Hospitals and Services

Tufts Ambulatory Service

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Since 1980 Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University has operated a satellite large animal veterinary service in Woodstock, CT that delivers round the clock ambulatory service for a variety of food and fiber animals and horses in parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Tufts Ambulatory Service provides quality veterinary service to clients, superior education to students, support for agriculture in the community, and professional growth for its faculty and staff. The overall goal of Tufts Ambulatory Service is to complement the didactic and in-house clinical training provided to students in our hospitals with a practical hands-on approach in a setting typical of most large animal practices in New England.

To achieve that aim, the Ambulatory team promotes health and well-being of farm animals through prevention and treatment of disease, enhances the viability and sustainability of livestock-based farms, and provides students with experience and training in large animal veterinary practice. The section has indeed been successful in educating large animal practitioners. Currently about 85 TCSVM graduates are practicing full or part time on large animals in the United States.

Initially staffed by two faculty members, there are currently seven veterinarians based in Woodstock and the service continues to grow. In fiscal year 2005, veterinarians in the section made 3,700 farm calls, tending to over 31,700 bovines, 1700 horses, 800 sheep, 800 goats, and 800 llamas or alpacas. All the Tufts Ambulatory Service veterinarians teach in the school’s lecture and teaching laboratory programs in addition to providing clinical education to students and service to our clients’ animals.

A busy teaching practice year round, each month a group of eight fourth year students spend their days assisting clinicians solving individual animal and herd-based problems. A bit more than half the work is preventative in nature encompassing such tasks as vaccinations, fertility examinations, and herd record analyses. The rest is largely responding to illnesses, injuries, or other emergencies such as birthing problems. Most students feel that they get more “hands-on” experience on this rotation than any other in the curriculum.

In order to teach the students the importance of partnering with their farm clients to become a valued member of the management team that has the goal of optimal animal welfare and farm profitability, each group of 8 is required to do the “herd project.” On the first day of the rotation, the students are assigned to a farm and must analyze the operation during their time on the ambulatory rotation and recommend changes that will improve the farm’s profitability. They must act as a consulting team, dividing the labor and each one becoming an expert in their chosen field of specialization, such as calf raising, milk quality, cow comfort, labor management, financial management, nutrition, and herd health. At the end of the month they make a written and verbal presentation to the clinicians and the farm owner and/or manager.

Directions to Tufts Ambulatory Service

149 New Sweden Road
Woodstock CT 06281
860-974-2780

FROM GRAFTON: Mass Pike West to I-395 South

From I-395 take the US-44 exit - EXIT 97- toward PROVIDENCE /PUTNAM (0.35mi)

From the North - Turn RIGHT onto SCHOOL ST/US 44 (0.9 mi)
*Turn RIGHT onto PROVIDENCE ST/CT RT 171 (0.85 mi)
Keep RIGHT at the fork to continue on RT 171 (2.13mi)
Turn LEFT onto CT 171/ SOMERS TURNPIKE (1.59 mi)
Turn LEFT onto NEW SWEDEN ROAD (0.68 mi)
ARRIVE at 149 New Sweden Road, Woodstock CT 06281

If traveling from the South: Take I-395 N to exit 97 - PUTNAM US 44
Turn LEFT onto School St- US 44 (1.0mi) Follow directions above from the *