A couple of months ago I saw this video with Dr. Fitzgerald of Animal Planet’s Emergency Vet’s fame touring the Smithsonian’s new mobile exhibit on Veterinary Medicine.
The Smithsonian museums change the world by teaching an estimated 30 million people per year through their creative and educational exhibits.
This veterinary specific exhibit looked awesome but I couldn’t find a list of tour dates and was initially worried it would skip us in Washington DC, the Smithsonian’s hometown.
Fortunately, it turns out it would make a stop right next to the natural history museum. When I tweeted for details, they told me they were looking for veterinarians to volunteer in the exhibit and bring the topic to life by answering questions about what it was like to be a vet.
I couldn’t resist being an interactive part of the exhibit. It was a blast and everyone had great questions and stories about their pets.
Near the wall featuring x-rays of pets who swallowed everything from padlocks to chess pieces, many families shared crazy items ingested by the animals that they had at home. Along the wall featuring tools used in large animal practice, I explained why we make cows swallow large magnets for their own health.
I saw one boy’s eyes get big when he touched the large teeth marks in a ball that had been a tiger’s favorite plaything. Unfortunately, I did have to let a little girl down when I told her that no, I had not personally worked on dolphins, but she perked up when she learned I did know a vet who worked with elephants.
The exhibit was very well done. They had 5 main sections (pets at home, large animal medicine, zoo medicine, wildlife, and in the veterinary clinic) and each section let you touch, explore, and experiment.
One game showed you which pets would be best for you, another how to balance a cow’s diet for maximum milk production, and another on how to target train a snake.
Arguably the most fun part of the exhibit was an interactive game that put you in the veterinarian’s shoes and let you diagnose what is wrong with a dog, pig, or cheetah.
Like all Smithsonian exhibits, admission was FREE. While the AVMA and Zoetis supporting this exhibit, they were still raising money for the 2014 tour. They’ll have an official a list of tour dates when that’s complete. Hope you saw it when it came to your town!
Looks like fun! I hope I get to cross paths with the exhibit sometime in the next year.
Hopefully! They were at the AVMA conference too so they may be making the rounds of the major vet conferences too.