North’s Story, one of our many cancer hero’s.

Posted: April 25, 2012

Posted: April 17, 2012

Volunteers help pet owners deal with loss

After a semester’s hiatus, the Pet Loss Support Hotline (PLSH) is up and running again. Created in 2001, the program is staffed by student volunteers but needs a faculty adviser. When no one was available to lead the program last semester, the hotline had to shut down.

Now Prof. Michael Meehan, Population Medicine, has stepped in as the faculty adviser – a natural fit, because his areas of expertise are improving veterinary communication skills, coping with grief and the human-animal bond. “The strength of the bond between people and their animals can be very strong,” says Meehan. “At OVC we recognize that the importance of that bond needs to be acknowledged when the animals have health problems.”

The hotline volunteers are all students at U of G. Two of this semester’s 26 volunteers are Denise Yates, a fourth-year biosciences student hoping to become a veterinarian, and Anik Bay, a phase 2 DVM veterinary student.

The students commit to one shift and one debriefing session each month. The hotline (519-824-4120, Ext. 53694) is staffed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m., and is connected to an answering machine at other times. (Volunteers will return messages left on the answering machine.) Calls come in not just from the Guelph community, but from as far away as Calgary, Alta., and California.

The hotline’s main goals are to provide a supportive listening environment for pet owners who are considering euthanasia and those whose animals have died. “We get calls about making decisions to end a pet’s life, and about the grief people feel after losing a pet,” says Yates. “People often ask, ‘Is it normal for me to feel this bad for this long?’”

Legitimizing and normalizing grief is an important goal of the hotline. Friends and family may not understand how strong the bonds can be and how heartbreaking it can be to lose a cherished animal; that can make the grieving process much more difficult.

It’s not easy for the volunteers, either. “To be honest, when I started doing this I had tears in my eyes at every call,” says Bay.

Meehan adds that volunteering for the hotline “is very beneficial to students planning to be veterinarians, and anyone who wants to be able to support others through grief. It teaches them the skills they need, skills they’ll use every day in their work. They get practice in listening to people, sharing bad news, talking to people about options.”

The American Veterinary Medicine Association, Meehan says, has guidelines for schools offering hotlines that recommend research on the effectiveness of the service and on the potential stress for the volunteers. Despite that, few studies have been done.

With that in mind, Meehan has begun some research by contacting those who called the hotline over the past three or four years, asking them questions about their experience, and how they are feeling now about the loss of their animals and the value of the PLSH service. “It’s about accountability,” he says. “We need to be sure this service we’re offering is beneficial to the callers.”

His second research project evaluates the effectiveness of the training and debriefing sessions in preparing and supporting the volunteers. “What we learn from both of these studies will go directly into the training,” he says.

So far, Meehan has found the responses (while not yet analyzed) to be overwhelmingly positive. “People find it very helpful to talk to someone about how they are feeling.” He adds that there have also been suggestions for improvements and ideas for additional services such as support groups where people could meet with others who have lost animals.

In his training sessions, Meehan uses videos of actors as well as live actors from the pool of actors used in the DVM program. With the live actors, students sit back to back with their “caller” since on the phone they won’t be able to see facial expressions to help them understand.

“The students can ask for a ‘time out’ to discuss the situation with me, or can ask to ‘rewind and start over’ when it’s not going well,” Meehan says. This experiential learning experience is very powerful because volunteers have the opportunity to revisit and rehearse effective veterinary communication skills.

Bay explains that, besides the training, volunteers all begin as “juniors” and later become “seniors.” She says: “The seniors can take and return calls, while the juniors listen to the calls and discuss them afterwards with the senior. Then when they’ve had enough experience as a junior – at least one semester, but sometimes longer – they become a senior and take their own calls.”

Yates adds: “We have a package of materials that we send to people to help them with their grief, and we also send a condolence card with a personal message.” Many people will call back more than once. And many write back; there is an entire binder of cards and letters expressing appreciation for the support received.

