White collars not only for the office
Published Saturday October 11th, 2008
Not many civil servants wear a white lab coat, but such an outfit isn’t unusual for Dr. Jim Goltz.
Goltz is a veterinary pathologist and the manager of veterinary laboratory services for the Department of Agriculture and Aquaculture.
He spends his days helping animals and people.
“We’re here to monitor and promote animal health,” said Goltz. “We test to see if animals are sick and what they’re sick with. If we can diagnose something early in a disease, we can help veterinarians, and minimize suffering and costs.”
Goltz works out of the provincial veterinary laboratory at the Provincial Veterinary Centre. The centre is part of the Experimental Farm complex in Fredericton.
The laboratory staffs two pathologists, three medical laboratory technologists, one lab assistant, a necropsy room attendant and an administrative assistant.
Goltz’s lab does diagnostic testing for a variety of creatures:
farm animals of every description, wild animals, birds, exotic animals, reptiles, companion animals, amphibians, research animals and zoo animals.
“Unlike human medicine, we don’t deal with one species,” said Goltz. “We’re like a human lab that does a little bit of everything.”
Everything might be an understatement.
“We do a lot of work for the agricultural sector,” says Goltz.
“For instance, we’re involved in salmonella monitoring for the poultry industry. We also monitor for rabies and avian influenza.
We do a lot of work for Public Health. We also test for zoonotic diseases — diseases that are transmitted from animals to people.
“We get involved in legal aspects, too. We conduct investigations for the Department of Natural Resources, and we help the SPCA by investigating alleged cases of cruelty for evidence of abuse and neglect.
“We also do a lot of educating.
A diagnosis can be educational for everybody.
Sometimes the diagnosis is something emerging or even new to science. We’ve had a few of those.”
Goltz also spends a lot of time on the phone, fielding calls from vets and health-care workers.
All of the lab’s work is referred through veterinarians.
“Going through veterinarians is critical for followup,” said Goltz. “Vets can interpret results properly and come up with appropriate treatments.”
Goltz and his lab are part of a broader network of more than 20 vets who work for the department provincewide, from Edmundston to Moncton.
“I’m really proud of all my fellow vets and the job that they do,” said Goltz. “Knowing that they’re out there on the front lines gives me great piece of mind for the welfare of animals and people.”
The lab also maintains partnerships with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the provincial departments of Health and Natural Resources.
“You can’t work in isolation,” said Goltz.
“The public is one of our most important resources, too.
You can’t do everything alone.”
As a pathologist, Goltz spends a significant amount of time performing tests on dead animals.
“If animals die, I try to find out how they died,” says Goltz.
“I have the greatest reverence for life, but I try to keep the emotional component out of things so I can do my job objectively.
The best that I can do for living animals is to do my job well.
“Of course, the lab gets all kinds of samples from live animals, too. We get blood, urine, feces, milk, hair, feathers, parasites, swabs — you name it.”
Goltz spends a lot of time in the lab, but he also gets called out for emergencies, such as for deaths of multiple animals.
“It’s like detective work,” said Goltz. “In a lot of ways, it’s like a good mystery.”
Most of Goltz’s hard slogging takes place in the lab or the necropsy room, where the postmortems take place.
The veterinary centre is about to get a new necropsy suite and incinerator. The incinerator will provide better bio-security to protect the public and animal health.
“We’re also in the process of building a foreign animal disease testing lab,” said Goltz. “It’s very exciting. The new lab will allow us to do testing that we’ve never done before.
New Brunswick is going to become an important spot for monitoring and responding to various diseases that we want to keep out of Canada.”
“We’re never, ever bored.” said Goltz. “Every day is better than Christmas.
People who like regular, mundane jobs — this wouldn’t be the job for them.
“Pathology in general is a very dynamic field. Things are changing all the time. There’s also a dearth of veterinary pathologists worldwide.
It’s one of the most intellectual and challenging aspects of veterinary medicine.
“It’s a great career for people who like order and a systematic approach to things, but who like innovation and unpredictability. It’s ideal for anyone with a really curious mind.”
And then there’s the humanistic side.
“I just love helping people,” said Goltz. “When we can help people and animals, we feel that we’ve done a good day’s work.
That’s why we’re here.”
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