Offsite Electives

The Animal Emergency & Referral Center of MN is located in the east metro of the Twin Cities. We are a small animal clinic that started as an emergency clinic 30 years ago, and has morphed into an emergency and referral center, offering complete patient care with multiple specialties. We are a team of highly skilled veterinarians,
specialists, and technicians, who work together to provide quality patient care. We place an emphasis on learning and have a strong program for veterinary student externs and vet tech interns. We have had vet student externs from throughout the country. We limit the extern rotation to 2 students per 2 week rotation, on alternating
schedules, to maximize individual learning. Each extern will get one on one time with various criticalists and multiple ER veterinarians. This allows exposure to a variety of practice methods.  Other specialties are available as well.

Externs are expected to be able to interact with clients, take histories, perform physical exams, perform minor procedures, scrub in on surgeries, and take part in rounds.   We have an extremely positive work environment and are very welcoming to students. Our primary hospital is in Oakdale, MN, which is open 24/7, with a satellite clinic in St. Paul, also open 24/7. Students spend a majority of the time at our Oakdale clinic, but also will spend at least 2 shifts at our St. Paul clinic. Students can customize their schedule. Each shift is up to 8 hours long, with a mix of days, evenings, weekends and holidays, for a total of about 40 hours per week.

Well-qualified externship candidates should have a declared interest in equine sport horse and reproductive medicine, have career ambitions to join an ambulatory practice, and have demonstrated experience in handling and assisting with treatment of horses. Externs are expected to assist the veterinarians in daily work, and to be available for emergency calls at night and on weekends. Externs should also have a good work ethic and positive attitude. Successful completion of an externship at ODEA is a pre-requisite for those candidates interested in pursuing a future internship with our practice.

We have a 24 hour veterinary hospital.  During the day we operate as a traditional hospital seeing routine and non-routine cases(vaccines, dermatitis etc...).  We typically have 3 or 4 doctors seeing regular appointments.  We see quite a few emergency walk ins during the day also and have 2-3 doctors dedicated to the ER side during the day.  In the evening(after 7pm) we transition to an emergency hospital and everything is walk in only.  We have an in house lab with 2 Med Techs running it, digtal x-ray and 2 ultrasound units, digital dental x-ray with multiple high speed units, and endoscopy .  A typical externship involves some time on day shift, some time spent on weekend shift and some time spent on overnight/emergency shifts.  We try to expose the students to all aspects of our practice.  We also have an internal medicine specialist here 4 days a week and a surgeon here 3 days a week.

Dells Veterinary Services is a mixed animal facility in SE South Dakota.  Our practice is 40% dairy, 30% beef and 30% companion animal.  We currently serve 25% of the dairy cows in SD (250-5500 head facilities).  Dairy services include reproductive, calf raising, heifer ranch, milk system evaluation and ventilation.

Beef services include cow calf to feedlot.  Breeding soundness exams and ob's will be the primary in the spring and additional services follow seasonally.

As a companion animal facility we are AAHA members and starting the AAHA accreditation process.  We have a full line of diagnostic evaluation tools from blood work to digital x-ray and digital dental x-ray.  We offer bone pin/plating and other orthopedic surgery services as well.

Expectations are that this will be a hands on experience. 

Pet Poison Helpline (PPH) is a 24-hour animal poison control service available throughout North America for pet owners and veterinary professionals who require assistance with treating a potentially poisoned pet.

We have an organized externship which allows veterinary students (4th year students in their clinical year) to spend 2 weeks learning about different aspects of running an animal poison control service. Specific learning objectives include management of toxicology calls, communication skills, decontamination, antidote therapy, and medical treatment of the poisoned patient.

San Luis Rey Equine Hospital offers 2-4 week externship rotations. On-site housing is provided when available. Externs participate in twice daily rounds, assist in case work-up, journal club, and observe in all surgeries, lameness evaluations and imaging procedures. They are present for the work-up of all emergency cases and gain a vast array of experience in medicine, surgery, sports medicine, lameness and anesthesia. Opportunity for exposure to rehabilitation facility associated with practice.

