International Veterinary Experience Scholarship Recipient

Submitted by Leah Fine, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

My experience doing the 2023 International Educational Necropsy of Marine Mammals in Jeju Program has significantly progressed my veterinary learning and goals towards becoming a zoo veterinarian. This program was extremely valuable to me educationally, as we learned about a variety of different species that I have not yet had the opportunity to work with, including sea turtles, sharks, and cetaceans. Through lecture-based and hands-on learning, I was taught about the unique anatomy of the species and the various conservation challenges they face. Additionally, prior to this program, I had no necropsy experience. Good necropsy skills will be essential to my future career as a zoo vet and will also be very useful for me in my more imminent veterinary training, such as when I am on clinical rotations. Because there are very few opportunities to gain zoo and aquatics experience prior to the clinical year, I was really excited that this program offered me the very unique opportunity to further my training in zoo/aquatic medicine many years prior to when I had anticipated I would be able to. Furthermore, as a zoo veterinarian, I very much hope to take part in international fieldwork with local wildlife. As I have only had limited international travel experience, this opportunity allowed me to begin gaining skills in traveling and working internationally, especially in a non-native English-speaking country. Not only was I able to practice getting comfortable in a foreign country, but through this program, I was also able to begin making international professional connections. Aside from the few American students, this program had about 30 Korean veterinary students with whom I worked closely throughout the week. This created very strong bonds and has allowed me to develop a network of contacts for research or other projects in the future. These student contacts are in addition to the connections I made with the professors who led the program, all of which were Korean veterinarians with extensive knowledge on various marine animals. I was very grateful to be able to participate in this program and am very appreciative of SAVMA and IVEC’s support!