Every year at Ohio State, one of the events we have is Vector Borne Disease Night, which is a learning experience for vet students in several ways. In order to participate, students have to complete an online quiz about various vector borne diseases that animals get, such as heartworm disease and Lyme disease. Once the students pass the quiz, they have the opportunity to order free heartworm/flea/tick preventive medication for up to two of their personal pets. The students then come to the scheduled events and run tests on their pets’ blood (in the case of dogs) to make sure that their pet is negative for all diseases before veterinarians write them a prescription to go and pick up their preventive meds.
It is a great learning opportunity for students as well as a great chance to save some money on needed pet preventive medications. However, it is a lot of work to coordinate this night, and it is entirely put on by the student representatives who represent the companies that are donating preventive products, as well as the tests to check pets for diseases. Rooms at the vet school for the event need to be reserved, all the companies need to be contacted to talk about donating products, approximations need to be made of how much of what we will need donated, the quiz for students needs to be made, etc. It takes a lot of planning and coordination to get everything to flow smoothly, but it is a great event. It is truly a night that takes a lot of collaboration from a lot of companies and people, and it is always a great thing to see.