Meehan hopes to eventually create a training module based on the research to share with veterinarians in practices. “Veterinarians have the ability to alleviate or aggravate their clients’ grief process,” he says. “Often when pet owners are in great distress, it’s because of something that happened at the veterinary clinic. Maybe they weren’t told about what might happen when the animal was euthanized, or the veterinarian may not have handled the situation well when their pet died unexpectedly. As veterinarians, we have a communication responsibility to our clients during these difficult times.”

Posted: November 14, 2011

Supporters of the OVC Pet Trust Fund opened their hearts and wallets in a big way and raised more than $314,000 at two fundraisers held recently in Toronto.

The city’s fashion and entertainment community donated more than $75,000 at PawsGala, the “world’s most fashionable dog party” held Oct. 27 at Airship 37 in the Distillery District.

The event capped a fantastic month for the OVC Pet Trust Fund. On Oct. 13, more than $239,000 was raised at the inaugural Pet Trust Gala: A Walk in the Park, held at the Granite Club. The funds will support the OVC Animal Cancer Centre, now under construction at OVC.

The OVC Pet Trust Fund has raised more than $10.5 million in support of the cancer centre, which is expected to celebrate its grand opening in the spring of 2012.

“The past few weeks have been incredible,” said Karen Scott, Pet Trust’s managing director. “I can’t say enough about our hard-working volunteers and the generosity of all our donors. It’s a testament to what caring people can accomplish when they work together to help the pets we love live longer, healthier lives.”

The PawsGala was organized by Paws for the Cause, a not-for-profit group that raises money for dog-related causes. The event featured dogs in designer duds and celebrity dog-walkers from Canada’s entertainment industry strutting their stuff on the catwalk. See the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life and the National Post websites for photos and editorial coverage. Or visit the Paws runway photo gallery and the party photo gallery.

This year’s proceeds will support a scholarship at OVC and dogs in need of critical care. The $5,000 Paws for the Cause “Chloe” Award will be presented to a veterinary student at the University of Guelph who has excelled in the area of canine critical care.

Paws for the Cause has truly taken its fundraising efforts to the next level, said Laura Serra, the group’s founder and  co-chair of the fashion gala.

“We developed year-round programming in support of our mandate, and our Paws Gala was bigger and better than we could have hoped thanks to our generous sponsors,” said Serra.

Dogwear designer Krystine May said: “I was thrilled to get involved with a non-profit that supports the vital issues of veterinary research and dog healthcare. As a dog owner, I’ve had critical care experiences in the past, so it’s something I can relate to, and it’s what makes Paws for the Cause such a great fit.”

Posted: March 24, 2011

“Every day in my clinic is like a visit to the zoo,” says David Eshar, a new veterinarian at the Ontario Veterinary College Health Sciences Centre. While cats, dogs and livestock make up the majority of most veterinary practices, Eshar specializes in birds, reptiles and other exotic pets.

On this particular afternoon, he’s just finished overseeing work on a guinea pig’s overgrown molars; next he will be treating a gecko and later a hawk. On other days, Eshar has provided care for a serval cat, a baby lion, lizards, snakes, tortoises and many birds. “Parrots are a significant percentage of our clients,” he adds.

Eshar, who was born and raised in Israel, has always been interested in these less-common animals. “As a child I had all kinds of animals as pets. When I started vet school, I would go to the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo on weekends to help out and learn more about the different animals.”

For more, read the feature in At Guelph.

Posted: March 18, 2011

The co-directors of the U of G Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation will be featured speakers during the U of G’s 87th College Royal Weekend March 19-20.

Drs. Brenda Coomber, Biomedical Sciences, and Paul Woods, Clinical Studies, will discuss “Cancer in Pets: Comparative Cancer Treatment and Research (Of Mice and Men and Cats and Dogs).” Coomber will take the podium on March 19 at 1:30 p.m. while Woods will deliver the March 20 lecture at 1 p.m.

The College Royal lectures take place in Rozanski Hall Room 103.

Also featured is “Asking the Animals,” by professor emeritus Ian Duncan, Animal and Poultry Science, a leading expert on animal welfare issues.

For a complete schedule of events, visit the College Royal website.

