Local veterinarian shares Mongolia teaching experiences
Sandwiched between China and Russia, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated country on the planet, with just 3 million people. But it’s also home to 48 million livestock.
Forty percent of the population relies on animals for their livelihood. Yet few herders regularly work with veterinarians and most have a general distrust of the profession. Vets get little hands-on training and lack access to most modern medicines.
This is the surprising landscape the two local veterinarians, Kelley and Andy Denome, found when they traveled to rural Mongolia’s rolling green hills in the summer of 2011 to volunteer with a veterinary mission group.
“Our role was to support and mentor the local vets, not to be the vets,” said Kelley Denome, a professor in the Vet Tech program at Yakima Valley Community College during a recent public presentation about her Mongolia experience.
It was difficult not to be a veterinarian when they were around sick or injured animals, she explained, but it did more good in the long term to stick to a mentoring role.
When a foal needed hernia surgery, Andy Denome coached two Mongolian vets through their first attempt administering anesthesia and first hernia operation, and the horse survived.
Horses are a huge part of Mongolian culture, from Genghis Khan’s 12th century soldiers on horseback building an empire that stretched across Asia to present day nomadic herders with cellphones and satellite dishes who still migrate to different grazing grounds with the seasons. Kelley Denome said it was difficult at first to reconcile the Mongolians’ obvious respect for their horses with their practical decision to also eat them.
The vet who was their guide and translator told her that “Nobody loves horses more than Mongolians do,” Denome said. “He told me ‘We love our horses so much that we have to eat them. Why would we waste them?’”
The rural Mongolians they visited eat mainly meat and dairy products, Denome said, and she tried local delicacies such as dried cheese, fermented mare’s milk and beef kabobs cooked over a dung fire.
“If you ever have the opportunity to eat yak butter, I urge you to take that opportunity. It’s delicious,” she added.
The Denomes traveled the countryside in an 1950s-era Russian van with two Mongolian vets, an accountant and a driver, trying to convince herders and vets alike of the value of modern veterinary medicine. The monthlong trip was organized by the Christian Veterinary Mission’s Mongolian organization, V.E.T. Net.
The accountant was key because both herders and vets often lack business skills, Denome said, a lasting legacy of communism in the country. After breaking from the Soviet Union in 1990, Mongolia became a democracy and began working toward a market economy.
V.E.T. Net wants to demonstrate that investing in the animals’ health, such as vaccinating sheep or buying mineral supplements for cattle, could pay off over the long term.
Traditionally, the herders valued having more animals rather than fewer, healthier animals, but Denome said Mongolia is now pushing beyond its open range limits.
“There’s a serious overpopulation problem, which leads to overgrazing,” Denome said. Overgrazing leads to declines in pasture quality, which is a big problem because since the animals only graze, they aren’t supplemented with grain.
Although there’s lots of work to be done to improve vet training, the availability of equipment and medications, and sustainable grazing, Denome said she was encouraged by how many young vets and herders were excited to learn more about modern techniques.
Many of the rural vets she met had shiny new microscopes that had been donated by other aid groups, Denome said, but no one knew how to use them. That’s the sort of education gap that V.E.T. Net and volunteer work from vets like the Denomes, are trying to fill.
“Donating money and equipment don’t solve problems alone,” Denome said, “We can do a lot of harm when we don’t know what the issues are and just throw things at it, like microscopes.”
Forty percent of the population relies on animals for their livelihood. Yet few herders regularly work with veterinarians and most have a general distrust of the profession. Vets get little hands-on training and lack access to most modern medicines.
This is the surprising landscape the two local veterinarians, Kelley and Andy Denome, found when they traveled to rural Mongolia’s rolling green hills in the summer of 2011 to volunteer with a veterinary mission group.
“Our role was to support and mentor the local vets, not to be the vets,” said Kelley Denome, a professor in the Vet Tech program at Yakima Valley Community College during a recent public presentation about her Mongolia experience.
It was difficult not to be a veterinarian when they were around sick or injured animals, she explained, but it did more good in the long term to stick to a mentoring role.
When a foal needed hernia surgery, Andy Denome coached two Mongolian vets through their first attempt administering anesthesia and first hernia operation, and the horse survived.
Horses are a huge part of Mongolian culture, from Genghis Khan’s 12th century soldiers on horseback building an empire that stretched across Asia to present day nomadic herders with cellphones and satellite dishes who still migrate to different grazing grounds with the seasons. Kelley Denome said it was difficult at first to reconcile the Mongolians’ obvious respect for their horses with their practical decision to also eat them.
The vet who was their guide and translator told her that “Nobody loves horses more than Mongolians do,” Denome said. “He told me ‘We love our horses so much that we have to eat them. Why would we waste them?’”
The rural Mongolians they visited eat mainly meat and dairy products, Denome said, and she tried local delicacies such as dried cheese, fermented mare’s milk and beef kabobs cooked over a dung fire.
“If you ever have the opportunity to eat yak butter, I urge you to take that opportunity. It’s delicious,” she added.
The Denomes traveled the countryside in an 1950s-era Russian van with two Mongolian vets, an accountant and a driver, trying to convince herders and vets alike of the value of modern veterinary medicine. The monthlong trip was organized by the Christian Veterinary Mission’s Mongolian organization, V.E.T. Net.
The accountant was key because both herders and vets often lack business skills, Denome said, a lasting legacy of communism in the country. After breaking from the Soviet Union in 1990, Mongolia became a democracy and began working toward a market economy.
V.E.T. Net wants to demonstrate that investing in the animals’ health, such as vaccinating sheep or buying mineral supplements for cattle, could pay off over the long term.
Traditionally, the herders valued having more animals rather than fewer, healthier animals, but Denome said Mongolia is now pushing beyond its open range limits.
“There’s a serious overpopulation problem, which leads to overgrazing,” Denome said. Overgrazing leads to declines in pasture quality, which is a big problem because since the animals only graze, they aren’t supplemented with grain.
Although there’s lots of work to be done to improve vet training, the availability of equipment and medications, and sustainable grazing, Denome said she was encouraged by how many young vets and herders were excited to learn more about modern techniques.
Many of the rural vets she met had shiny new microscopes that had been donated by other aid groups, Denome said, but no one knew how to use them. That’s the sort of education gap that V.E.T. Net and volunteer work from vets like the Denomes, are trying to fill.
“Donating money and equipment don’t solve problems alone,” Denome said, “We can do a lot of harm when we don’t know what the issues are and just throw things at it, like microscopes.”
Comments
Post a Comment