Offsite Electives

Our group of three clinics (Bluffton Animal Clinic, Decatur Veterinary Hospital, and Waynedale Animal Clinic) provides a strong hands-on experience for an externship.  We do a variety of small and large animal medicine and surgery.  Our group of 10 veterinarians all have varying strengths and provide strong mentorship through an extern's time working with us.  We do a fair amount of on-farm work for large animal but also haul some of the work into the clinic as well.  Students are able to work alongside veterinarians and gain valuable experience that will help them transition into professional life.

Spay and neuter procedures, medical case management within the shelter 

We are Veterinary Emergency Group, an organization founded on a single mission: helping people and their pets when they need it most. VEG's rapidly growing group of hospitals has revolutionized pet emergency and urgent care with a client-centered approach, rapid response times, and a highly focused-emergency-only staff. With multiple locations, we offer the flexibility, mentorship, and diverse learning experience you want. Our industry-leading compensation, unlimited CE, and growth opportunities are just part of what makes VEG the place for emergency doctors to work. 

VEG's Externship Program allows students to gain hands-on experience in emergency medicine while working right alongside our skilled emergency doctors. Students will focus on learning how to effectively communicate with clients, diagnose a variety of emergency conditions, develop emergency treatment plans and collaborate with support staff in a fast-paced environment.

Student will get the opportunity to work alongside three highly skilled veterinarians during his time with us. They will get the opportunity to engage in client communication and education, along with treatment plan overview and bloodwork review. Student will also get the opportunity to work on his technical skills such as venipuncture. 

Partner with DVM to work through medical and surgical cases.  Perform physical exams, create differentials lists and diagnostic recommendations, and create treatments plans.  Develop surgical skills and participate in soft tissue surgeries and dental prophylaxis as available.

Equine mobile practice and TB racetrack racing official vet. 
Student will be assistant and/or observe routine and emergency calls. 
Can perform exams and basic procedures with owner consent. 
Observe prerace exam and race day activities of official vet (state vet). 
Occasionally large zoo animals at local zoo. 

We are a busy fear free small animal practice that sees appointments (well visit and sick pets) and performs a variety of surgical and dental procedures 4-5 days a week.  The extern will have the opportunity to see appointments and assist in surgery when appropriate.

Full service open admission shelter.  We contract with 39 municipalities to provide support for stray animals and families in need in their communities.  Externs will have the opportunity to participate in high volume, high quality spay neuter for both shelter animals and public clients.   They will be able to join in shelter rounds, dentistry, population management and protocol development. We also host monthly Wellness clinics for underserved communities.  Student externs will work one on one with our Medical Director and also have the option to spend time in different departments such as Admissions to learn more about Shelter management and counseling owners considering surrender.  The Medical Director is directly involved in behavioral health management of the shelter population as well so student externs with an interest in behavior are welcome to join these discussions as well

The Extern can examine patients, discuss their examination findings with supervision or for feedback, develop an initial problem list, a list of differential diagnoses, propose a treatment plan, etc. Explain how and why your approach may differ from theirs. Allow them to observe your client communication techniques. Discuss interpretation of test or imaging results and how they alter your differential diagnosis list.

Externs can perform/assist with routine surgical procedures, dentistry or other treatments under the direct and consistent supervision of a licensed DVM. The DVM must be scrubbed in whenever the extern is. 

As it relates to the client and informed consent, we have created the attached form for use as needed. It can be generated in AVImark.

The supervising DVM is ultimately responsible for case outcome and case management so it is important that they remain attentive to the activities of the extern. 

The MSPCA-Angell West, in Waltham, MA, offers 1-6 week externships to interested veterinary students. A wide variety of rotations are available to externs including Avian/Exotic Medicine, Dermatology, Emergency/Critical Care, Internal Medicine, Surgery, and Urgent Care. Externs are paired with senior veterinary staff and participate in clinics, inpatient case management, cage-side rounds and didactic rounds. If time permits, externs can spend additional time in clinics or shadowing an intern on the emergency service. The goal of our extern program is to provide veterinary students with an opportunity to observe a busy specialty referral medical practice and learn the foundational aspects of hospital practices and procedures.