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The present study evaluated third-year veterinary medical students' perceptions of a communication lab protocol. The protocol used clips of fourth-year veterinary medical students working with authentic clients. These clips supplemented course material. Clips showed examples of proficient communication as well as times of struggle for fourth-year students. Third-year students were asked to critique interactions during class. One hundred and eight third-year students provided feedback about the communication lab. While initial interest in communication proved low, interest in communication training at the end of the course increased substantially. The majority of students cited watching videos clips of authentic client interactions as being an important teaching tool.

A retrospective study of 73 assessable patients with spinal cord compression due to metastatic tumor was conducted. Fifty-five patients had paraparesis and 18 were paraplegic. Treatment consisted of surgical decompression in 22 patients, radiotherapy in 31 patients, and a combination of both modalities in 20 patients. The three groups were comparable in their pretreatment characteristics. Of patients treated with surgical decompression followed by radiotherapy, 45% showed improvement in motor deficit; of patients treated with either surgery or radiotherapy, 18% (P = .06) and 16% (P = .02) showed improvement, respectively. These results were most significant in patients with paraparesis, where 47% of those who received combined therapy improved compared to 17% (P = .06) and 9% (P = .009) in the surgical and radiotherapy groups, respectively. In our series of patients with spinal cord compression due to metastatic tumor, surgical decompression followed by radiotherapy was superior to either surgical decompression or radiotherapy in improving motor deficit.