Posted: December 6, 2010

The OVC Health Sciences Centre celebrates the official opening today of new facilities that will improve patient care for companion animals and enhance learning opportunities for student veterinarians.

The official ribbon cutting unveiled a new intermediate care / fluid ward and an updated and expanded intensive care unit. The new facilities are the result of a $750,000, 2,400 sq. ft. renovation completed recently in the Small Animal Clinic. The project was supported by a generous gift from an anonymous donor.

“We’ve made significant improvements to make more efficient use of available space and meet a variety of patient needs,” said Dr. Alexa Bersenas, head of the emergency and critical care service.

In addition to a larger admissions area, more animal housing, improved flow and visibility for patient care, the new intensive care unit has an isolation area for patients admitted with infectious diseases and antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. A new emergency entrance allows cases to enter the hospital without going through the main entrance and lobby.

The adjacent intermediate care unit provides an area where 24-hour supervision can be maintained at an appropriate level for patients that are not critically ill. Previously, the ICU was the only area in the hospital where patients could receive intravenous fluids. But the majority of those cases were receiving diagnostic or other procedures that didn’t require being kept in the ICU.

From a teaching perspective, students will gain more experience handling cases in a way that is more in line with what they’ll see in practice, but in an environment that provides 24/7 patient care, Bersenas said.

“The new space will help us provide optimal and appropriate care for all our patients without providing excessive care,” she said. “We’ve also been able to make use of previously existing skylights to provide natural light in the ICU, something that has been shown to speed recovery in human patients.”

Posted: November 22, 2010

From Nov. 22, 2010 University of Guelph press release

A University of Guelph study has found that a prescription drug thought to have anti-cancer properties when used off-label may not only be less effective than claimed but may actually protect some kinds of cancers.

“Sodium dichloroacetate is not very effective at killing some kinds of cancer cells and, in fact, it has the opposite effect and could even make things worse,” said Brenda Coomber, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College.

This research, which was published recently in the journal Cancer Letters, is featured in today’s Globe and Mail.

Developed three decades ago to treat a rare, serious metabolic disorder in children, sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) has been touted as a safe, inexpensive anti-cancer drug.

In patients with this metabolic disorder, DCA “resets” malfunctioning mitochondria to restore the body’s normal energy pathway. Mitochondria are cellular “power plants” that convert glucose into energy. Normally, they also generate oxygen radicals used in further metabolism but that are also toxic to cells. Mitochondria also help trigger cell death, a normal part of tissue growth and health.

Scientists believe that, when oxygen is present, DCA forces cancer cells to use the mitochondrial pathway, producing oxygen radicals that kill the cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. Studies of brain tumors have found that DCA selectively kills cancer cells without damaging normal tissue.

But that’s not what Coomber found with colorectal cancer. Along with her team — research associate Siranoush Shahrzad, graduate students Kristen Lacombe and Una Adamic, and technician Kanwal Minhas — she looked at ischemic regions of tumours, or areas with low oxygen and nutrients due to abnormal blood flow. They had expected that, under fluctuating oxygen levels, DCA treatment would force cancer cells to use the mitochondrial pathway, generate oxygen radicals and die.

In normal culture, DCA killed some human colon cancer cells. But under low oxygen, the same cancer cells were more likely to survive. In mice with human colon cancer cells grown as tumours, DCA provided no therapeutic benefit; in fact, some treated tumours grew better than untreated ones. Fewer cells in ischemic regions died in DCA-treated tumours than in untreated ones.

“The bottom line is that cancer is not a single disease, so it’s unrealistic to expect a single drug to be a ‘magic bullet’ that’s effective against every type of cancer,” Coomber said, adding that many factors influence how cancer cells develop and behave.

“We are only beginning to tease these things out. DCA may well turn out to be an effective treatment in some cases, but it’s not necessarily safe in all cases. There are people out there buying this drug off the Internet and self-medicating — who knows what’s going on in their tumour? They might actually be making it worse.”

Her team now plans to study the pathways DCA uses to protect some cancer cells.

This research was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society’s Research Institute.