Elm Creek Equine Veterinary Services

Summer Student Positions Available

Elm Creek Equine is an equine exclusive three-doctor vet practice serving southern Manitoba. We are hiring 2 summer students for our 2024 season – one primarily to work at our Oakbank Location (sports medicine, hospitalization, racetrack) and one primarily to work at our Elm Creek Location (reproduction and rehabilitation).   

A little more about us:

Elm Creek Equine was founded in 2016 by Dr. Gillian Dobson (2013 graduate from WCVM). The practice started as solo ambulatory and has developed in the past 7 years to be a 3 doctor, 2 location practice that provides services to clients from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Minnesota. Our first location is our Elm Creek Location, known commonly as “the farm” – this is Dr. Dobson’s home yard and is home to our reproduction and rehabilitation programs. We currently have 11 stalls spread between 3 barns (2 isolation stalls, 6 stalls in the main barn and 3 stalls in the stallion barn) and have outdoor facilities for approximately 40 horses during our peak summer season. We normally have about 4 full time employees each day at our Elm Creek location providing reproductive care, foaling monitoring, rehabilitation services, and haul-in appointments. Patient care is huge to us and our barn management team provides excellent service to the horses in our care.

Our new location is a boutique hospital located near Birds Hill Park in the beautiful Oakbank area. Oakbank is North East of Winnipeg and is a very dense horse population. Our new clinic boasts a beautiful reception, pharmacy, treatment room, and 2 stalls meant primarily for equine colic and short-term hospitalizations.

We have 2 fully stocked equine ambulatory vehicles that travel daily to farm calls: we have an F250 with a chassis mounted Bayhorse (truly the best vet truck out there!) as well as a Chevy Tahoe with a Stonewell Slide-In Clinic. They are both awesome set ups and will give future vets a great idea of vehicles to work out of.

What we do:

• Equine Reproduction:
  • Mare Breeding Management with Fresh and Frozen Semen
  • Broodmare subfertility diagnostics and treatments
  • Embryo Transfer
  • In-Clinic Foaling
  • Stallion Collection
  • Semen Processing and Freezing
  • Breeding Soundness Exams
  • Complete semen analysis lab: phase contrast microscopy, iSperm, Dyneval, etc.

• Equine General Practice
  • Equine wellness service: Complete physical exams, sheath cleans, equine oral exams with routine dental treatments on farm.
  • Vaccinations, Coggins, stall-side medicine and diagnostics
  • Neonatal and post foaling wellness exams
  • Gastroscopy 

• Equine Sports Medicine
  • Comprehensive and advanced lameness evaluations: nerve blocks, flexion tests, lunging and ridden evaluations,
  • Imaging: digital radiographs, ultrasound, endoscopy
  • Joint injections and ultrasound guided injections (intralesional or joint)
  • Rehabilitation: Laser, Shockwave, Chiropractic, Acupuncture
  • Regenerative Therapies: IRAP, ACP, Prostride, Stem Cells 

• Advanced Equine Dentistry:
  • Comprehensive oral exams (not just sharp points!)
  • Periodontal Disease Treatment
  • Dental radiographs
  • CT referral when indicated
  • Advanced extractions: EOTRH extrations, tooth sectioning, partial coronectomy, etc. 

• Racetrack Practice:
  • Thoroughbred Racing: Potential for exposure to regulatory practice
  • Standardbred Racing: Potential for exposure to regulatory practice. Routine racetrack practice including pre-race evaluations and treatments, upper airway endoscopy, post race treatments, and treating common racing illnesses and injuries

• Equine Hospitalization:
  • Internal medicine cases in neonates and adults- colic and colitis cases, pneumonias, severe wounds, eye injuries with SPL management, etc.
  • In house diagnostics: CBC, Chemistry, automated Parasight machine, SAA

• Field Surgeries:
  • Wound repair, castrations, enucleations, STM surgeries, caslicks, sequestrum and foreign body removal, debulking granulation tissue/sarcoids, etc, septic umbilicus resections (foals), hernia repairs (foals)
  • Note: at this time we do not offer referral equine surgeries such as abdominal surgery in adult horses, athroscopies, advanced airway surgeries, etc. We offer referral and encourage our summer students to follow the cases through the referral process

What our students get to do:

We are passionate about cultivating the next generation of equine vets and get our students as involved as possible in the day to day of equine practice. We refer to the AAEP Core Competencies list (Core Competencies for New Veterinary School Graduates | AAEP) and focus on developing these clinical skills in our students. We have two positions open, and the specific skills depend on which location the student is placed in. Students in our repro position will get more experience with hospitalized cases, foal management, all reproductive procedures, and medication administration (SC, IM, IV and oral). Our students that show good engagement and proficiency at simple skills are moved to advanced skills. Our upper year students often perform joint injections, upper airway endoscopy, pass nasogastric tubes, and perform stallion collections, mare breeding techniques including biopsies, insemination, and lavages and become proficient to the point of independence. So far all our graduated summer students have been successful in a career in the equine field! References available from grads and current students.

We have no shortage of work over the summer and provide students with generous overtime pay as well as a fully immersed experience with equine practice.

Based on the nature of this practice, we require at least basic competency in handling all types of horses.

Interested to find out more? Drop me a text or email and I am happy to chat! We look forward to hearing from you!

 

Gillian Dobson, DVM

gilliandobson@elmcreekequine.com

(204) 750-0737