Q. What were your goals for entering the internship?
A. My goals were wide, including a variety of wants, hopes, and needs, such as bonding with veterinarians, getting hands-on work with surgeries, learning to be patient, learning to diagnose patients, learning to be brave around cattle, and learning general veterinary skills.

Q. What was your favorite experience as an intern?
I really liked working in the sale barn because it helped me overcome my fear of cattle. The sale barn is not for the weak, as you need to constantly be aware of your surroundings and watch the backs of everyone else. I highly valued the time I spent there, as I am more confident in my ability to work with cattle and feel that I can understand how they act in high-stress situations.

Q. What were some of your veterinary experiences with Sioux Nation Ag Center?
At the Sioux Nation Pet Clinic in Sioux Falls, I helped with surgeries by assisting with sedation and pet restraint, clipping, and cleansing the surgical space. During my time there, we had an interesting cryptorchid surgery to address testicles that were still in the animal’s abdomen.

My time at the Freeman clinic was spent helping bleed bulls, collecting samples for testing, reading ultrasound images during preg checking dairy cattle, and sleeving cattle. Obtaining and checking semen samples took up a lot of my time at the Freeman clinic, where I also restrained animals, administered shots, and poured dewormer on cattle, sheep, and goats. There, they dealt with many different abscesses and treated a number of hoof issues, including objects in the hoof, sprains, broken joints, foot rot, and objects wrapped around the hoof.

I learned how to IV a cow, helped remove a mammary tumor and completed more hoof work and semen testing at the Scotland clinic. Then, while at the Viborg clinic, I learned about antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medicines, logged more time doing hoof work and semen testing, took some turns bleeding horses, and was able to put in a couple of closing stitches on a dog spay.

Q. What were your final reflections on your veterinary internship at Sioux Nation Ag Center?
This veterinary internship opportunity was a huge learning experience for me. I know now that I want to be a mixed animal veterinarian. Each and every single one of the individuals I worked with during this internship helped me gain confidence in myself and know my mind well enough to have confident answers to the problems I will be solving in the future. I was constantly told that if you are not confident in yourself and what you are doing to each patient, then why treat them? Confidence and the ability to adapt and keep trying are some of a veterinarian’s highest qualities.

Sioux Nation Ag Center invests time and effort into students like Gretta throughout the year, scheduling them with our team of veterinarians, whose mentoring and hands-on instruction are vital to the training and experience of the next generation of veterinarians. This is another way we actively support the current and future needs of small—to medium-sized regional producers.