Experience Veterinary Medicine | Doctors in Italy VetMed Fellowship

One of my favorite experiences thus far was traveling to Rome. I was with a great group of women who I’ve made as friends and we got to learn a great deal on our pre-vet internship. I will say that if you are an experienced vet tech you may not learn a ton of new information but you will have the advantage of being able to be hands on them when opportunities present! Rome itself was beautiful! The architecture, the food, the gelato, and the clublife. As an American I didn’t struggle with communicating and navigated the bus system well with our group leader. I will also add that as a black woman I experienced excessive staring from tourists and natives that eventually became annoying. Other than that I felt safe and supported on this internship and recommended the pre-med to a friend! Be wary of the persistent walking in the heat—it’s thousands of steps a day not only for the vet sanctuaries in the countryside hills but Rome itself. I’d say upwards to 10k steps a day or over 2 days.

I was a part of the first group in the pre-vet Doctor's in Italy program. Although Rome was still under covid restrictions the experience was amazing. We gained hands on experience throughout the week at the two rescue sanctuaries we visited and still had time to explore the city on our own. There was a perfect mix of independence and support granted from the team. Living in Rome for 2 weeks while also ganging veterinary experience was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Using the metro to travel around Rome seemed daunting, but it was actually very easy. Additionally, the trains are super affordable and make traveling all around Italy possible.

Being a part of this program has been a great way for me as a pre-vet student to get a foot in the door of my career. I learned a lot about animal care, management and treatments through this two week journey, and it has given me the confidence to start getting more involved in the field outside of academics before I graduate. Housing was great and the itinerary provided at the beginning of every week made it very easy to plan accordingly. The only issue I had was regarding food allergies, but even then the problems were remedied very quickly and did not affect my enjoyment for the program at all. Overall this experience was one I'll never forget, and would certainly do again if I had the chance!