No neigh-sayers: Live horses join first-day veterinary students for anatomy lecture in Hungary

(11 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Budapest, Hungary - 9 September 2024
1. Tilt up from students to horses
2. Wide of students
3. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Dr. Péter Sótonyi, rector at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Budapest:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT AND OVERLAID SHOT 4-6++
"I feel it is absolutely important that a student who comes to the university doesn’t meet a carcass, but first a living animal because veterinarians want to heal animals. We want to make the lives of the animals better. And it is very important for the students not to see only a piece of meat or a piece of bone, but a living animal right at the beginning. And the horses are dear to me and also to the students.”
4. Pan of lecture
5. Close of a student taking notes
6. Mid of Sótonyi drawing the ribs of a horse with chalk
7. Pull focus from a skeleton to the lecture
8. Close of Sótonyi showing the horse's tongue
9. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Dr. Péter Sótonyi, rector at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Budapest:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT AND OVERLAID SHOT 10++
"There is an effect on the students, actually, a shock effect that they can see a living animal right now. And not only three or four years later having a chance to work with living animals.”
10. Sótonyi showing the leg of the horse
11. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Noémi Tamáska, veterinarian student:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT AND OVERLAID SHOT 12++
"During our future studies, we will remember attending such a lecture and we will immediately think about what was told here by the rector, how things were explained. Especially the funnier moments will be remembered. So I think a lecture with live animals is really useful.”
12. Wide of students
STORYLINE:
A lecture hall full of first-year veterinary students in Hungary eagerly took their places for the first animal anatomy lesson of their academic carriers, when two full-grown horses clopped inside and joined the class.
The rector at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Budapest, Dr. Péter Sótonyi, coaxed one of the animals onto a riser at the front of the hall and used a stick of chalk to draw on the horse - from head to hooves - where its bones, organs and muscles could be found.
“I feel absolutely important that a student who comes to the university doesn’t meet a carcass, but first a living animal,” Sótonyi said of his young students.
Sótonyi has used this unique method for introducing students to animal anatomy for around 25 years, and is convinced it helps them engage more directly with the subject matter than studying solely through books, charts and models.
Horses, he said are especially suited to the task.
The horses, provided to the university each year by the Budapest Police, stood calmly throughout the lecture, encouraged by occasional treats of sugar cubes.
In addition to marking the animal's body with chalk and colorful oil pencils, Sótonyi showed pieces from a model horse skeleton to provide a clearer visual representation of the horse's anatomy.
About halfway through the hourlong lesson, Sótonyi demonstrated the oral structure of one of the animals, reaching his hand inside its mouth to grasp its long tongue - and getting a gentle nip from the horse in return.
After the lecture, there were no long faces or neigh-sayers, but a room of excited aspiring veterinarians.
Noémi Tamaska, 19, said that she thought the lecture with live horses was useful for future retention of the information.
AP video shot by Bela Szandelszky
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