College of Veterinary Medicine

Clinical Experience (to be gained during program): General zoo animals, avian, reptile, marine mammals, native wildlife. The Bronx Zoo and allied institutions have a large and extremely diverse collection of animals. The student’s experience will depend upon the cases attended to during the time of the externship, and procedures undertaken in that period. Nevertheless, animals representing every class are attended to on a daily basis. The student may be involved in as many as 10-15 cases on busy days. Case rounds are held daily for hospitalized cases and animals to be attended to that day. General pathology rounds are also included in these daily case rounds. In addition, morbidity and mortality rounds are held once weekly, and histopathology rounds are held on selected cases.

Full service hospital offering complete medical, surgical and diagnostic capabilities in a wildlife hospital setting.

Related to current clinical projects. A case presentation (active case or retrospective study, 30-60 minutes duration, involving PowerPoint or similar media) and a refereed journal article review/critique are required.
Allied Institutions: Bronx Zoo, Queens Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Central Park Zoo, and the New York Aquarium.
Responsibilities: The extern will assist the staff veterinarians directly with all facets of zoo animal practice: attend daily medical rounds, contribute to medical records using Medarks, assist in anesthesia and anesthetic monitoring, assist in diagnostic imaging (radiology, ultrasonography, and endoscopy) and interpretation, directly assist in and/or observe surgeries (field and hospital), contribute to preventative medicine (vaccinations, medical treatments, visual and physical examination, etc.), and will be expected to perform literature searches/reviews as necessary to have an appropriate depth of knowledge and understanding of each animal or group of animals considered. Supervised hands-on experience may be limited depending upon extern knowledge and competency. The extern will ultimately have primary case responsibility for native wildlife cases that present to the Wildlife Health Center, including daily upkeep of medical records (using the SOAP convention), medical treatments, surgeries (if necessary), and other diagnostics. The extern will present these cases during rounds, and will be overseen by staff veterinarians who will provide recommendations and critical review.

The student will work eight hours a day, 5 days a week. The student will have direct and free access to veterinarians, veterinary residents, technicians and pathologists.