A Walk on the Wild Side

Jennifer Ballard

University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine

Class of 2011

The best veterinary externship I participated in was at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS).  SCWDS is housed at the University of Georgia and serves as a research entity for conservation agencies from 15 states as well as several federal agencies.  By representing so many groups, SCWDS is able to cover a lot of ground with their research, both literally and figuratively.  This gives students a really diverse experience.  My time at SCWDS included a combination of field work, comparative pathology, and literary research.  The field work included mist netting songbirds and corralling waterfowl for collecting samples.  I also performed quite a few necropsies on a range of species and learned to identify some common causes of wildlife mortality.  Because developing scientific writing skills is a really important part of the veterinary profession, each extern who participates in this program practices writing pathology reports as well as being assigned one research topic based on need and interest.  My paper explored management options for control of Lyme disease.  There is no clinical work involved in the SCWDS externship; it’s intended specifically for students with an interest in the diseases of free ranging wildlife and population health.

The University of Georgia is located in Athens, Georgia.  It’s just east of Atlanta and an absolutely awesome college town!  The downtown area has great shops and restaurants, and the atmosphere is very young and fun.  While I was there, my coworkers hosted several barbeques and the town was having “AthFest,” a family oriented arts and music festival.  Having grown up in Arkansas and moved to the Midwest for vet school, it was a lot of fun to get back to the southern hospitality that I’ve missed since moving away from home.  The vet school was great about helping me find housing for my stay, and the American College of Veterinary Pathologists has a scholarship that can help offset the expense of traveling to this externship.  I would highly recommend participating in this program to anyone interested in wildlife epidemic.