Training Veterinary Students in Shelter Medicine: A Service-Learning Community-Classroom Technique

Abstract

Shelter medicine is a rapidly developing field of great importance, and shelters themselves provide abundant training opportunities for veterinary medical students. Students trained in shelter medicine have opportunities to practice zoonotic and species-specific infectious disease control, behavioral evaluation and management, primary care, as well as animal welfare, ethics, and public policy issues. Ranges of sheltering systems now exist, from brick-and-mortar facilities to networks of foster homes with no centralized facility. Exposure to a single shelter setting may not allow students to understand the full range of sheltering systems that exist; a community classroom approach balances the opportunity to introduce students to a diverse array of sheltering systems, while gaining practical experience. This article presents the details and results of a series of two-week, elective clinical rotations with a focus on field and service-learning in animal shelters. The overall aim was to provide opportunities that familiarized students with sheltering systems and provided primary care training. Other priorities included increasing awareness of public health concerns, and equipping students to evaluate shelters on design, operating protocols, infectious disease control, enrichment and community outreach. Students were required to participate in rounds, and complete a project that addressed a need recognized by them during the rotation. This article includes costs associated with the rotation, a blueprint for how the rotation was carried out at our institution, and details of shelters visited and animals treated, including a breakdown of treatments provided. Also discussed are the student projects and student feedback on this valuable clinical experience.

Opinions towards Companion Animals and Their Welfare: A Survey of Croatian Veterinary Students

“…Accordingly, more than 60% of our students recognized shelter medicine as their potential career. It is no surprise because it is a rapidly growing discipline of veterinary medicine [26,27]. The readiness of students to work in animal shelter points to their high level of empathy for homeless animals (more than 80% of students were willing to take a shelter animal) and the challenges encountered in this activity, while suggesting that students have been properly prepared for labour market because shelter work is very demanding, both emotionally and professionally.…”

“…The readiness of students to work in animal shelter points to their high level of empathy for homeless animals (more than 80% of students were willing to take a shelter animal) and the challenges encountered in this activity, while suggesting that students have been properly prepared for labour market because shelter work is very demanding, both emotionally and professionally. A shelter veterinarian is expected to be very skilful in many fields of veterinary medicine, such as emergency care, internal medicine, surgery, infectious diseases, behavioural health and epidemiology [27,28].…”

Attitudes and Practices of Australian Veterinary Professionals and Students towards Early Age Desexing of Cats

“…It, therefore, appears there is a gap between students gaining ‘real world’ experience with EAD and the ample opportunities to practice EAD that shelters could provide. Practical placements would provide opportunity to witness and perform multiple desexing surgeries at regular intervals (and other services, e.g., diagnosing and treating FIV), improve animal handling, become familiar with the scale of unwanted cats in the local community, and appreciate the limited resources at most shelters [102,103,104,105,106,107,108]. Shelters would also benefit by gaining free workers that assist in many tasks (e.g., rehabilitation, enrichment, training, educating the public, euthanasia, quarantine, cleaning).…”

Türkiye’de Sahipsiz Hayvan Barınakları ve Barınak Hekimliği Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme

“…According to Steven and Gruen [9] , shelters give lots of training opportunities for the veterinary faculty students. Because, these students have the practice chance on the control of species-typical zoonotic and contagious diseases; on behavioural assessment and its management; on primary care; on animal welfare, ethics and public policies.…”