Offsite Electives

The goal of our externship program is to provide real world experience in a busy specialty and emergency hospital. Rather than taking primary case responsibility, the student will work alongside experienced specialists and experience case workup from history to discharge. Emphasis is placed on honing physical exam skills, and formulating problem-oriented diagnostic and treatment plans. The degree of hands-on experience will vary depending on the service, but the student will not be primarily managing cases or performing procedures.  We hope this will provide insight into other aspects of private specialty practice including our focus on client service, efficiency, referring veterinarian relationships and inter-department collaboration.  All at CUVS enjoy the teaching and learning experience and are excited to work with students and visitors. We encourage the student to take advantage of this individualized learning experience and to fully utilize our skilled and approachable doctors and staff.  In addition to clinical experience, CUVS has several didactic learning opportunities, including Grand Rounds, Journal Club, and CE lectures for local veterinarians, Students are welcome and encouraged to attend.  Clinical schedules and duties vary by department.

The externship is informal, in that the extern can choose to spend any amount of time with any service depending on their specific interests or the deficiencies they feel they have in their clinical year. The emergency service is very busy, so there is a constant opportunity to participate in emergency visits, procedures, etc. There are didactic case rounds every morning, weekly lectures for the intern class, and other teaching activities the externs can attend. The externs are not given their own cases, rather they are expected to look for interesting cases (consults or ERs) that are coming in, procedures that are happening, etc. and get involved. 

The purpose of our externship is to provide students (from all levels of experience) with the ability to closely work with our veterinarians and technicians during in-hospital, out-patient, and ambulatory cases. Our hands-on and educational approach allows veterinary medicine and technician students (along with all others) to develop their knowledge base of equine veterinary medicine, advance their technical skills, and/or simply strengthen their choice of a career path.

Clinical rotation in comparative cardiology

This is a clinical rotation experience where the student will be directly involved in patient care including diagnostics and therapeutics. Learning will take place through experiential, small group discussion, one-on-one discussion with resident and faculty, as well as exposure to departmental and college seminars.

Direct supervision by faculty, house officers, and staff at all times (8-10 hours per day, 5 days per week; supervision will also happen if the student has a hospitalized patient during after-business hours and on weekends).

The Zoological Pathology Program (ZPP) is a full-service diagnostic, teaching, and research pathology program, specializing in exotic and wildlife diseases.  Based in Chicago, ZPP is a unique collaboration between the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and the Chicago Zoological Society Brookfield Zoo, the Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens, and the John G. Shedd Aquarium. 

Three to six week externships are offered for 3rd and 4th year veterinary students.  The externship program is designed to provide students with exposure to all aspects of zoological pathology.  Externs will conduct gross necropsies and microscopic evaluation of diagnostic cases in conjunction with residents and staff pathologists.  Background reading and research for diagnostic cases will be expected of the extern as will participation in weekly gross and histopathology seminars.  Special projects arising from case materials may also be pursued.

Sea Life Park Hawaii has a large and varied population of animals including dolphins, sea lions, seals, sea turtles, sea birds, penguins, and aquarium  species. Our case load is quite variable due to the large number of animals in the collection. In addition to managing clinical cases, we spend a large part of our time focused on implementing our preventative medicine program. This program includes routine monitoring and sample collection, review and implementation of medical and husbandry protocols and environmental monitoring. We work closely with the curatorial and animal care staff to monitor and care for the animals. Externs accompany and assist the vet staff during medical procedures, processing and analysis of samples and other tasks in the vet lab as needed. Once the lab data is completed students are asked to review the results and develop a plan, then we will discuss the case in more detail. Most students have little to no experience with our species; however, general veterinary principles apply. Therefore, the focus is on general topics (such as principles of medicine or pharmacology) with specifics about our species added in a comparative format.

The NIEHS externship is designed for veterinary students to work directly with veterinary anatomic and clinical pathologists within the National Toxicology Program (NTP) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as well as visit area pathologists working in various pathology careers such as academia, industry, and diagnostic laboratories. Primary experience is in environmental toxicology pathology and rodent pathology.

The student will be working in the treatment room the entirety of the externship working alongside the veterinarians and technicians assisting with and performing:

- Admission and physical examination of new patients, including diagnosis and starting appropriate treatment

- Recheck exams of current patients, including modifying treatment plan as necessary and performing pre-release evaluations

- Fracture diagnosis and immobilization

- Wound management

- Drug and fluid administration, including calculating dose, route and frequency

- Radiographic interpretation

- Anesthesia induction and monitoring

- Orthopedic and soft tissue surgery

- Hematology analysis

- Parasite identification

- Physical therapy

- Necropsy

The Tufts Comparative Medicine Services (Tufts CMS) at the Tufts University Health Sciences Campus and the Tufts Medical Center, located in downtown Boston and the Tufts University Undergraduate Campus in Medford, MA, has clinical externship opportunities for 3rd and 4th year students throughout the year. The expectations of the extern will include assisting the veterinary technicians, facility manager and supervisors, and veterinarians in the various daily activities within Tufts CMS. The extern(s) will rotate through various sections of the Tufts CMS including the Veterinary Services, Technical Services, Animal Husbandry Service, Comparative Pathology laboratory, and the Surgical and Interventional Research Laboratory (SIRL). In addition, the extern may have the ability to rotate through the Molecular Cardiology Research Institute (rodent thoracic surgery) and faculty members’ laboratories, as time permits. The extern is expected to participate in the daily activities of the department and share some of the knowledge that you have gained during your veterinary school career. In addition, the extern will be required to present a seminar at the end of the externship on a topic of their choice, approved by a staff veterinarian. The externship is an excellent opportunity for 3rd and 4th year veterinary students who have an interest in or desire to gain additional experience in laboratory animal medicine and/or biomedical research. These positions are unpaid.

Opportunities to see general practice, emergency, referral and specialized imaging in a highly efficient practice setting.  Our practice is AAHA certified and practices Fear Free techniques giving the extern the opportunity to see a wide variety of valuable practice experiences.  At its foundation, we practice exceptional medicine in a highly efficient and well managed practice which caters to individuals of diverse financial resources.  We provide a high level of  registered technicians-to-doctor ratio allowing the doctors to work very efficiently and demonstrate how to utilize management software to organize paperless records and provide exceptional communication between staff and clients.  Our practice serves as a local referral practice for many of the smaller regional practices because of our extended hours and our ability to work up medical cases on site.  This allows us to see a higher than average number of  complicated surgical and medical cases.  We are also one of the few practices in Ohio to offer digital radiography, ultrasound, and CT imaging on site, allowing us to work up more complicated cases in house and reduce the opportunity for these cases to fall through the cracks and not receive the medical workup they deserve.