Education
Shelter Medicine Veterinary Student Curriculum
Providing first-rate educational opportunities is a priority for the Shelter Medicine program. Shelter medicine provides key training opportunities for all levels of veterinary students in surgical, medical, and management perspectives, while developing more socially-aware and informed veterinarians.
Veterinary students can participate in a two-week rotation that includes medical, surgical, and educational training. Students visit most program partner shelters, work with Pets for Life, participate in middle school classroom outreach, learn about humane law enforcement, provide educational seminar opportunities to local shelter staff, complete physical exams and population rounds, learn more about the veterinarian’s role in public health, and participate in rounds on various topics. Students gain valuable hands-on experience by participating in spay and neuter surgeries and performing physical exams with primary case responsibility.
Penn Vet veterinary students can also participate in a didactic shelter medicine elective during a summer course session offered online. This course focuses on small group discussion and projects which encourage students to model relevant shelter medicine skills. It provides an overview of core shelter medicine concepts. During the course, the students also evaluate primary literature and discuss application in the shelter environment and explore and develop protocols for disease management.
These elective courses allow veterinary students to learn more about HQHVSN (high quality, high volume spay-neuter). Students learn about background and cover course material that utilizes and reflects the Association of Shelter Veterinarians’ Veterinary Medical Care Guidelines for Spay-Neuter Programs. They gain exposure to techniques for feline and canine spay and neuter procedures. The course is offered over the second year of the veterinary curriculum to a maximum number of students, where students participate in a clinical skills lab and a mobile unit spay-neuter clinic. It is also offered in a reduced credit online-only option without labs or clinical experience during a summer course session.
Emergency preparedness and response integrates core professional competencies including communication, collaboration, management, lifelong learning, scholarship, promoting the value of research, leadership, diversity and multicultural awareness, and adapting to changing environments. This course emphasizes the clinically relevant aspects of public health in the context of emergency preparedness. The course is offered during a summer course session online.
The Penn Vet Shelter Medicine Program is also involved in core curriculum courses including Capstone, Of Clouds and Clocks: Becoming a Veterinary Scientist, Foundational Toolkit, Reproduction and Development, and Hippiatrika: Becoming a Veterinary Clinician. The Penn Vet Shelter Medicine Program also provides training to Primary Care clinical rotation students through spay-neuter clinics on the mobile unit with a shelter partner. They also teach for the new Animal Welfare Elective using case-based discussion.
Community Education Programs
The Penn Vet Shelter Medicine Program places an emphasis on community and humane education as a major part of the shelter medicine curriculum developed for Penn Vet veterinary students. By providing training for humane educators, our students, the community, and the shelter medicine world, these individuals can make a global impact on animal welfare.
Pipeline Program
- Since 1998, the Pipeline Program has provided high school students from West Philadelphia high schools the opportunities to deeply engage in science.
- The Pipeline Program goes beyond textbook lessons to see how practicing researchers and clinicians — as well as undergraduate and graduate students at Penn — use science to probe medical mysteries and find answers that have an impact on societal health.
- The program has a 12th-grade curriculum focused on veterinary medicine led by veterinary student coordinators supported by Penn Vet Shelter Medicine Program faculty and staff. High school students in the program learn about One Health, animal welfare, and other animal-health related topics.
Middle School Outreach
- The Netter Center also partners with Penn Vet and local middle schools to provide veterinary outreach. Penn Vet Shelter Medicine rotation students create lessons to get middle school students interested in veterinary medicine and science.
Bridging the Gaps
- Two Penn Vet students receive scholarships each year to participate in the Bridging the Gaps multi-disciplinary One Health program.
Community Organization Partners in Education
- ACCT Philly (Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia), where students participate in spay-neuter clinics on the Penn Vet Shelter Medicine mobile unit.
- Providence Animal Center, where students learn about their shelter mission and perform exams and population rounds.
- Pets for Life, when students perform exams during home visits for Pets for Life clients, as well as participate in telehealth appointments.
- Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), where students participate in spay-neuter clinics on the Penn Vet Shelter Medicine mobile unit.
- Pennsylvania SPCA (PSPCA) where students learn about humane law enforcement and veterinary forensics at and meet with veterinarians and forensic technicians.
- Morris Animal Refuge (MAR), one of the oldest shelters in the country founded in 1874,
where students participate in medical walkthroughs and exams. - Women’s Animal Center, where students learn through active participation about behavior assessment in the shelter, training, enrichment, and socialization.
Conferences and Symposiums
Penn Vet Shelter Medicine Symposium (PVSMS)
The Penn Vet Shelter Medicine Symposium is an annual event held at Penn Vet, that aims to provide continuing education while facilitating connections and community collaboration among animal shelter leadership, staff, volunteers, and veterinarians in the Philadelphia area sheltering community. The symposium is open to all members of the sheltering community, surrounding animal welfare organizations, and veterinary students.
Shelter Medicine Veterinary Educators (SMVE)
This symposium serves as a complement to the Primary Care Veterinary Educators (PCVE) Symposium held annually by the AAVMC. Although many PCVE attendees work in the shelter medicine field, this forum provides a focus on topics central to shelter medicine and community medicine programs, including a strong look at accessibility of care and the role that shelter medicine plays. With grant-based support and in collaboration with the Shelter Medicine programs of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, this symposium is occurring for its sixth year.
Shelter Medicine and Community Engagement
Phone: (215) 898-6982
3800 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104