wildlife pathology

[mumin]

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Hi,

I am interested in the area of wildlife pathology, and I am just wondering whether you have any advice on how to prepare myself for a potential career in this area in vet school. I am thinking since this field consists really of two domains (the "wildlife" part and the "pathology" part), what will be the appropriate preparations/externships/courses so as to satisfy the requirements in the two areas, especially when you are looking out for a possible residency in zoological/wildlife residency in the future?

Thanks!

 

[elefante7]

Have you been to this website?

http://www.acvp.org/educators/Externship.cfm

There are a few zoo/wildlife pathology externships listed toward the bottom. I believe there are others out there as well if you look for them.

 

[mumin]

hey thanks for the link up there! i am just wondering whether the programs have any specific prerequisites like fulfillment of certain related modules/rotations/externships?

 

[bunnity]

We just had a great lecture from a state regulatory vet. She works with farm animals but also does a lot of work with white tailed deer (CWD), wildlife rabies testing, etc. I would definitely recommend contacting some state vets where you live and seeing if you can shadow some. Bonus... every state vet I've met has been really, really nice.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

We just had a great lecture from a state regulatory vet. She works with farm animals but also does a lot of work with white tailed deer (CWD), wildlife rabies testing, etc. I would definitely recommend contacting some state vets where you live and seeing if you can shadow some. Bonus... every state vet I've met has been really, really nice.

State diagnostic labs also tend to see wildlife, especially if the vet school in that state does not have a fully-developed exotics/wildlife service.

 

[mumin]

for wildlife pathalogy, would they usually require that you have some substantial "wildlife experience", as seen in a job opening for wildlife pathology? and what kind of experience will that be? more of capturing/handling/field studies/understanding the greater scheme of things?

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Not really. Wildlife pathology deals a lot more with postmortem lesions as related to ecosystem health. Capturing and handling would be ok, but that's more what plain wildlife vets would do. Wildlife pathologists (of which there are very few...it's a very tiny and specialized field) don't usually interact with the live animal with the exception of biopsies. When they mean wildlife experience, they probably mean experience in the specific diseases of wildlife at a gross and histologic level, as well as transmission and zoonotic potential.

 

[mumin]

hey thanks there! i guess wildlife pathology is indeed too specialized....i am thinking more of going into general pathology in the future but at the same time, developing an interest in wildlife pathology 🙂 and since you mentioned something about ecosystem health, could i just ask what that actually means? the thing is that the phrase is so hackneyed these days in the veterinary schools, but i am just so confused over this really vague term. as far as i understand, it is about the interrelationships between animals, humans and environment, but it is hard to imagine how a vet, or more specifically a vet student or even a vet pathologist, fits into this grand picture....o well, maybe will get to understand more of this in the later years of vet school in public health modules?

 

[JosephKnechtDVM]

Ecosystem health is an invention of the veterinary schools along the ONE HEALTH paradigm which really is an idea based that all animal and human health is an interrelated web of complexity in which the veterinarian is uniquely qualified by virtue of the broad comparative medicine education through the veterinary school curriculum. It is really the biggest bunch of hogwash I have ever seen in that not one profession is really superior to any other in solving these kinds of problems. Wildlife ecologists/biologists have extensive knowledge in understanding ecosystems that dwarfs what little is taught in veterinary schools. And you cannot forget foresters, hydrologists, fisheries biologists either who are extremely knowledgeable about their fields but then must come together in a cooperative manner to arrive at solutions and implement them. A DVM degree is not the ticket to managing ecosystems unless it is a warm-up degree to the PhD in one of these areas in order to be taken seriously by others in these types of jobs.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Ecosystem health is an invention of the veterinary schools along the ONE HEALTH paradigm which really is an idea based that all animal and human health is an interrelated web of complexity in which the veterinarian is uniquely qualified by virtue of the broad comparative medicine education through the veterinary school curriculum. It is really the biggest bunch of hogwash I have ever seen in that not one profession is really superior to any other in solving these kinds of problems. Wildlife ecologists/biologists have extensive knowledge in understanding ecosystems that dwarfs what little is taught in veterinary schools. And you cannot forget foresters, hydrologists, fisheries biologists either who are extremely knowledgeable about their fields but then must come together in a cooperative manner to arrive at solutions and implement them. A DVM degree is not the ticket to managing ecosystems unless it is a warm-up degree to the PhD in one of these areas in order to be taken seriously by others in these types of jobs.

Not really. Wildlife pathology deals a lot more with postmortem lesions as related to ecosystem health.

I hate having to quote myself, but I said that wildlife pathology deals a lot more with POSTMORTEM LESIONS (ie the signs of disease) as related to ecosystem health, not that they are ecosystem experts. Ie, recognizing a certain disease in a certain species that, if is progresses, can wreak havoc on certain populations and possibly spread to affect others in various ways. I do agree with you on the superiority of PhDs in ecologic health. I wasn't saying that was a wildlife pathologist's job. Their job is to diagnose.

 

[bayarea15]

This is sort of off topic, and might be a silly question, but who do wildlife vets work for? I would be really interested in shadowing one!!

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[WhtsThFrequency]

This is sort of off topic, and might be a silly question, but who do wildlife vets work for? I would be really interested in shadowing one!!

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Your best bet would be checking out your state vet school - many of them have zoo or wildlife departments. Aside from that, I'm not sure how you would go about it...some vets do wildlife "on the side", and some wildlife vets probably work for the gov't, but I don't know of many free practicing wildlife-only vets.

 

[bayarea15]

Cool, my state school is Davis, I will check it out

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