Shelter Medicine Programs

[Cyndia]

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Hey guys,

I'm giving a presentation soon that is related to shelter med and it's led me to looking into how detailed and varied shelter med instruction is in other schools. I know there are certain schools that a decent amount of shelter med opportunities, so in those programs I'm interested in finding out how much lecture time is offered (i.e. are there full classes or just lectures peppered throughout courses), the types of clinical experiences (i.e. devoted shelter med rotations/spay neuter rotations/mobile spay units etc), extracurricular opportunities (shelter med clubs/wet labs/other TNR etc), and if there are any schools with programs involving access to care type experiences, I would love to hear all about that! I was a gator grad so well aware of UF's program, but extremely curious to hear about any other schools. Feel free to PM me or post below, I appreciate any help you guys can give! 🙂

 

[PippyPony]

Let's see...

Tufts has a shelter medicine selective course (meets once a week for about 10 weeks) for first/second/third years.

We also have a low cost spay/neuter clinic at the hospital, and students can get involved with that in a number of ways. Probably the most common activity is the monthly TNR cat clinics, which typically have a ton of student volunteers. There is selective credit available for those clinics, and making it all the way through the available functional stations allows you to start spaying. We're required to complete at least two spays on our own prior to spay lab in the fall, and cat clinic is a common way for people to fulfill that requirement.

The third year spay labs are run through the Lerner Clinic as well -- pretty much all the dogs spayed in the program are shelter dogs.

There is a shelter med club at school and it's reasonably active.

I believe there is actually a lot more to the shelter medicine program, but I'm not familiar with all the current offerings. Here's the link for the Lerner Clinic: Luke and Lily Lerner Spay/Neuter Clinic - Cummings Veterinary Medical Center

And here is the shelter medicine program page: Shelter Medicine at Cummings School - Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University

If you have other questions, maybe consider reaching out to Dr. Emily McCobb, the shelter medicine director. She's super nice and I'm sure she would be willing to chat about the program.

 

[jaboo]

I actually had to write up a bunch of stuff about each school’s shelter med offerings. It’s not too detailed, but it gives a good idea of what each school does.

 

[battie]

University of Illinois

1) We have Shelter Med I and II as 8-week long electives during first, second, and third year.
2) We have our truck that goes out to 10+ shelters in the area with students from vet med 6 days a week. 4th years are actually on the truck, and then 1st and 2nd years have to drive themselves to the shelter if they are on that rotation (rotation is 2 weeks long averaging 40+ spays/neuters each for the 4th years). 1st and 2nd years are on the rotation for 1 week. 4th years can technically take shelter med as part of our DE (up to 1 block), then ask for it for all 3 of their elective blocks for a total of 8 weeks without using any vacation blocks. If someone is insane, they could potentially get up to 16 weeks of shelter med rotations with our schedule set up the way it is (if they use all of their vacation blocks for shelter med).
3) We have a rotation where you stay at Champaign County Humane Society for the course of the rotation. Don't know a lot on that one, though the scheduling applies the same as the truck rotation.
4) Very active shelter club with community cat days for students of every year participating in addition to monthly to bimonthly lunch lectures. Other clubs (non-traditional species comes to mind) have started similar initiatives with non-traditional species at other shelters. Other clubs will do their own thing with shelter stuff. Animal welfare club, companion animal vet association, and feline club all come to mind. I will point out we also have an HSVMA chapter at my school, but it's highly controversial and is completely separate from our shelter med club proper.
5) We have a new shelter space being constructed right now for projected to be done in less than a year in our South Clinic that our shelter med department will work out of. We have two full time shelter med faculty, two shelter med interns, and I want to say 1-2 shelter med residents (not sure on that one). Other faculty are involved as well.
6) Shelter info is sprinkled in here in there as "you would change this in a shelter environment" type deal in lectures.
7) Forgot to mention: we have 6 weeks of professional development at the end of 4th year that students can also potentially use entirely as shelter med "rotations" if they're focused on that.

I was told about a year ago that we have the 3rd most "active" shelter medicine services of all US vet schools. Not really sure how true that is any more. But throwing that out there.

 

[SkiOtter]

University of Illinois

1) We have Shelter Med I and II as 8-week long electives during first, second, and third year.
2) We have our truck that goes out to 10+ shelters in the area with students from vet med 6 days a week. 4th years are actually on the truck, and then 1st and 2nd years have to drive themselves to the shelter if they are on that rotation (rotation is 2 weeks long averaging 40+ spays/neuters each for the 4th years). 1st and 2nd years are on the rotation for 1 week. 4th years can technically take shelter med as part of our DE (up to 1 block), then ask for it for all 3 of their elective blocks for a total of 8 weeks without using any vacation blocks. If someone is insane, they could potentially get up to 16 weeks of shelter med rotations with our schedule set up the way it is (if they use all of their vacation blocks for shelter med).
3) We have a rotation where you stay at Champaign County Humane Society for the course of the rotation. Don't know a lot on that one, though the scheduling applies the same as the truck rotation.
4) Very active shelter club with community cat days for students of every year participating in addition to monthly to bimonthly lunch lectures. Other clubs (non-traditional species comes to mind) have started similar initiatives with non-traditional species at other shelters. Other clubs will do their own thing with shelter stuff. Animal welfare club, companion animal vet association, and feline club all come to mind. I will point out we also have an HSVMA chapter at my school, but it's highly controversial and is completely separate from our shelter med club proper.
5) We have a new shelter space being constructed right now for projected to be done in less than a year in our South Clinic that our shelter med department will work out of. We have two full time shelter med faculty, two shelter med interns, and I want to say 1-2 shelter med residents (not sure on that one). Other faculty are involved as well.
6) Shelter info is sprinkled in here in there as "you would change this in a shelter environment" type deal in lectures.
7) Forgot to mention: we have 6 weeks of professional development at the end of 4th year that students can also potentially use entirely as shelter med "rotations" if they're focused on that.

I was told about a year ago that we have the 3rd most "active" shelter medicine services of all US vet schools. Not really sure how true that is any more. But throwing that out there.

Just gonna sneak in here with some links

Students in Shelter Medicine - Veterinary Medicine at Illinois

Professional Education for Students and Veterinarians Veterinary students at the University of Illinois will receive insight about this new specialty inside the classroom and out. Our service offers various elective courses, rotations, and community outreach opportunities that provide students...

vetmed.illinois.edu

Shelter Medicine Program at Illinois - Veterinary Medicine at Illinois

The Shelter Medicine Program at Illinois is actively engaged in the teaching, outreach, and research missions of the College of Veterinary Medicine.

vetmed.illinois.edu

We have 2 full time shelter vets, the DACLAM one is 20% shelter, a visiting instructor (who was our intern last year), and two interns this year.

Pet Owners - Veterinary Medicine at Illinois

SPAY AND NEUTER PROGRAM Our service provides low-cost spay/neuter services with the help of our shelter partners. Through a grant provided by PetSmart Charities, we were able to purchase a mobile surgical unit, allowing us... Read More >

vetmed.illinois.edu

 

[Cyndia]

Thank you guys!! That was super helpful!!

@johnnaboo would you mind if I used a copy of your chart in my presentation/modified it down slightly? Happy to credit you! I'll shoot you a PM.