Offsite Electives

The UIC Veterinary Externship Program is designed to provide interested veterinary students with an opportunity to gain an in-depth experience in laboratory animal medicine in a large centralized animal care program. The program itself emphasizes gaining hands-on experience in laboratory animal medicine, surgery and anesthesiology as well as becoming familiar with the standard husbandry procedures employed in an AAALAC accredited animal care program. The students are taught by the professional staff, the technical support staff, and the animal care staff. Through their exposure to the many and varied research projects conducted in the Biologic Resources Laboratory, they will gain first-hand experience supporting research programs, but will not be formally involved in any on-going research programs.

The program is designed to emphasize the support and service aspect of laboratory animal medicine with an emphasis on the multi-disciplinary team approach that has become such an integral part of biomedical research today. The program consists of rotations through the three clinical divisions (large animal, small animal, and primates), as well as the experimental surgery and radiology department. Initially the student is assigned to the research surgery service to develop skills in administering and monitoring anesthesia and to assist in all surgery performed by the veterinary staff and selected principal investigators. Following a thorough introduction to aseptic techniques, the student begins to suture incisions and works up to performing, under supervision, a variety of soft tissue and colony related surgical procedures.

In addition to this assignment, the student will make clinical rounds with the veterinary staff, in their area of assigned responsibility, with emphasis being placed on getting exposure to the cases and activities in the primate colony. In addition to this initial exposure the student will work with the breeding technician in the primate colony assessing the female reproductive cycles. The student will also be assigned responsibility for following the procedural schedule in the primate quarantine area and will review all pertinent clinical, laboratory and radiology data with the veterinary staff.

• Field-based wildlife veterinary externship
• Clinical and pathological workups with state wildlife veterinarians
• Marine mammal, terrestrial and avian wildlife species
• Fish pathology lab
• Sea lion capture and anesthesia for radio telemetry placement
• Morbidity and mortality workup from field to diagnostic lab
• Population and reproductive studies
• Fish hatchery health assessments and treatments

About our program

• The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) - Wildlife Health and Population Lab Program has two primary functions:
  • To provide fish and wildlife health support to all aspects of the agency and its more than 1,000 employees as part of the agencies' mission to protect and enhance fish and wildlife and their habitats for use and enjoyment by present and future generations of Oregonians. 
  • To provide support to field biologists by processing tissues for characterizing population and age structure of harvested animals. 
• The goal of the ODFW veterinary student externship is to introduce 4th year veterinary students via a clinical rotation, to the profession of agency-based wildlife veterinary medicine and provide a hands-on understanding of the types of tasks and activities our wildlife veterinarians engage in including:
• Disease outbreak investigation
• Training biologists in safe wildlife capture and sampling techniques
• Wildlife disease surveillance
• Participating in large captures of various wildlife species for translocation events, wildlife health evaluation, or research     
• Eligibility for the Externship:
• Must be a senior student in good academic standing from an accredited college of veterinary medicine. We accept up to 6 students annually for 3 -6 week rotations.
  Possible activities:
• Capture Events (deer, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, pronghorn antelope, sage grouse, harbor seals, sea lions, etc.), wildlife disease outbreak investigation, health checks/ disease sampling on game birds such as grouse, pheasants and quail that are being moved to augment other populations, working at Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) check stations during deer and elk hunting seasons, caring for orphaned wildlife,  performing fish health checks at hatcheries, and  population laboratory wildlife tooth age and reproductive tract processing.*
• Students may conduct a project during their externship involving researching a current Oregon wildlife health topic for presentation to staff or posting on our website*
• *The timing and occurrence of potential activities listed above are subject to change due to many factors including weather, task priorities, emergency outbreaks, etc.. Humane euthanasia of injured wildlife or invasive species or as part of management activities is conducted routinely by our veterinary staff.
• Submit a cover letter and resume or CV and  Letter of Recommendation from veterinary faculty
• Your cover letter should include the dates you are interested in and would like us to consider.  Please provide multiple possible dates if available as we allow only one student at a time with no overlap of externship periods.
• Please address material to Dr. Julia Burco and send to Julia.D.Burco@state.or.us or fax to (541) 757-4252

Care Center is a 24/7 AAHA accredited Emergency and Referral Animal Hospital.  We not only offer state of the art 24 hour emergency care, but also a multitude of other specialties.  Some of these include Surgery, Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Diagnostic Imaging, and Radiation Oncology.

Potential experiences includes animal capture by physical and chemical means, field assistance to biologists and managers, biological sampling of
animals, sample logistics and preparation, necropsy, data analysis, general office work - reports, data analysis and presentation of data and summaries.