Jelgava opens veterinary simulation centre for 300 students annually

Jelgava has opened a modern veterinary medicine simulation centre where about 300 students will practise each year, LSM reported. The centre includes simulators for animal surgery, emergency medicine, childbirth assistance, diagnostics and other procedures.

The centre will allow students at the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies to develop clinical skills safely before working with live animals. The university says veterinary medicine is in demand among students, while the sector is also facing a shortage of specialists.

The Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre at the university’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine has six laboratories equipped with veterinary simulators, animal anatomical models and diagnostic equipment, including tools for surgical training.

The centre’s director, Armands Vekšins, said students could practise taking blood from a vein in a cow’s tail, inserting tubes before anaesthesia and working with models of dogs’ limbs.

An emergency medicine simulator allows students to rehearse trauma scenarios involving dogs and other animals. The reproduction laboratory includes simulators for assisting with difficult births.

Students can also practise examining a large cow and calves positioned in different ways, as well as responding to scenarios involving a dog whose breathing stops, becomes rapid or begins bleeding from an injured leg.