Every morning this past July, Max Emanuel, a veterinary student at the University of Pennsylvania, would get up and drive to work. But Emanuel’s was no run-of-the-mill morning commute.

From his house in Hoedspruit, a small town nestled in the foothills of South Africa’s Drakensberg Mountain range, Emanuel drove into the heart of Greater Kruger National Park, home to the world’s largest remaining population of rhinos. His job? Performing a medical procedure that would help safeguard these ancient creatures against poachers now threatening to wipe them out.

“It’s something you can never really imagine until you’re actually there,” Emanuel says. “The experience of being with these animals and seeing their beauty, it really puts your life into perspective.”

Emanuel’s experience may sound surreal, but it’s not unusual for students at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine to travel to far-flung locales caring for exotic animals. From Africa to Haitian goat farms and the southwest Alaskan coast, such excursions provide experiences that supplement a busy academic year of classes, research and clinic.

“I’m a strong believer in the hands-on experience,” says Erica Miller, adjunct associate professor at Penn Vet who teaches the popular Wildlife Medicine I and II courses. “Opportunities like these are vitally important for students to apply what they learn in the classroom.”

Emanuel is no stranger to foreign travel, having worked in wildlife rehabilitation centers in Belize, Guatemala and Kenya. But nothing could have prepared him for the internship with Peter Rogers, a wildlife vet and founder of Provet Wildlife Services, on the front lines of the battle to preserve Africa’s last populations of black and white rhinoceros.

“You hear lots of things about rhinos in Africa, how they’re endangered, but you don’t really get an idea of how severe it is until you see it,” Emanuel says.

There are only 25,000 wild rhinos left in all of Africa, with roughly 80 percent living in South Africa. Since 2008, an upsurge in poaching has placed the already at-risk animals in imminent danger of extinction.

To combat the poaching crisis, wildlife vets like Rogers have developed procedures for safely removing the prized horns for which rhinos are killed. This summer, Emanuel helped Rogers and his team track down, anesthetize and de-horn countless rhinos. Emanuel and Rogers were also on call to aid injured animals and assist in translocations.

“There were a lot of days where we’d wake up super early, de-horn seven to eight rhinos throughout the day,” Emanuel recalls. “But there was always so much more to be done. These animals need all the help they can get.”

Eva Jacobs, a second-year student at Penn Vet, spent the summer working in a mixed-practice veterinary clinic in Lobatse, Botswana, with support from Penn’s International Internship Program and the Botswana-UPenn Partnership. In addition to treating beef cattle, horses, sheep, goats and dogs, Jacobs traveled the country with her host vets, assisting Cheetah Conservation Botswana in a field research project. She helped to trap and collar wild cheetahs and was responsible for monitoring the animals’ vitals while they were anesthetized.

“Researchers are studying these cheetahs to better understand their hunting patterns,” Jacobs says. “This information can help farmers safeguard their livestock so they don’t resort to killing cheetahs.”

Aspiring wildlife veterinarian Rachel Ruden, a third-year student, participated in a summer field placement without leaving the country at Togiak National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Alaska, supported by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service graduate fellowship. Ruden conducted research on the Kittlitz's murrelet, a rare and elusive seabird found on scattered fragments of the Alaskan and eastern Siberian coasts.

Ruden was tasked with performing population assessments and collecting observations consistent with successful breeding or nesting behavior, data that are critically important for conservation. Having spent her last two summers in a lab, Ruden quickly fell in love with working outdoors.

“I find lab research very interesting, but fieldwork is just something I have an innate passion for,” says Ruden. “This summer cemented the idea that I want to work in the field.”

In many ways, a wildlife veterinarian’s work is at the intersection of animal science and ecology. By designing her own field methods with the assistance of wildlife biologists, Ruden began learning how to think like an ecologist.

“It’s hard to get this sort of ecological perspective in vet school,” says Ruden. “But as a wildlife vet, those sorts of skills are critical.”

Miller agrees.

“Wildlife field vets work very closely with wildlife biologists and ecologists. Over time, the veterinarian learns more of the natural history and ecological aspects of the species through these collaborations.”

While any hands-on experience is beneficial to a vet student, the opportunity to learn in new environments, from mentors with very different backgrounds, can add immeasurable value.

“The amazing thing about my experience was the people,” says Jacobs. “If you’re going to be a vet in Botswana, you have to do everything. You really have to know your stuff and be able to treat all species." 

One of Emanuel’s most memorable summer experiences was witnessing a team of doctors of different specialties working to save a rhino’s life by custom-fitting a metal plate over the wound where poachers had removed its horn.

“They don’t have published methods on this stuff, they have to just wing it,” says Emanuel. “Without the technology and manpower of a U.S. hospital, you have to think outside the box to solve complex cases.”

For Ruden, working in a region that was nearly 90 percent Alaskan native, immersion in a new culture was an impactful part of the summer.

“It was amazing, getting a view into a culture I had known very little about,” says Ruden. “I got to see a whole different side of life.”

Every student travel experience is unique. But a common theme emerges from the summer stories of Penn Vet students: a desire to step out of the classroom and discover, in a broader context, what it means to be a veterinarian.

“When students get to put their education to use, they value it more and figure out what else they want to learn,” says Miller. “Field work is a great opportunity to learn about career possibilities and to start networking with the veterinarians and biologists who are out there working with wildlife.”