Offsite Electives

The primary purpose of our Veterinary Student Externship is to provide a hands-on learning experience for 3rd and 4th year students who are enrolled in Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program. The program is flexible and can be scheduled in 1- to 4-week blocks, depending on the extern’s availability. We feel that the students who possess an open mind and a willingness to learn will benefit the most from our externship.

We are a veterinary dentistry and oral surgery specialty referral clinic. Student externs will learn basic dentistry and anesthesia and will be exposed to higher risk anesthetic cases as well as advanced dentistry and oral surgery cases. 

Community Veterinary Center is a general small animal practice located in southern central NY. There are 6 veterinarians currently practicing at the clinic with a 7th joining soon. All the vets enjoy doing general small animal veterinary medicine, including surgery. All aspects of small animal medicine will be experienced from dentistry to surgery to internal medicine. Each doctor has an area of interest including endocrine disease, orthopedic surgery, and dentistry. The clinic was build in the early 2000s and recently renovated. It has 9 exam rooms, a large dog and cat boarding facility, digital X-ray system, ultrasound, and dental digital X-ray system. The clinic also has a large support staff of veterinary technicians and assistants. 

Please note that the AVMA Government Relations Externship program does not provide any clinical experience, so we are not able to evaluate the student on those skills.

The AVMA Government Relations Externship Program is a four-week program that provides veterinary students with an opportunity to experience the regulatory and legislative activities of importance to the practice of veterinary medicine. Students are expected to perform duties that support the work of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Government Relations Division on public policy issues facing the veterinary profession. During their externship, students will discover the scope of veterinary medicine in the various branches of the government, while expanding their understanding of the legislative process and the veterinarian's role in that process.

Externs are expected to actively participate in advocating on behalf of veterinary medicine and the profession. Externs work under the mentorship of AVMA GRD staff on issues that affect the veterinary profession, such as student loan debt, animal welfare, funding for veterinary education, and small business and tax issues. They are asked to problem solve, adapt to daily changes in priorities, and influence others. Tasks that are assigned during the externship include meeting with congressional offices to discuss AVMA’s legislative agenda, attending hearings on behalf of staff, researching information, updating materials that support AVMA’s advocacy efforts, and completing a weekly summary of activities on time.

Primary objectives of the externship program are for veterinary students to gain a better understanding of the ways in which public policy impacts the profession, discover how veterinarians can be involved in the legislative process, participate in advancing AVMA’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, and immerse themselves in networking with federal veterinarians to gain insight into the depth and breadth of activities in which they are involved. The AVMA GRD Externship provides an opportunity for veterinary students to take what they are learning in veterinary school and apply it outside of a clinical setting, allowing them to learn another facet of the profession while making a difference in shaping the profession.