Large Animal Internal Medicine, Management, and Pathology

This course aims to provide primary and technical-practical knowledge related to the central aspects of the veterinary profession targeted at the farm animal species, sectors that can still offer considerable work opportunities. Therefore, the future veterinarian will have the chance to acquire experiences in different areas of livestock medicine and management, such as clinical and advanced diagnostic management of the most common diseases, knowledge of new and increasingly current management proposals such as those of "Precision Livestock Farming," evaluation food animal welfare, and acquisition of skills in reproductive, anatomopathological and production health.
In addition to the "traditional" management of farm animals, the clinical activity will also be aimed at "new pet" patients, which represent a constantly growing and increasingly rooted reality in modern society and of which the Clinic for Ruminant and Swine of the Lodi Veterinary Hospital is now a referral center for several organizations (e.g., protection sanctuaries and rescue centers) and private owners throughout northern Italy.
The educational program will be organized at university facilities and on external commercial farms. It will be complemented by technical-practical seminars by experts covering topics closely related to clinical activity and farm management, such as legislation, foot care, ruminant and swine breeding production chains, and farm animal nutrition.

The student, at the end of the training, will be able to independently apply the diagnostic method that, starting with the clinical examination of the individual or group, the collection of the appropriate samples, and in conjunction with the collection of the most appropriate supplementary information, even on an entire group of animals, will lead to the formulation of the diagnosis and the setting of therapy or management change. In addition, the future colleague will have the basis for using farm databases, proper farm-level drug management, and a better understanding of the new methods of managing farm animals and their productions from a one-health/one-welfare perspective.