careers and recruitment

Advancing proficiency in animal surgery

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Marcel Perret-Gentil, DVM, MS, University Veterinarian & Director, Laboratory Animal Resources Center, The University of Texas at San Antonio, TX Dr. Perret-Gentil describes how he went from being a military veterinarian to being a ­s pecialist in laboratory animal surgery and discusses the importance of adequate t­ raining in surgical techniques for ­maintaining animal welfare. After you earned your veterinary degree, you joined the US Army Medical Veterinary Corps. How did this work lead you to pursue a career in laboratory animal medicine? As a kid, I was always interested in ­b ecoming a veterinarian. During my third year of veterinary school, a friend told me he was going into the military, and that c­ aptured my interest. I joined the Veterinary Corps for 8 years, working on military bases in South Carolina (Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot), Puerto Rico (Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Ceiba) and Mississippi (Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi). The base in Puerto Rico was very isolated, and I came to know a number of military surgeons on the base who assisted with some of my procedures. I learned a lot of surgical skills through them and became ver y interested in ­pursuing a career in animal surgery. I applied to obtain a residency in ­surgery through the veterinary corps, but they only accepted one veterinarian to the ­program every 3 years, and I was their ­second choice for the spot. Even though my ­interest was really in surgery, I also hoped to do work that contributed to human medicine in some way, so I decided to try ­laboratory animal medicine. I requested an a­ ssignment at Keesler Air Force Base, and I spent 2 years doing laboratory ­animal medicine there. Next I applied to ­residency programs in comparative medicine. During

LAB ANIMAL

my ­i nterview with the program at the University of Washington in Seattle, I was able to negotiate for myself a dual ­training program in comparative medicine and experimental animal surgery. What inspired your interest in minimally invasive surgical methods for laboratory animals? During my residency at the University of Washington, I was mentored by a f­ aculty member in the surgery department who was a co-director of the minimally i­ nvasive ­surgical program. He was w ­ illing to embrace my self-designed training ­program, and I’m very thankful for that. I still participated in the department of ­comparative medicine and became a lab animal veterinarian, but I was also able to perform surgeries and conduct my t­ hesis project with the surgery ­department. Certainly, minimally ­invasive surgery appealed to me in p ­ articular because it was my mentor’s field and he was so ­accommodating to me. Training has been a prominent focus of your career. Why do you think it is so important for laboratory animal personnel to be adequately trained in surgical techniques? A lot of institutions will provide ­animal technicians with good methodology ­t raining programs, and yet the surgery training is really lacking. If you think about it, the procedures with animals that can lead to the most pain and distress are most ­typically surgery and post-operative recovery. So if you want to make sure that animals are provided with the best care, adequate training in surgical techniques is a great way to promote good animal ­welfare. And I’ve seen the results: people



that are properly trained do so much better with the a­ nimals, and their post-operative recovery is far s­ uperior, when compared to those that have not received formal ­training in surgery. Doing webinars for the Veterinary Bioscience Institute has been a fairly easy way to share my surgical experience and knowledge. When Szczepan Baran and I began developing the training ­program, we wanted to develop a minimally ­invasive surger y training program but soon ­realized this would be too in-depth. So we went back to the basics and ­developed ­technique-dependent webinars in ­invasive surgery, progressing from basic to more complicated surgeries. Each year we ­develop more and more courses, and it has been a great venue to reach a lot of people. Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers? Whether surgical or non-surgical, when good animal procedures are followed, ­animals are less stressed. Not only are the animals happier, but also the i­ nvestigators are happier because their results are more reliable. So I consider the p ­ romotion of good practices to be part of our ­contribution not just to animal welfare but also to medical research.

Volume 43, No. 8 | AUGUST 2014 295

Advancing proficiency in animal surgery.

Dr. Perret-Gentil describes how he went from being a military veterinarian to being a specialist in laboratory animal surgery and discusses the import...
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