Large Animal Practice

The aim of the LARGE ANIMAL PRACTICE course is to provide the student the clinical method allowing the diagnosis of farm animal diseases and management of herd health and reproduction.
This class allows to acquire a systematic approach to clinical examination and clinical procedures including case history and symptoms collection, differential diagnoses formulation, choice of collateral exams and formulation of diagnosis, prognosis, therapy and prophylaxis for the herd.
Regarding reproduction, the class aims to provide theoretical and practical knowledge for the clinical management of the most common reproductive disorders of farm animals, including the basic management of male reproducers, the control of the estrous, surgical and obstetric techniques.
Moreover, the course provides the knowledge related to the management of veterinary drugs in farm animals, guiding the students to a responsible and ethical use of veterinary medicines, to the traceability of treatments and the prevention of antibiotic resistance using a one-health perspective.

Knowledge and understanding
Students have to demonstrate to know and to fully understand the clinical decision making in large animal practice: starting from the knowledge of medical, surgical and reproductive pathology and from clinical symptoms, the student formulates a diagnosis, employing if necessary, the most suitable collateral exams. The student should therefore prescribe or perform a therapeutic or prophylactic treatment for the individual or for the herd. Students will have to demonstrate moreover to know and understand procedures for farm animal reproductive management.
Appling knowledge and understanding
The student must demonstrate to have fully understood the clinical decision-making procedure in large animal practice during theoretical and practical classes in order to diagnose and set a treatment protocol for a large animal and to manage the reproduction and health of the herd.
Making judgments
The student will have to demonstrate the ability to formulate differential diagnosis according to clinical signs, symptoms, progress of the pathology and collateral exams. The student will deal with the subject in a critical and proactive way, studying the teaching material, textbooks and articles from scientific databases.
Communication
The student will have to demonstrate the ability to communicate the acquired skills with suitable medical terminology in order to share scientific knowledges with colleagues or to write clinical reports. Moreover, the student will learn to communicate the same information with nonprofessional people (i.e. the animal owner)
Life long learning skills
Students must demonstrate to be able to learn and to collect bibliographic information in order to increase by themselves knowledges in large animal practice.