Ithaca's Nightlife

Entry, Creative Corner
Grace Stearns, Cornell

Jungle Fever: The Summer I Spent Wrangling Coatis

Entry, Experiences
Lea Mehrkens, UC Davis

My field assistant in her make-shift mosquito netting

I spent the summer of 2011 in Monteverde, Costa Rica thanks to two research grants I received through UC Davis. I had lived there in 2007, when I studied abroad as an undergraduate, and had always wanted to return. I maintained contact with my professors in Costa Rica, and began brainstorming new research ideas after being accepted into veterinary school. It was with their help, along with my advisors in the Wildlife Health Center here at UCD, that I designed a research project investigating the prevalence of a zoonotic blood parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, in the white-nosed coati population of Monteverde.

My living experience this summer was something I’ll always remember. I stayed with a homestay family for two weeks and then was able to rent a “house” in the jungle from one of my professors.  I use the term “house” loosely, because she called it the “Casa de Higueron”, or house of the fig tree. The house was located underneath a giant fig tree, so when it rained or there was a breeze, stone-like figs pelted the tin roof, making it impossible to make phone calls, watch movies, or even talk to my research assistant. One of the many, many giant bugs around our houseWe also had several scorpions, tarantulas, wolf-spiders, cockroaches, and rats as roommates.  The fruit from this tree enticed countless butterflies and even some monkeys to pay us visits, so we couldn’t complain too much.

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Texas A&M CVM Open House: Painting the Anatomy Horse

Entry, Creative Corner
Sarah Jarosinski, Texas A&M

If it's raining women, why are all the men reigning veterinary medicine?!?!

Editor's note: This is a guest blog by Karen Bradley, founder of the Women's Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative. The Vet Gazette is expanding content beyond the structured categories, and we are starting with a post from the founder of this important organizatin. Read on for more!

By now you have seen our press release for the Women's Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative (WVLDI).  I am writing this post to try and provide some of the answers to "what is it" and "how does it relate to me?"

First of all, I will confess that I impulsively launched a closed Facebook group and Linked In group by these names a few weeks ago when it became painfully clear to me that the time to try and be proactive about getting more women veterinarians involved in organized veterinary medicine leadership was now.  I was fortunate to have teamed up with Dr. Stacy Pritt who coordinated a website for the initiative.  We are thrilled to have almost 300 members in the Facebook group and the website and Linked In groups are rapidly expanding as well. These groups have become a place for sharing articles about women in leadership, polling folks about issues women face in these leadership positions, and basically setting up a way to network together and support each other in pursuing leadership opportunities.

We would love for veterinary students to participate and bring their voice to these platforms!  Please don't hesitate to join us!  We are only just beginning to realize the full potential of this initiative and in the next few weeks will have a pilot group exploring the formal next steps of creating a non-profit or similar to provide a formal structure that can be even more effective at engaging, empowering, and motivating more women to be leaders in our profession--in all levels and areas. So stay tuned!  

If you have a request for a speaker to present at your school for a forum or symposium, please feel free to contact myself or Stacy Pritt and we will do our best to make it happen! 

(Karen Bradley, DVM karenbdvm@yahoo.com or 802-272-6442. Stacy Pritt, DVM, MS, MBA at stacy_pritt@yahoo.com or 858.790.9208)

Thank you in advance for your awesome enthusiasm,and support for this effort!

Karen Bradley, DVM

Press Release: Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative

First released August 5th

Founded during the 2013 AVMA Convention, the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative is announcing today that it has a solid online presence with the launch of its new web site and logo at www.womenveterinarians.com. With a strong social media presence on Facebook and LinkedIn, the Initiative has created the new web site to further its reach through Twitter, blogs, links, and other resources.

Formed as a response to the disproportionate amount of women in leadership positions in organized veterinary medicine, most notably with the AVMA, compared to the number of women in the profession, the Initiative provides a support network for the promotion of women veterinarians as leaders. The mission of the organization is to gather veterinarians and friends to help “develop, encourage, and mentor female leaders for our profession.”

Karen Bradley, DVM, Founder of the Initiative, is excited about this next step. As she states, “my goal is to empower more women veterinarians to be active, appointed, and elected to leadership positions at all levels of organized veterinary medicine. I see a growing disconnect between the demographics of those in veterinary leadership and those populating the profession. Too many people think this will self- correct with time but that has not been the case in other areas—for example, the US population is greater than 50% women yet our US Congress only has 20% women.”

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