This 2-week, 40-hour-per-week externship at a busy municipal animal shelter in South Florida offers fourth-year veterinary students an intensive, hands-on introduction to shelter medicine in a high-volume, public-facing environment. The shelter manages over 12,000 animals annually, providing a broad scope of services including high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter (HQHVSN) surgeries, community medicine, neonatal kitten/puppy rearing, animal cruelty investigations, foster wellness appointments, and public vaccine clinics.
The student will primarily focus on performing and assisting with routine sterilization surgeries (spays and neuters) in a fast-paced HQHVSN setting, gaining efficiency and proficiency in these high-volume procedures while maintaining excellent patient care standards. Additional core experiences include:
This externship provides invaluable exposure to the unique challenges and rewards of public shelter veterinary practice in a region with high animal intake volumes, emphasizing population control, preventive medicine, forensic veterinary skills, and community outreach. It is ideal for students interested in shelter medicine, public health, or animal welfare law enforcement.
This large municipal animal shelter in South Florida serves as a robust institutional training site for veterinary students, offering comprehensive educational resources in advanced shelter medicine within a high-volume, resource-rich environment. The facility features an in-house laboratory equipped for extensive surveillance and diagnostics of respiratory, fecal, and dermal pathogens, enabling real-time disease monitoring, outbreak management, and population health strategies.
Advanced diagnostic capabilities include digital radiology and ultrasound for accurate, efficient imaging in both routine and emergency cases. Therapeutic modalities extend to cold laser therapy for pain management and wound healing. The dedicated surgical suite supports high-quality, high-volume sterilization (HQHVSN) procedures alongside soft-tissue surgeries and oversight of large numbers of surgical patients, emphasizing efficiency, asepsis, and perioperative care in a high-intake setting.
The veterinary team comprises five full-time veterinarians and four part-time veterinarians, supported by 17 dedicated staff members, providing layered mentorship and diverse perspectives. A specialized large animal veterinarian oversees care for housed livestock and other non-traditional species, broadening exposure beyond small animals. Daily operations include a high volume of behavioral assessments, contributing to enrichment, welfare evaluations, and adoption decisions.
The shelter routinely handles animal cruelty cases, collaborating with County Detectives on investigations, evidence collection, forensic necropsies, and related legal proceedings—offering unique training in veterinary forensics and public health law.
Students benefit from direct collaboration with seasoned professionals who bring decades of experience in veterinary medicine. This fosters exposure to a wide array of medical approaches, creative problem-solving, and exceptional surgical prowess in a practical, high-stakes setting. Ideal for fourth-year students pursuing shelter medicine, public sector veterinary roles, or forensic/animal welfare specialties, this externship combines cutting-edge diagnostics, surgical volume, population-level health management, and interdisciplinary teamwork in one of the region's most capable municipal facilities.
A fourth-year veterinary student completing a two-week, 40-hour-per-week externship at a municipal animal shelter shadows and assists a staff veterinarian in a directly supervised surgical suite. The student begins by observing and then performs sterilization surgeries, starting with male cat neuters, advancing to female cat spays, male dog neuters, and finally female dog spays as proficiency improves. In addition to surgery, the student conducts hands-on physical examinations, contributes to creating treatment plans, and assists with obtaining and interpreting diagnostics such as in-house tests. Discussions frequently cover pathway planning for individual animals and broader population management strategies to optimize shelter resources and outcomes. The student is expected to arrive prepared and ready to work at the start of each 8-hour shift, remaining engaged throughout. Short breaks occur naturally between procedures or activities. Throughout the externship, the student must demonstrate interest, an upbeat attitude, and a willingness to be helpful in all tasks.
7100 Belvedere Rd.
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
United States