Day-1 competencies for swine-interested veterinary graduates

This work was generously funded by the American Association of Swine Veterinarians foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge the practitioners, faculty and members of the industry who participated in this project.

The competencies are divided into three categories:

  1. Basic CompetenciesEvery DVM graduate needs to be able to demonstrate proficiency.
  2. Intermediate CompetenciesEvery DVM graduate who is interested in swine practice needs to demonstrate proficiency.
  3. Advanced CompetenciesEvery DVM graduate who is interested in swine practice needs to know how to perform and may have performed these tasks while supervised.

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Basic Competencies

Basic Competencies for swine veterinary practice

Pig handling

  • Identify a pig with a marker
  • Pick up a piglet from a crate
  • Stand safely next to a sow or a boar
  • Restrain a piglet for venipuncture or IM injections

Swine husbandry

  • Take the rectal temperature of a pig
  • Identify a non-thriving or unhealthy pig (i.e. requiring attention) within a group
  • Give an intramuscular injection to a piglet and weaner pig
  • Choose the appropriate needle length and gauge based on the pig age, weight and product recommendation
  • Administer a medicine intra-nasally
  • Drain an abscess
  • Identify all organs in a pig (e.g. tonsils, lymph nodes, adrenals, spleen vs liver…)
  • Recognize when animals need to be euthanized
  • Resuscitate a pig
  • Identify behavioral challenges (e.g. tail and flank biting, belly nosing, and sham chewing)
  • Educate farm personnel to recognize neglect and animal abuse

Sample collection

  • Collect swab samples (e.g. nasal, oropharyngeal, rectal, vaginal)
  • Properly label, package and submit samples for diagnostics
  • Record keeping and results interpretation
  • Interpret a diagnostic report (e.g. serology, bacteriology, molecular biology)
  • Interpret an antimicrobial susceptibility testing report
  • Evaluate the results of a diagnostic report based on sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, and prevalence

Clinical reasoning

  • Identify indicators of disease (e.g. dyspnea, coughing, posture, diarrhea, paddling, piling…)
  • Identify foreign and reportable animal diseases in swine (ASF, CSF, Aujeszky…)

Treatment and prevention

  • Calculate medicine dosages
  • Write a prescription

Biosecurity

  • Enter and exit a farm following a biosecurity protocol: without showering

Communication

  • Take a relevant history of a case or a herd
  • Provide a treatment of action plan for a given animal or the whole herd
  • Communicate case findings to a client orally
  • Presentation of pros and cons to the client
  • Write a case report with recommendations for a client

Regulatory

  • Complete domestic health papers for interstate shipment
  • Complete international health papers for international shipment
  • Be familiar with exotic diseases/reportable diseases
  • Know how to report a Foreign Animal Disease to the State official
  • Know how to report animal cruelty or animal abuse

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Intermediate Competencies

Intermediate Competencies for swine veterinary practice

Pig handling

  • Move pigs from one pen to another (with or without a board, rattle…)
  • Snare a pig

Swine husbandry

  • Assess the body condition of a sow
  • Measure the back fat of a sow
  • Assess if a sow is in heat
  • Inseminate a sow
  • Perform a pregnancy diagnosis on a female pig
  • Give a peri-vulvar injection to induce a sow
  • Recognize when a sow needs assistance during farrowing
  • Sleeve a sow / assist during farrowing
  • Give an intramuscular injection to a sow in a stall or in a pen
  • Eartag a pig
  • Castrate a piglet
  • Clip a piglet’s needle teeth
  • Dock a piglet’s tail
  • Repair an inguinal hernia
  • Fix splay-legged piglets with tape
  • Recommend the appropriate and approved euthanasia method based on pig age and weight, clinical situation, and employee safety
  • Euthanize a piglet with CO2
  • Euthanize a pig with a captive bolt gun or via intravenous injection
  • Assess the suitability of a gilt for selection
  • Set up water medication device (e.g. Dosatron)

Sample collection

  • Collect oral fluids with a rope
  • Take a blood sample (e.g. jugular vein of young and adult animals, ear vein)
  • Perform a pig necropsy (young and adult animals)
  • Collect a full set of tissues from a pig
  • Collect feed and water for testing
  • Calculate the number of pigs necessary to sample to detect a pathogen depending on the population size and the disease prevalence

Record keeping and results interpretation

  • Interpret barn-level recorded information (e.g. sow cards, barn/treatment sheet)
  • Interpret production records (e.g. sow farm, grow-finish, marketing reports)
  • Recognize when a production parameter deviates from expected performance
  • Select the appropriate diagnostic test depending on clinical signs, the disease differential and the farm situation
  • Identify bacterial post-mortem contaminants on a bacteriology report

Clinical reasoning

  • Perform a walk-through of a swine unit
  • Define differential diagnoses for high-priority problems
  • Work up a farrowing scour case
  • Work up a post weaning scour case
  • Work up a reproductive failure
  • Work up a respiratory case
  • Work up a CNS case
  • Develop an initial treatment plan or immunization strategy

Treatment and prevention

  • Use AMDUCA to select appropriate antimicrobials
  • Identify which  antibiotics can not be used extralabel
  • Be familiar with the common drug classes, active principles and trade names used in swine medicine
  • Design a treatment protocol
  • Design a herd vaccination plan
  • Calculate water medication mixing proportions
  • Write a VFD

Biosecurity

  • Enter/exit a farm following a biosecurity protocol: shower-in, shower-out
  • Load and unload pigs in a trailer without breaching biosecurity
  • Introduce/remove materials into/from a farm respecting biosecurity protocols
  • Evaluate the biosecurity level of a farm / perform a biosecurity audit
  • Identify major biosecurity risks in a swine facility

Communication

  • Write a visit report including an intervention plan for a client or production personnel
  • Create a partial budget to evaluate interventions

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Advanced Competencies

Advanced Competencies for swine veterinary practice

Swine husbandry

  • Collect a blood swab from a boar
  • Collect semen from a boar
  • Assess the suitability of the environment based on pig age and weight
  • Trim feet
  • Detusk a boar
  • Perform a C-section on a female pig
  • Vascetomize or epididymectomize a boar
  • Perform a swine welfare audit
  • Evaluate housing design based on the needs and the age of the animals

Record keeping and results interpretation

  • Identify how production parameters can be influenced
  • Work through a false positive/false negative case
  • Interpret financial records

Clinical reasoning

  • Prioritize a problem list in the context of welfare, health and production performances
  • Revise a proposed treatment plan or immunization strategy based on client expectations and economic considerations.

Biosecurity

  • Provides a written biosecurity plan that is auditable
  • Develop a gilt isolation and acclimatization plan
  • Perform a transport biosecurity assessment (audit)
  • Identify high biosecurity risk areas in a feedmill

Communication

  • Make a decision tree to evaluate interventions

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