San Luis Rey Equine Hospital offers 2-4 week externship rotations. On site housing is provided when available. Externs participate in twice daily rounds, assist in case work-up, journal club, and observe surgeries and lameness evaluations, and imaging procedures. They are present for the work-up of all emergency cases and gain a vast array of experience in medicine, surgery, sports medicine, lameness and anesthesia. Opportunity for exposure to rehabilitation facility associated with practice.

The veterinary student will be mentored alongside our doctors and caseload depends on the day;  provide experience in general practice including medicine, surgery, lab testing, routine bloodwork, urinalysis, etc, skin/ear diagnostics, radiology, client communication, proper handling, discuss cases and work in a team environment.

OVRS is a VECCS Level 1 certified referral hospital that has a large and diverse caseload to support teaching with many opportunities to hone your technical skills. Under the supervision of the Critical Care Specialist responsibilities may include but are not limited to the following: 

1. Assisting the ICU technicians with in-hospital patient care
2. Assisting with outpatient recheck appointments and referral patients
3. Performing history taking and obtaining vitals
4. Record physical examination findings and initial diagnostic results on patient visit summary
5. Present case summary to criticalist on staff and go into the exam room with the criticalist to discuss diagnostic and treatment plans with client
6. Assisting with diagnostics/anesthesia/minor procedures (vascular assess, central line placement, feeding tube placement (naso-gastric tubes, Esophagostomy tubes, etc.)
7. Assist in making treatment sheets for in-hospital ICU patients
8. Assist with patient discharges from hospital 
9. In additional to the above responsibilities, veterinary students would be expected to perform the following: 
    a. Perform physical exam on assigned patients and record daily patient SOAP
    b. Record physical examination data, record findings on referring veterinarian radiographs/diagnostics, list problems and differentials or diagnosis if applicable,              diagnostic plan, and therapeutic plan prior to presenting case
    c. Patient discharges from hospital –after client has check-out with reception staff, student would go over discharge instructions with client, give client personal belongings, medications and referral radiographs

The Taronga Wildlife Hospital (TWH) is responsible for the health of Taronga Zoo's animal collection. There is a strong emphasis on preventative medicine and animal welfare. The Zoo’s veterinary team has a wealth of experience in all aspects of zoo, wildlife and conservation medicine, including reproductive management, nutrition, physical and chemical restraint and clinical medicine and pathology. An advanced level of veterinary care is maintained by continuous critical evaluation against current best practice in zoo and wild animal medicine and pathology.

TWH also accepts sick, injured and orphaned native wildlife for treatment, rehabilitation and release back to the wild where possible. A wide range of native wildlife including marine wildlife is admitted from the greater Sydney region and beyond. Advice and veterinary services are provided to wildlife conservation and recovery programs, internal and external Taronga approved research projects, marine animal stranding/rescue events, and animal confiscations. The TWH also provides consultancies to other zoos, fauna parks and aquaria, and quarantines animals coming into the collection from within Australia and overseas.

Externships are for a period of 4 weeks (18 days). Only final year veterinary students are accepted since basic skills in clinical medicine, surgery and necropsy techniques are a prerequisite. A basic knowledge of animal biology and the principles of zoo and wildlife medicine are assumed. Students will be supervised by the clinical veterinarians and may spend time with any of the TWH staff in order to gain the maximum exposure to all aspects of zoo and wildlife medicine.

A Student Information and Skills Book will be provided on commencement of the externship, which includes a Skills list that sets out the general learning objectives of the externship program. Completion of the skills list will require some background reading and research by the student as well as the undertaking of practical skills under the guidance of zoo staff. Students actively participate in clinical procedures and are given opportunities to perform skills such as venipuncture, injection, radiology and basic surgery. Where possible, wildlife cases are allocated to students. Students also participate in necropsies and pathology rounds, clinical pathology and nutrition. Additional learning opportunities may arise depending on cases and students are encouraged to gain as much experience as possible through observation, self driven research and discussion with staff.

Wherever possible, students will be given the opportunity to fulfil all requirements stipulated by their University. If there are no specific requirements, students will:
· Complete a communications task (eg. give a presentation to staff, produce an information brochure, or write a short article for publication in a newsletter).
· AND undertake a brief investigation of a topic of significance to zoo and wildlife
medicine (a list can be provided prior to commencing an externship).
· OR write up at least two case reports