Description of Externship:
The Pathology Department of the Wildlife Conservation Society (based at the Bronx Zoo) provides diagnostic pathology services for the Bronx, Central Park, Queens, and Prospect Park Zoos as well as the New York Aquarium and offers Externship opportunities to 4th year veterinary students from AVMA accredited veterinary schools.  Externships last four weeks and participating students will be involved in all aspects of daily necropsy examinations, including, but not limited to, complete necropsy examination, selection of appropriate tissues for ancillary diagnostics, and histopathologic review with a board certified pathologist.  Exceptional species diversity within our collections and a high caseload will provide students with broad exposure to the comparative anatomy and naturally occurring diseases and pathology of exotic animals.  Pathology externs will work closely with the pathology staff.  Background reading and research for diagnostic cases will be expected of the extern as will participation in weekly and bimonthly histopathology conferences.  In addition, externs will be required to fully investigate a case or group of cases and prepare a short presentation that will be delivered to the staff during their final externship week.  To enhance their learning opportunities, externs will have access to extensive teaching materials, including texts and journals, more than 10,000 gross kodachromes of gross and histologic lesions of zoo animals, glass slide teaching sets including normal tissue and pathologic lesions of birds, reptiles/amphibians, and mammals, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's Wednesday Slide Conference sets, and an extensive species-based literature file. 

Students applying for this externship need to have completed a rotation in pathology (or similar experience) and be familiar with a standard necropsy protocol prior to their arrival at the zoo.

Applications are accepted up to 15 November of the student's third year for rotations during the student's final year of veterinary school. Successful applicants will be notified by 15 December. Due to the great interest in the program applications can not be processed at other times.

For more information regarding application requirements, please write to:

Veterinary Externship Program – Pathology
Global Health Programs
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Boulevard
Bronx, NY 10460-1099

Updated: 7/14/2008

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