The Rural Voice, 1982-10, Page 6by Alice Gibb
Centralia Grad
in "Hospital Greens"
Tiny Chris Lipohar, dressed in "hospi-
tal greens", isn't working in either an
animal pound or kennel, although she's
surrounded by barking canines. The
animal health technician, or AHT, works
in the research operating room at Lon-
don's University Hospital. The programs
she works on are carried out in affiliation
with the University of Western Ontario
medical school. The surgical procedures
Chris and the surgeons are now perfecting
on research animals will some day save
human lives.
For example, surgical techniques on
dogs helped pave the way for human heart
transplant operations. And Centralia
College graduates like Chris are very
important members of animal research
teams, at both University Hospital and
the city's two other teaching hospitals,
Victoria and St. Joseph's.
For the past two years, Chris has been
involved in a new program researching
ileo -anal -bowel anastomses. In layman's
terms that's the removal of the large
bowel and attachment of the small
intestine to the rectum. This procedure,
tested on about 25 dogs in the animal
research lab during the program, has
already been used with human patients
suffering from bowel cancer. This surgi-
cal technique is an alternative to a
colostomy, which many patients find
psychologically difficult to handle.
Since starting her' work in research
three years ago, Chris has been involved
in surgical techniques which include
Tung -heart transplants, liver and pancreas
transplants and the bowel anastomses
procedures.
Each time surgeons or surgical residents
operate on one of the animals, they use
slightly different variations in surgical
techniques. The dogs are then monitored
by technicians like Chris, for varying
lengths of time, to study their reactions to
the surgery, before they're eventually
sacrificed.
When Chris was a ;rt Dover high
school student, she o, .ded to aim for a
career in veterinary medicine. While she
debated attending Guelph's Ontario Vete-
Chris Lipohar, '75CCAT graduate and Lorraine Hewitt of London, an X-ray
technician, prepare to take an X-ray of bowel surgery done earlier on the research
animal, named Guyana.Surgeons are researching ileo-anal•bowel anastomses with
the animals; in layman's terms the removal of the Targe bowel and attachment of
the small intestine to the anus to handle waste removal. (photo by Gibb)
PG. 6 THE RURAL VOICE / OCTOBER 1982
rinary College, seven years of university
seemed like a long haul.
"Then 1 heard about the animal health
technician program, and decided 1 prefer-
red the technical work in the field," she
recalls.
After completing Grade 13, she applied
to Centralia College. Students accepted
into the animal health technician program
not only need secondary school science
courses, but in recent years, applicants
have also been asked to have some
working experience with animals.
"They want the students to know what
they're getting into," Chris says, recalling
that ten of her fellow students dropped
out of the technician's course in the first
semester.
The two year course now graduates
about 30 to 35 animal health technicians
annually. Chris, busy calming the excited
Guyana, the dog she's working with
during the Rural Voice's visit,
points out the majority of AHT graduates
are still women. When asked why, she
speculates it may be because salaries for
technicians employed in private animal
health practices aren't adequate for
anyone with a family to support or
perhaps also "because working with
animals does appeal more to women than
men."
One advantage of working in research
is that Chris earns an average of 40 to 50
per cent more than AHTs in private
veterinary practices.
After graduation, Chris worked in just
such a clinic in Sault St. Marie, before
deciding she missed sunny southern
Ontario. The next three years she spent
back at her old alma mater, instructing
AHT students in radiography or X-ray
work, haemotology and medical exer-
cises, which teaches such skills as hand-
ling animals, both awake and under
anaesthetic, giving injections and other
procedures.
When Chris graduated in 1975, the
trend was for most technicians to work at
private veterinary clinics "but now a