with the internist.
    • Formulate a plan and be prepared to discuss with the internist.
    • Formulate a discharge plan and be prepared to discuss with the internist.
    • Help the doctors and technicians with patient work-up – this may include helping with venipuncture, obtaining radiographs, point-of-care ultrasound, obtaining/delivering medication, etc.
    • Assist with internal medicine procedures, such as endoscopies, bronchoscopies, FNAs, bone marrow aspirates, trach./broch. washes, CSF collection, feeding tube placement, ballooning, joint taps, etc...
    • Accompany the patient to its various diagnostic or therapeutic destinations – ex. ultrasound, CT, surgery.
    • Assist the technicians with patient treatments and care, set up and breakdown of procedures, and end of day clean up.
  • What to do with downtime:
    • Read about the underlying condition of the patients.
    • Research answers to questions asked during interactions with the primary doctor.
    • Ask the technicians if you can do anything to help.
    • Ask to see cases or watch procedures on patients being seen by other doctors or follow an internal medicine patient who has been transferred to a different doctor/department.
• Case Examples in Internal Medicine:
  • Endocrine disorders- such as complicated diabetics, addison's disease, cuching's disease, pancreatitis
  • Gastrointestinal diseases- such as esophageal strictures, megaesophagus, esophageal dysmobility, GI and esophageal foreign bodies, IBD, PLE, perianal fistulas
  • Hepatic disorders- such as potosystemic shunts, microvascular dysplasia, hepatic lipidosis, cirrhosis, cholangiohepatitis, gall bladder disease
  • Immune-mediated diseases- such as IMHA, IMTP, evan's syndrome, immune-mediated polyarthritis
  • Infectious diseases- such as leptospirosis, FIP, blastomycosis, babesiosis, cryptococcosis

SCHOLARLY ACTIVITIES:

• We have daily didactic rounds/lectures for our interns, residents, and externs from 7am to 8am. They include:
  • Journal Clubs- ECC, Sx, and IM
  • Didactics/Lectures- ECC, radiology, neurology, rehab, integrative med, cardiology, social work/client communication, internal medicine, anesthesia, surgery, ortho rounds, ECG rounds, oncology, and radiation therapy
• Intern/Resident Presentations are monthly 

Veterinary Specialty Center has been the leading multidisciplinary referral center in the Midwest since 1975. We have been honored as one of the Chicago Tribune’s Top Workplaces. Over the past fifty years, we have grown into a team of more than 60 veterinarians & specialists, 204 technicians/assistants, 61 support staff members, and twelve departments.In October 2022, we moved into our new hospital located in Bannockburn, IL. In addition to being a state-of-the-art veterinary specialty facility, our new 78,000 sq. ft. home has a net-zero carbon footprint, electric vehicle charging on-site, solar panels, rooftop green space, 24-hour employee fitness center, meditation lounge, and much more! We are a LEED-certified building (for the betterment of the environment) and built to WELL-certified specifications (for the health and well-being of the staff).

.Our current specialty services include Anesthesiology, Cardiology, Clinical Pathology, Dermatology, Emergency, Critical Care, Grief Counseling and Social Services, Integrative Medicine/Acupuncture, Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Neurology, Medical and Radiation Oncology, Pain Management, Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging, Rehabilitative Therapy, and Surgery. In addition, each service is well-staffed with certified veterinary technicians and technician assistants, and we have several board-certified VTS technicians in ECC, Anesthesia, and Internal Medicine.

We have all the equipment you would expect to find at a large referral facility. In addition, we have advanced diagnostic & treatment modalities, such as an in-house professional diagnostic laboratory (U of I), 3T MRI, 64-slice CT, fluoroscopy, nuclear scintigraphy, digital & computed radiology, Varian Truebeam linear accelerator, endoscopy, ten ultrasounds, laparoscopy/thoracoscopy, interventional radiology, minimally invasive surgery, thermography, hemodialysis and other extra-corporeal therapies, two underwater treadmills, cold laser therapy, acoustic compression therapy, high flow oxygen therapy, mechanical ventilation, viscoelastography, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

All students are expected to mirror the hours of the service they are externing with, averaging 40 hours per week and 5-6 days per week.  All students will present in the morning for 7 am didactics, then attend grand rounds at 8 am.  After rounds, they will disperse to their chosen specialties. 

Beyond that, expectations will vary by department.  Because we are a private-practice, for-profit, referral hospital, a large portion of the extern's time will be spent shadowing the specialists.  Please refer to our guidelines handout. 

2051 Waukegan Road
Bannockburn, IL 60015
United States