Anecdotes and advice about preparing for a career in health

Category: Pre-Vet (Page 3 of 4)

Pre-Vet Resources

Our last two blog posts have been focused on premed and pre-dental, but don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you pre-vets. Whether you’re a high school student, undergraduate, or parent of a pre-vet student, the AAVMC has an informative newsletter for you. You can sign up for Pathways and also view the archived newsletters.

You can also check upcoming webinars. College freshmen and sophomore pre-vets can participate in The Road to Veterinary School on July 24, and applicants can register for the next VMCAS 2016 Workshop Webinar on July 17.

If you’re an applicant, AAVMC rolled out a new resource called HelpGizmo. This site provides a more interactive way to search for help and instructions for VMCAS. Check out this timeline provided by AAVMC:

processtimeline

With the deadline being September 15, we are now in the 10-12 Weeks stage.

If You Like Animals, Check Out the TIHAI

If you’re pre-veterinary or you just like animals in general, consider getting involved with the newly formed Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction. This university-wide initiative aims to study the health benefits of human-and-animal relationships and therapy methods. You may have already experienced the positive benefits if you enjoyed petting dogs and a guinea pig in the library during finals. You can learn more about the institute in this video:

TIHAI held its launch event on March 3 in the Coolidge Room at Ballou Hall. Faculty, staff, students, and alumni from across disciplines could visit different tables to pick up pamphlets and learn about HAI-related programs such as Paws for People, which makes therapy animal visits around Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Attendees got to pet therapy animals, snack on dog bone-shaped cookies, and take home animal-shaped bookmarks embedded with seeds for planting.

You may be wondering how you can get involved as a student. If you have an idea for a project relating to human-animal interactions, you can apply for up to $500 in funding from the inaugural HAI Student Scholars Program. Applications are due on April 1 at 5:00 p.m.

Paws for People has volunteer opportunities for those with and without pets. Tufts also offers a few courses about human-animal interaction if you’re interested in learning even more.

What is One Health?

The director of Tufts One Health, junior John Ramatowski, explains what this interdisciplinary organization is all about:

Tufts One Health logo

What does the word “health” mean to you? How has your intended career path shaped this definition? It seems that we teach the interdisciplinary out of students as we progress through our educational system. Well, Tufts One Health is trying to change that. All of it.

One Health is the belief that human, animal, and environmental health are inextricably linked. We should no longer research and learn about these fields in a siloed manner. As our world becomes ever more connected, solving emerging health crises will require a holistic approach that crosses academic and international boundaries. One Health examples are all around us. In our community, Lyme disease, vermin control, and air pollution are three health concerns that require integrated solutions to produce effective and lasting change.

The field of One Health extends far beyond the realm of doctors, veterinarians, and ecologists. Public health professionals, lawmakers, engineers, sociologists, and business leaders all have an impact on our day to day lives, from the water we drink to the air we breathe. One Health looks beyond the immediate problem to identify the precipitating factor and determine the chain of events that led to the current issue. From there, we work backwards with these stakeholders to rectify the issue and prevent it from occurring again.

While this sounds logical and relatively straight forward, we do not practice this approach in most fields of medicine. We have learned to identify and solve problems within our field, often failing to recognize and remediate the source of said issue. Doctors help Lyme disease patients by prescribing three weeks of antibiotics and providing information about how to prevent future infections. This may provide a short term solution, but ultimately fails to reconcile the larger issue at hand.

Tufts One Health seeks to change this mentality. Founded in the fall of 2013, a dedicated group of students has been working to promote the concept of One Health at Tufts. Educating the undergraduate and graduate student populations and changing the nature of health learning have been hallmarks of the initiative. Our university is uniquely positioned to become the leader in the field of One Health. With a school of veterinary medicine, clinical medicine, dentistry, public health, nutrition, biomedical engineering, and law and diplomacy; collectively Tufts represents One Health.

To allow students to take full advantage of these resources, the One Health student team has proposed numerous changes to the institutional structure and curriculum. Primarily, we believe students should have the ability to enroll in classes outside of their affiliated school. Students should not be deprived of interdisciplinary learning merely because their school does not offer a course that exists elsewhere in the University.

A second goal of the student group concerns the establishment of a secondary One Health major on the undergraduate campus. In September, we submitted a proposal to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Tufts outlining the development and establishment of a secondary One Health major. This major would include courses in the field of Biology, Ecology, Public Health, Epidemiology, and Zoonotic Disease.

We are happy to report the University has been extremely responsive to the proposed changes and is actively working with the student team to meet these goals. One Health truly represents the future of all medical professions. If you are interested in learning more about One Health, please consider the newly developed “Introduction to One Health” course offered by the Community Health Department. To become involved with the One Health student team, please e-mail john.ramatowski@tufts.edu for more information.

John Ramatowski, Tufts 2016

John Ramatowski, ’16

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Tufts Pre-Health

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

Switch to our mobile site