When it came to diagnosing a sick cow, Otto Radostits left no hoof
unturned.
A retiring professor at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in
Saskatoon who recently received the Canadian Animal Health Institute’s
industry leadership award, Radostits pushed his students to take a
second look and review the textbooks before making a diagnosis.
“You make more mistakes not looking than not knowing,” he said.
Dubbed “the master” by students, he set high standards.
“I’m known for not pussy footing around,” he said. “I’m loud and I’m
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right there with the students. I don’t let them fall asleep.”
Those standards also applied to co-workers, who he pushed to respect
deadlines for the three veterinary textbooks he wrote and edited.
“He has tremendous expectations, as he believes that’s the only way to
do it,” said WCVM professor Klaas Post.
Post believes that Radostits’ legacy will be his didactic teaching
style, patience, attention to detail, and the textbooks he wrote for
students and professionals.
“His foremost belief was in teaching,” Post said.
“He tries to get to students what he knows, what he thinks is
important.”
Radostits’ award recognizes his 43 years of teaching and his
contributions to veterinary medicine.
He has long promoted the role of the veterinarian in herd health and
food safety.
“You get the herd to function and produce at optimal levels and at same
time be humane, not just maximize profit for the sake of profit,” he
said.
He split his time evenly between clinical practice and academics at the
college, balancing the two with a disciplined lifestyle.
“Married to his work,” Radostits spent many nights at the college and
away from his wife Ruth and their six children.
“I was looking at a sick cow when I should have been reading to my
kids,” said Radostits, who plans to make it up to them in retirement by
spending more time with his 13 grandchildren.
Acceptance into WCVM is heavily weighted on academics, a successful
formula that has yielded high retention rates among students.
Unfortunately, Radostits said students with farm backgrounds who might
make good veterinarians may not survive the four-year course.
“You don’t have to be Einstein to be a good vet.”
A decline in rural large animal practices is a big concern for
Radostits.
One solution might be for the profession to relinquish more of the
routine duties to animal health technicians, allowing veterinarians
more regular hours and more time to look at herd health management.
“The future of large animal practice is in herd work, not running
around treating a sick pig.”
Another solution might be to encourage more farm students to become
rural practitioners, because they are familiar with late night calls to
the barn at calving time.
“Students who grew up on the farm are more comfortable with that
experience.”
Radostits, the son of Austrian immigrants, learned first-hand about
animals on his family’s mixed farm near Edmonton and in later years at
college.
“I’d get up at five and look at my clinical patients, watch a cow chew
its cud.”
He completed his training at Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph,
Ont., in 1959, paying the $100 a year tuition by working at meat
packing plants, a veterinary clinic and liquor store. Today, tuition is
almost $6,500 a year.
He intended to start a practice in Alberta, but hesitantly accepted
academia instead. The experience was positive and led to teaching at
Guelph, Purdue University in Indiana and finally at the new veterinary
college that he helped launch in Saskatoon in 1964.
Radostits will officially retire at the end of June, but he plans to
take the summer to wind down, clear his office of rows of books and
filing cabinets and contemplate writing one more textbook.
“I will let the universe unfold as it should,” he said.
