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Despite companion animal primary care being the most common career choice for veterinarians, relatively little is known about students' perception of this career choice. In this study, the authors examined students' (233 at Time 1 and 119 at Time 2) perceptions of careers in companion animal primary care and whether perceptions changed over the course of an academic year or differed by year in veterinary school. The study was conducted by an online questionnaire sent to the student email listserv and the results analyzed by Mixed ANOVAs for each perception outcome. The study concluded that a majority of veterinary students have companion animal primary care as their preferred career choice and have a positive perception of it as a career choice. This positive perception increased over the course of an academic year, but did not differ significantly by year in school. First year students had a decrease in perception of level of training over time. This study sets a baseline for students' perceptions of companion animal primary care as a career choice at one college of veterinary medicine., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Nappier, Corrigan, Borowski and Lusk.)

Background: Bacterial urine culture is recommended in dogs suspected of having urinary tract infection (UTI), but there is expense and delay in obtaining such results., Hypothesis/objective: To determine the diagnostic performance of a rapid immunoassay (RIA) dipstick for detection of bacteriuria using voided urine from dogs with clinical signs of lower UTI., Animals: Twenty-four client-owned dogs., Methods: Voided urine was collected and the RIA performed within 30 minutes. Urine collected by cystocentesis was submitted for aerobic urine culture. McNemar's test and kappa coefficient were calculated to determine agreement between the 2 tests., Results: Nine of 21 dogs (43%) had UTI verified by aerobic urine culture. There was 1 false-negative and no false-positive RIA results. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the RIA were 89%, 100%, 100%, and 92%, respectively., Conclusions and Clinical Importance: This RIA is promising for correctly identifying whether or not voided urine samples from dogs with lower urinary tract clinical signs have true bacteriuria in a rapid, inexpensive manner. Additional patients should be enrolled in a similar study to determine if diagnostic performance is robust in a large population., (© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.)

Good sleep health is a key component to good personal well-being. It has been postulated that veterinary students have poor sleep health, but few measurements have been undertaken. This study measured Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Epworth Sleepiness Scale values at multiple points throughout an academic year for students in a veterinary medical curriculum. Students were found to have overall poor sleep quality and above average to excessive daytime sleepiness. Further investigation is necessary to determine specific causes as well as what action can be taken to improve student sleep health.

Preventive health care visits to primary care veterinary practices in the United States have been on the decline over the past decade. One of the main factors that has been identified is a lack of understanding by pet owners regarding the importance of preventive care. The Partners for Healthy Pets Opportunity Survey was adapted for use in this study to determine whether there were differences in perceptions of a veterinary health care team between team members and clients, specifically regarding preventive care specifically within the Community Practice service of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Results of this cross-sectional study revealed that the clients and veterinary health care team tended to be aligned in most areas regarding companion-animal preventive care. There were some specific areas that differed, including a disconnect regarding components of feline wellness visits, reliable sources of medical information, and strength of recommendations from the veterinary health care team. The Partners for Healthy Pets Opportunity Survey could be adapted for use in other university-based companion-animal general-practice teaching environments to better understand differences between clients and the veterinary health care team regarding preventive care and thereby improve educational and service goals of primary care veterinary education. Efforts to better understand and mitigate potential communication gaps between pet owners and veterinary health care teams have the potential to improve preventive care not only in university-based practice but also in private clinical practice.

The number of companion animal wellness visits in private practice has been decreasing, and one important factor cited is the lack of effective communication between veterinarians and pet owners regarding the importance of preventive care. Checklists have been widely used in many fields and are especially useful in areas where a complex task must be completed with multiple small steps, or when cognitive fatigue is evident. The use of checklists in veterinary medical education has not yet been thoroughly evaluated as a potential strategy to improve communication with pet owners regarding preventive care. The authors explored whether the use of a checklist based on the American Animal Hospital Association/American Veterinary Medical Association canine and feline preventive care guidelines would benefit senior veterinary students in accomplishing more complete canine and feline wellness visits. A group of students using provided checklists was compared to a control group of students who did not use checklists on the basis of their medical record notes from the visits. The students using the checklists were routinely more complete in several areas of a wellness visit vs. those who did not use the checklists. However, neither group of students routinely discussed follow-up care recommendations such as frequency or timing of follow-up visits. The study authors recommend considering checklist use for teaching and implementing wellness in companion animal primary care veterinary clinical teaching settings.