Student Externships in New York

Okapi Ultrasound Photo

A veterinarian resident and a student perform an ultrasound on an okapi, as well as other procedures with WCS veterinarians and mammal staff.

Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

WCS offers four- to eight-week externships in Pathology, Zoological Medicine and Surgery, and Veterinary Technology at its zoos and aquariums in New York City. Applicants must be senior veterinary or veterinary technician students at AVMA-accredited veterinary schools or accredited veterinary technology schools.

Zoological Medicine and Surgery Veterinary Student Externship

WCS’s Wildlife Medicine department offers four- to eight-week externships in zoological medicine and surgery for senior veterinary students at AVMA-accredited veterinary schools. The externships take place at the Wildlife Health Center on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo. Students will also participate in clinical rotations at the New York Aquarium, and the Central Park, Queens, and Prospect Park zoos. Externships expose students to a variety of clinical cases including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and terrestrial and marine mammals. The students will observe all facets of wildlife health care, including preventive medicine, daily medical and surgical care, clinical rounds, anesthesia, medical record keeping, quarantine procedures, clinical pathology interpretation, and broader captive and free-ranging population conservation issues. During the rotation, students are required to prepare and present a topic to the Wildlife Health Center staff.

Applications for rotations during the students’ final year of veterinary school are accepted up to 15 November of the students’ third year. Successful applicants will be notified by 15 December. Due to the great interest in the program, applications cannot be accepted or processed at other times.

For more information or to submit an application, please write to:

Veterinary Externship Program
Global Health Program – Wildlife Medicine
Wildlife Health Center
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, NY 10460-1099

Pathology Veterinary Student Externship

WCS’s Pathology and Disease Investigation department provides diagnostic pathology services for the Bronx, Central Park, Queens, and Prospect Park zoos, and the New York Aquarium. The department offers externships to senior veterinary students from AVMA-accredited veterinary schools. Externships span four to eight weeks and involve participating students in all aspects of daily necropsy examinations. The exceptional species diversity within our collections and our high caseload 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 staff at our state-of-the-art Wildlife Health Center at theBronx Zoo. Background reading and research for diagnostic cases will be expected, as will participation in weekly and bimonthly histopathology conferences. We encourage externs to fully investigate a case or a group of cases and expect externs to prepare a short presentation, which will be delivered to the staff during the final externship week. To enhance their learning, externs are given access to teaching materials that include texts, journals, more than 10,000 kodachromes of gross and histologic lesions of zoo animals, glass-slide teaching sets that include 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.

Applications for rotations during the students’ final year of veterinary school are accepted up to 15 November of the students’ third year. Successful applicants will be notified by 15 December. Due to the great interest in the program, applications cannot be accepted or processed at other times.

For more information or to submit an application, please write to:

Veterinary Externship Program
Global Health Program – Pathology and Disease Investigation
Wildlife Health Center
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, NY 10460-1099

Veterinary Technology Student Externship

WCS’s Wildlife Medicine department offers full-time, 16-week veterinary technology externships in Zoological Medicine and Surgery for senior veterinary technician students from accredited veterinary technology schools. The primary location of the externships is the Wildlife Health Center at the Bronx Zoo. The externship exposes students to a great variety of clinical cases and laboratory samples from fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and terrestrial and marine mammals. Students will observe and participate in all facets of wildlife healthcare and veterinary technology—including preventive medicine, daily medical and surgical care, clinical rounds, anesthesia, medical record keeping, quarantine procedures, and clinical laboratory analysis.

For more information or to submit an application, please write to:

Veterinary Externship Program
Global Health Program – Veterinary Technology
Wildlife Health Center
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, NY 10460-1099