Helping Out

Even though the poultry research in which I'm currently immersed is more than enough to boost my vet school application chances, I still keep an eye out for interesting volunteer opportunities. Just such a one came along this past weekend.

I spent most of my Sunday in Eugene working with the group Pro-Bone-O. Silly name, utterly inspiring and humbling mission. I've linked to their site; I strongly encourage you to take a look. But if you are too busy to click, here's the elevator summary: twice a month, they provide free veterinary care to the animals of the many homeless people living in or passing through Lane County, Oregon. 

Last weekend, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel when they had to ask for some pre-vet undergrad volunteers. Normally, the clinic uses students in the OSU vet school or people who are already CVTs (certified vet techs). But it is the end of the term (it's finals week now) and I guess they couldn't rouse any vet students. So I jumped at this chance to learn some "shelter medicine".

There is certainly a triage feel to things. There are plenty of co-ordinators who organize and prioritize all the folks who show up. All we vet-types had to do was show up--wow, that's an understatement. There was a steady stream of people with their pets from 9:30 to 2:30--around 40 or so. There was only one vet volunteering that day but our OSU contingent added three people who served as vet techs, and a retired CVT showed up making it four. We ran two tech rooms and one vet room so we could work with up to three clients at a time. No breaks, barely enough time to catch your breath before you went out to get the next person.

I thought it would be eye-opening for the pre-vet sophomore who was in our group to assist the vet (I was not wrong in this). I worked with the retired CVT. She was absolutely fabulous--despite my early fumbling, she allowed me to draw all the vaccinations, vaccinate all the dogs (I asked her to do the cats because I'm not quite sure of myself with them), and clip all the nails (even the black ones!). By the end of the day my scrubs were so foul that I took them off right inside the front door when I got home. I didn't want to take one step further into the house--butt juice, pee, mange, dirt, hair.

The problems were pretty routine--vaccinations, nail trims, flea treatment, the occasional skin issues (fungal infection, allergies), an interesting dry eye situation. But the people that we worked with were not routine in the slightest.

One girl brought in this lovely kitten, probably with a lot of Maine Coon in him, with these fabulous white tufts of fluff shooting out of his ears. She was tweaking so high on meth she could barely focus. But kit was duly vaccinated. We had to adjust treatments based on what people could actually do--some people lived in fixed places but some lived in camps. A very tired, very young man, an Afghan vet, brought his dog in. He didn't want to talk to us so we talked to his dog. They were clearly living pretty rough. We saw a lot of people whose luck simply hadn't held out--lost the job, lost the house, living in their car. One woman living in a shelter had adopted a tiny little chi who had been abandoned on the highway. This one woman with a feisty JRT named Belle showed up with her new dog, a 90-lb, mostly white pit bull named Darwin. Though enormous, he was an utter sweetheart...and he was a rescue. A young black man showed up with a tiny black kitten, probably no more than 4 weeks old. Somehow he had managed to find kitten formula and a little bottle and he was hand feeding her. He had a pink fleece blanket tucked into his backpack and her tucked inside that. Tiny kitten...another rescue, from a box in a parking lot. Many of the animals we saw were rescues--rescued and given homes and love by people who had very little themselves.

Pro-Bone-O is set up next to the St. Vincent de Paul service station which provides water, showers, and some services to homeless people. The free clinic is run out of an actual vet clinic that on weekdays provides low-cost vet services. But two Sundays a month Pro-Bone-O takes over and offers free basic vet care.

The vet that we worked with was really amazing. There is no stocked pharmacy. There are drawers filled with donated meds, some from clinics, some from people whose animals had died, some purchased with donated money--a complete grab bag of stuff. The vet had to mix and match her treatments. She might not have found her preferred drug but there was probably something similar that she could use. I was really impressed with her creativity. Even in the midst of that day of chaos, she took the time to show us all a demodexx mite under the microscope.

I was so impressed with the experience that I have now signed up for two more Sundays this summer, and depending on my schedule this fall, maybe a couple more before the end of the year. I learned an incredible amount of stuff, almost too much to process after just one time. 

And the entire day in fact reminded me why I got the crazy idea of becoming a vet in the first place. I may be distracted by poultry at the moment, but there is a lot of fulfillment in supporting the human-animal bond and in doing this kind of personal service.