Local vet going back to the N.W.T. as instructor for spay and neuter program
A local veterinarian is headed north for a week to educate students and residents on spay and neuter practices for domesticated animals.
Hatter Andrea Storch is a vet at the Cypress View Vet Clinic, and graduated from the University of Calgary two years ago — where she first made a trip up north for the fourth year clinical study in the Northwest Territories.
Now for the second year in a row Storch is heading back to the Northwest Territories as an instructor.
“I’m very excited to be teaching up north for the second year now,” she said. “As part of the U of C’s vet program, fourth-year students need to complete this clinical as part of their curriculum — it gives them very valuable experience.”
Students and instructors will head to fairly isolated communities up north for two-and-a-half weeks, which are only accessible through icy roads, said Storch.
“One of the interesting things about this clinical is how remote the places we go are,” she said. “The communities are very different from anything we generally experience in our lives — they’re very small and cut off from other places.”
With a lack of resources available, these communities benefit greatly from this program, said Storch.
“With the communities being hard to access, they are lacking with their ability to spay or neuter their animals,” she said. “When the students and teachers go up there, we offer a very basic service to them, it’s nothing the students have not learned — so the couple weeks are great for everyone involved.”
Storch will be stationed up north for one week, from Feb. 11-17, and says she cannot wait.
“I’ve really grown to love it up there,” she said. “The people in the communities we work in are so great and welcoming — having a chance to go up to teach again is awesome for me.”