Busch Gardens Tampa, Animal Care Center
Type of Experience: Zoo Animal Medicine
Practice Name: Busch Gardents Tampa, Animal Care Center
Description Experience: Four clinical veterinarians with a combined 54 years experience in zoo animal medicine. Two are board certified in the American College of Zoological Medicine. A Board Certified Veterinary Pathologist with 15 years experience.
Institutional Resources: A 3 year old12,000 sq. foot, fully equipped, State of the Art Veterinary facility. A quarantine facility. A collection of roughly 220 exotic animals including over 300 species of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
Educational Resources: A comprehensive library of veterinary textbooks ; many related to exotic animal medicine. Access to the JAVMA & Journal of Zoo & Wildlife Medicine. Daily rounds of ongoing cases. Access to in-house medical records program. Will be expected to complete a small research project/data mining, under the guidance of the veterinarians.
Responsibilities of Students: They will participate in morning rounds to discuss the cases for the day. Students will observe veterinarians during both field procedures and hospital procedures. They will also observe veterinarians and technicians administering treatment to hospitalized cases. They will learn how to formulate diagnostic and treatment plans for animals in the collection. They will be involved in formulating diagnostic and treatment plans for injured wildlife brought to the park. Time will be spent observing the veterinary pathologist performing gross necropsies and learning comparative anatomy, recognition of gross lesions, and sample collection procedures for histopathology and ancillary testing. Students will learn about the importance of a preventative medicine program for a zoological collection and be exposed to various aspects of it. There will be opportunities to observe the veterinary technicians in the clinical lab and learn how to run blood chemistries and hematology. Technicians will also familiarize students with preparing fecals for parasite exams and identifying parasite ova.
During down time in the clinics students will have an opportunity to work alongside animal care specialists who care for animals in the collection. This will expose them to proper husbandry techniques, exhibit maintenance and behavioral conditioning. They will also be able to spend time in the Nutrition Center learning what it takes to feed our collection on a daily basis and learning about nutritional aspects of animal health from our Nutrition Manager.
Students will always be encouraged to participate in discussion of cases and ask questions. Veterinarians will be challenging students to apply the knowledge and skills that they have worked so hard to develop in the course of their veterinary education.
Student Supervision: Direct supervision at all times by one or more of the 4 clinical veterinarians and/or Veterinary Pathologist for at least 8 hours a day for 5 or 6 days per week.
Is Housing Available? No
Practice Information: 3605 E. Bougainvillea Ave Tampa, Fl 33612 ● Telephone: 813 987-5560 ● Fax: 813 987-5548 ● email: mike.burton@buschgardens.com ● http://buschgardens.com/
Clinical Supervisor: Michael S. Burton VMD, Peter Black DVM, Dominique Keller DVM, Maria Spriggs DVM
Location:
Tampa, Fl
Elective categories: