bring 'em to ingham

The HPSS played the 2009 home opener this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Mason at the Ingham County Fair - and there's certainly no place like home! Once again, we talked to a record number of people! In fact, on Thursday we talked to over eight hundred of you!

It was great to see a few familiar faces and a lot of Spartans in the crowd, and just as in Ionia, we got a lot of help from local veterinarians. Dr. Meining came out on Friday and she was excellent! She brought a bunch of great radiographs and went through them with some very smart fair-goers. There are certainly a lot of future radiologists in the Ingham County area!

On Saturday, Dr. Rode came out to check out the HPSS 2009 and I think its safe to say that she was quit impressed! Of course, Dr. Rode jumped right in with the student coordinators (and was awesome highlighting some of the very cool aspects of veterinary medicine) and led some of you through the pyometra spay surgical video.

Midway through a couple of delicious elephant ears on Saturday . . . the Ingham County fair director came by with some exciting news: The lieutenant governor of Michigan wanted to come by and check out the Healthy Pet Surgical Suite (how cool!). The student coordinators plus Dr. Rode made short work of the elephant ears, brushed off any remaining cinnamon sugar, straightened up the demos, properly folded down their lab coat collars, and put on their very best welcoming smile for the lieutenant governor himself! He did come by as promised, and he wasn't disappointed (not that we were worried). He even stuck around to get his picture with us!

Now Saturday morning was actually a VERY rainy morning, but we are starting to think that a little bit of rain must just get Erin's creative juices flowing. She came up with an awesome bovine rectal palpation demonstration that actually allows fair-goers to don the full-arm-glove and reach into the rectum of a Holstein cow (made out of posterboard of course)! The best part is . . . she included a delicious tootsie-roll-like surprise inside! What a sweet idea, and a great way to teach you more about large animal veterinary medicine.

Well we are off to Sanilac today (in about five minutes actually)! We will continue to keep you posted and keep you excited about veterinary medicine and the many adventures of the 2009 HPSS!