Offsite Electives

The Arizona BluePearl Veterinary Partners is a group of five 24-hour small animal emergency hospitals in Phoenix and the surrounding area. We are a fast-paced hospital with a large caseload and a variety of both medical and surgical cases. Despite the pressure of emergency medicine, we offer a friendly atmosphere and enjoy mentoring and assisting one another with challenging cases.

Our emergency doctors perform a variety of surgeries and manage complex medicine and critical cases. Doctors have twice daily cageside rounds, which provide the opportunity for externs to learn and ask questions about case management. Some of our most common surgical emergencies include GDV’s, dystocias, pyometras, foreign bodies (gastrotomy and enterotomy), hemoabomen, and bite wound explore/repair. Other common emergencies include blocked cats, diabetic ketoacidosis, pancreatitis, anemia, trauma, toxicities, heat stroke, and rattlesnake envenomation

Externs will spend time shadowing our general practitioners and ER Drs.

The Pine City Animal Hospital is a busy small animal hospital/clinic in Pine County, MN.  The candidate would directly shadow the veterinarian and would be encouraged to submit recommendations for treatment plans and other care.  Questions and discussion would be encouraged.  The candidate would have opportunities to scrub in and assist in surgery.  Laboratory and clinical skills would be honed. 

We are a private, non-profit, no-kill Humane Society operating a full service hospital for the low income pet owners in our community.  We are able to expose students to all aspects of Shelter Medicine including but not limited to disease prevention, sterilization, behavior modification, transfer and transport procedures, development, foster care and volunteer services.  Our students come in around 8 am Monday thru Friday and we are usually finished up around 5 pm.  We require no evening or weekend shifts but they are welcome to come additional hours if they choose.  We also have great relationships with all the specialty practices in our area so if our shelter pets have a consult scheduled they are welcome to accompany the team.  These visits include cardiology, dermatology, surgery, ophthamology, neurology and oncology.

Minimum required student availability: 4 consecutive weeks, 6 weeks recommend.

Prerequisites: Candidate in good faith has taken all available local clinical rotations in pathology.  Also recommended that the candidate has had prior research experience and or taken advantage of research and/or pathology electives or experiences elsewhere.

Description of Experience:

Based in the Laboratory of Investigative Pathology (Davis Lab) and supported by the department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology, the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Lab and the Biosecurity Research Institute, this program is designed to:

• Engage students and residents at their level of learning

• Transfer knowledge and skills to them of relevance to infectious disease research and diagnosis

• Enable them to explore career options in infectious disease research and diagnostics, in particular infectious diseases investigative veterinary pathology.

  (Investigative or experimental veterinary pathology is defined as a branch of veterinary medicine dealing with the essential nature of disease, especially changes in animal tissues and organs that are a cause of or are caused by disease.)

The VIPPID DVM clinical rotation (externship) has a core set of universal topics that are covered to varying degrees during each individualized experience:

• What is investigative veterinary pathology?

• Career opportunities in infectious disease investigative veterinary pathology

• Experimental design of animal studies for good pathology outcomes

• Tissue processing for histology

• Immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence - finding specific proteins and nuclei acids in your tissues and cells

• High containment pathology techniques

• Gross lesion interpretation

• Histopathological lesion interpretation

• Different microscopy techniques

• Image processing

• Individual research project

Comprehensive encounter of small animal veterinary practice in a lakeside community/vacation area.  Focus will include client interaction, patient evaluation, laboratory/ diagnostic selection and interpretation, diagnosis and treatment plan formation, and surgery. Student will be introduced to the use and application of CO2 surgical laser and therapeutic laser. Student will also garner experience regarding ultrasonography (technique and interpretation).  We are located on the coast of lake Erie (Ottawa county peninsula) and are a short ferry ride from Put-In-Bay and Kelley's Island.  Our patient population increases dramatically in the summer (part year residents and vacationers/tourists).  Because of this, case volume is highest in the summer months. 

Charles River is a worldwide contract research organization (CRO) offering 2-week electives in toxicologic anatomic and clinical pathology.  With multiple facilities across the globe, Charles River provides essential products and services to help pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemical and animal health companies, government agencies and leading academic institutions accelerate their research and drug development efforts. We employ > 150 board-certified veterinary pathologists (anatomic and clinical) experienced in general toxicologic and/or specialty pathology. Studies are conducted in a Good Laboratory Practices environment and range from acute through chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies utilizing various routes of administration.

Training includes necropsy, clinical and anatomic pathology review of multiple laboratory animal species in the context of nonclinical safety assessment. In addition to hands-on training with pathologists there is ample access to self study materials. Meetings with other departments and scientists (e.g. toxicologists/study directors, laboratory animal veterinarians, In-life, Surgery, Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology) will be arranged for the complete CRO experience.

Out patient, surgery including soft tissue, routine spay, neuter, orthopedic, laser and more.  Ultrasound, laser therapy, pet hospitalization, boarding facility,

Shadow doctor, consult on cases both in house and on farm calls and assist doctor when asked.

The Brevard Zoo offers 4-6 week externships to clinical veterinary students. Located along the Space Coast in Melbourne, Florida, the zoo is an AZA-accredited facility with a diverse collection of close to one-thousand animals representing nearly 200 species. It is also home to the Sea Turtle Healing Center for rehabilitation of wild marine turtles. Brevard Zoo is well-known for its strong conservation ethic and unique attractions, such as kayaking through the Africa area, giraffe feeding, and rhinoceros and lemur encounters.

The educational goal of the veterinary externship is to provide the student with a broad base of experiences and knowledge pertaining to the field of zoological medicine. The extern will accompany the veterinarians and staff and observe or participate in daily activities, clinical procedures, and preventive medicine. The extern will also assist with daily care, feeding, cleaning and observation of hospitalized and/or quarantine animals. Up to five days of the externship may be spent shadowing keepers, one day for each zoo area: Florida, South America, Africa, Australasia, and Paws-On (domestic, educational, and aquatic animals). The extern will also attend full staff meetings, keeper meetings, and informal rounds. Externs will use any other non-clinical time to expand their knowledge of zoological medicine using resources made available to them.