Final Reflection

I have learned so many things over the course of this experience, and I definitely feel as though I have completed all of the four goals that I set out to achieve. (I reflected on each one throughout the experience.) In this blog post, though, I want to answer one question: Why was this winterim important or significant?

Many people might be wondering how the issue of parasites in animals is significant to the world or what can be learned from it, and I think one reason it is important is because it is similar to what is happening in the world of human medicine. I determined that veterinary medicine is not the track for me, but I am now thinking of a profession in human health, so this winterim experience was still relevant to the field that I would like to pursue. In the domestic animals (both in North Carolina and at the vet clinic), I saw several cases of parasite resistance to drugs, such as the dog that was rescued from Texas and had Heartworm and the horse from the equine unit that had an EPG of 1,025 despite being regularly dewormed. This type of resistance is happening in human beings (with bacteria), which is causing many drugs that were previously effective to become ineffective. In fact, it has been predicted that within the century, drug resistance among bacteria would essentially cause all of our current drugs and antibiotics to become ineffective. However, there has been a recent discovery of a new antibiotic (the first new antibiotic to be discovered in 30 years!) called Teixobactin, which has proven to be effective against most of the bacteria that have become resistant to drugs. Not only that, but it is almost impossible for the bacteria to mutate and become resistant to this drug! The reason for this is that it works through multiple receptors, meaning that the bacteria would have to have mutations in all of the receptors simultaneously, which is highly unlikely and almost impossible.

No antihelminthic (drug for parasites) like this exists in animal medicine yet, though, and the issue of drug resistance is a scary one, knowing that once a parasite mutates, the drug is then completely ineffective. I learned over this winterim that, just like in human medicine, it is extremely important to use dewormers and other drugs wisely and only when necessary. Because of this, I am very thankful that I now have the skills to test for parasites in my own animals before deworming unnecessarily and overusing drugs.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed sharing my experience with you!