Any available resource -- Emily Shen

August 28, 2026

Emily Shen, AVC 2027, travelled to Port Hope Simpson as one of the student participants on the Chinook Project. As part of the experience, the students craft various pieces of writing.

Emily castrating a patient on floor, problem solving.

Practicing rural medicine has always been a curiosity of mine – the Chinook Project was an incredible opportunity to serve communities where veterinary services are not easily accessible. The clinic ran for long hours with large numbers of surgeries scheduled each day. To efficiently work through each surgical procedure, especially with veterinary students that are generally inexperience with surgeries, we had to coordinate each sedation and procedure to ensure that as soon as one patient left the surgery table, another one was being brought over.

With only two surgery tables, transferring patients from the induction table to the surgery table became a problematic bottleneck. One solution for smaller patients was to position two animals on one table with a shared large drape to allow for more surgeries to be occurring at the same time.

This photo represents another solution – my patient’s size worried us regarding safety during the transfer to our fold-out surgery tables. Also, if the patient were to become light under anesthesia, this would be a serious issue. Although not an ideal surgical space, performing the surgery on the floor was ultimately the best decision. Performing this surgery came with its challenges – limitations in lighting, maintaining sterility of my instruments, and decreasing the surgical time to protect the site from environmental contamination.

Emily (R) with Abby P and Abby N, recovering patients.

Castrations are generally less invasive compared to spays and thus requires less time, so I used that to my advantage to limit contamination and minimize post-operative complications. I felt a deep sense of pride after completing this surgical procedure – it was certainly out of my comfort zone, and I pushed myself to have the confidence to carry out the castration as safely as possible. I was beaming in this photo, so thrilled with this opportunity. Not only was I proud of myself, I was so grateful to the rest of my team for encouraging me throughout the procedure, and humbled that the owners trusted me with their beloved pet.