One of my favourite parts of working in the Darwin Animal Doctor’s Clinic was meeting volunteers in the Galapagos from a huge range of backgrounds. It was wonderful how each of them brought their own experience and personality to the clinic.
I met Katelyn, from Pennsylvania, when we volunteered together in the Galapagos. At the time, Katelyn was a final year vet student and, as a lover of both wildlife and sunshine, she chose to end her studies with a month in the Galapagos. We sat down one evening after a long day in the clinic, to talk about her experiences at Darwin Animal Doctors.
Kat: Thanks for agreeing to chat with me Katelyn! First off, tell me a little about your background.
Katelyn: I’m from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, which is in the north-eastern part of the United States. I grew up in a suburb that was close enough to the city but there were a bunch of hobby farms around. I kinda grew up with just your dogs and cats around, and a few horses with my uncle. I just loved animals.
I studied my first degree, in Biology, at a small liberal arts school outside of Pittsburgh called Washing and Jefferson College. And then I went on to study Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
And have you done any other charity work as part of your studies before you became a volunteer in the Galapagos?
Yeah so I [volunteered at] one clinic overseas. It was called the Esther Honey foundation, it was another free clinic that was run on the Cook Islands. Then when I was in undergrad, I went to Maui in Hawaii and researched Humpback Whales for a month, specifically their behaviour and how it changed when people got too close to them on boats. I also worked in rehabilitation with racehorses in the middle of the US, in Kentucky. And I also volunteered to rehab wild animals of Western Pennsylvania as well for a whole summer.
So you’re now at the end of your third week working at Darwin Animal Doctors. Tell me, what’s a typical day like for you?
So during the week the schedule is the same, the clinic opens at 7:30am, usually clients will be waiting at the door to drop off their animals for surgery that day. We do mainly surgeries in the morning, routinely they’re sterilisations, so speying and neutering of cats and dogs, but there are sometimes other surgeries, for example, a mass to remove, or occasionally they have amputations, foreign bodies, that type of thing. We also keep the doors open in the mornings for just walk in patients, if a client thinks their pet needs to be seen.
At 11:30am, we take a break, called siesta, until 4pm. Sometimes, if day gets crazy, the break doesn’t start on time. But that’s kind of what being a veterinarian is- you have to be flexible and just kinda go with the day.
Then we start back up again after siesta at 4pm, and the clinic runs till 7:30 at night. The afternoon is mainly walk-in appointments, there’s no scheduled appointments.
As a senior veterinarian student, you’re almost a vet yourself. What kind of tasks do you do at DAD on a daily basis as a volunteer?
As a senior vet student with prior surgical experience, I’m able to pretty much do a surgery by myself. I do always have a vet either watching me or within earshot if I need help.
Sometimes [a qualified vet] just scrubs in so that if I have a question they’re right there and able to touch the animal. I also can just go out and talk to clients and work up a patient, and kind of come up with a treatment plan by myself. I then run it by the vet, and make sure I didn’t miss anything. I also administer medications, and place catheters. We kinda do it all. But even though I’m a more senior vet student, some of my friends who have been here have either just been starting clinics, or even first or second year . They do get some surgical experience and the vets will walk them through surgeries to help them get their first ones under their belt, which is pretty cool.
A lot of students come here from the USA because they want to do more surgery and its a good place to get hands on. How do you feel about the surgical aspects of working here? Are there things that you’ve learned or techniques that you might do differently because of your time volunteering in the Galapagos?
Yeah, so I actually have learned something different since I’ve been here. In the US, they usually teach us ovario-hystorectomies, where we take out both the ovaries and the uterus. I knew that there were some other ways [to spay an animal] but we are never actually taught that. But here some of the vets do ovariectomies and just take out the ovaries, and that’s something that I had never done before and got to do here.
I think that DAD is really good at trying to give everybody as much surgical experience as possible. I think its not so much learning something new, its the little techniques of seeing how different people do surgery differently. Even if your school teaches you how to do something and you think that’s how you want to do it, you might see someone use a technique a little differently and suddenly it just clicks so much easier for you head, and then that makes you a better surgeon. And its especially in an environment like this where people are coming not only from other vet schools but from around the world. So its a really unique experience.
Yeah I agree, its great, I’m learning new techniques even as a qualified vet. Like when you showed me how to do a closed cat castrate- that’s something that I didn’t know how to do.
Yeah that’s it, its not even the big surgeries that make a difference. Even little things like different knots, different ways to hold your hands, its really cool. It really adds to the learning experience and it makes you a better vet in the long run.
I think so too. And especially at the moment when we have vets from three different continents working all at once, its really cool to have so many different ideas!
So consultations are usually in Spanish here, as most clients don’t speak English. Have you had experience speaking Spanish before, and do you have any tips to help people manage while volunteering?
I, unfortunately, did not have experience speaking Spanish beforehand. I thought that I would learn a little bit more by self-study before I got here, but vet school just didn’t fit in with that schedule! And its good to have a little bit of Spanish under your belt but usually the vets that are here or other volunteers know Spanish well. Or at least can help you. The clients are very understanding that we don’t speak Spanish well, they might laugh at you and enjoy you trying to speak Spanish, but its all in fun.
The biggest tip from me, and it took me about a week to realise it, is just to go out [into the consults] and try!
Just try talking to clients and saying the Spanish words, because even though I listened a lot and I could understand, actually getting me to say the words has taught me so much more than just trying to read a book. So immerse yourself and just jump in head first and enjoy the experience.
I agree! Just trying to speak the language is the greatest hurdle, but it really does help you learn! Do you have a favourite Spanish word that you’ve learned here?
Garrapatas [laughs] It means ticks!
Good one, its easy to say…
Right?! It doesn’t sound like anything else so you don’t get confused!
Exactly!
Have you see any diseases or conditions here that you wouldn’t really see at home?
I’ve seen a lot more parasite problems here, like big parasite burdens and how they affect animals. In the US we just de-worm our dogs when they are puppies. We get them on prevention all the time, and even if you do see those cases, its just a little prevention and its solved. Whereas here, there are so many parasites everywhere.
Its a different population here as well, specifically I’ve seen a lot of puppies here. Whereas in the US, the puppies are with the breeder for longer so we don’t see them as young and see the same juvenile diseases.
What is the greatest challenge you’ve faced here at DAD that you haven’t had to deal with elsewhere?
I think some of the challenges come because we don’t have as many diagnostics here that we are used to [in the US]. So we’re seeing the same problems, whether its lethargy, not eating, or not feeling ok, but we don’t have the diagnostics to see what’s going on, so we have to approach the disease differently.
Here, we are fortunate that we do have some blood test machines that we can use, but the clients do have to pay for that, so its not an option for every client. But we don’t have x-rays or ultrasounds. Coming here you have to approach things differently. So even know its a challenge, it helps you in the end by making you into a better kind of doctor- its a different way to think.
Yeah exactly, even today when we were setting up IV fluids, we don’t have fluid pumps so you were teaching one of the vet students how to count the drips to get the correct fluid rate. Little things like that, you may not do every day but its really useful.
Yeah, its good to know, because you never know when you have to do something like that.
Its back to basics!
Yeah exactly, back to basics, cos I mean anything can happen. Even in the US you can have a power outage, so even without all the fancy tools you can still treat your patients!
Exactly, its so important. Now, are there any cultural challenges you’ve faced working in this clinic?
Yeah a few things, but none of them are deal-breakers you know. Around here, the whole of Galapagos islands in general, [some people] do view their dogs more as property compared to the US, where the dog is a family member that sleeps in a bed. A lot of the animals here live outside, people still take care of them great but they tend to wait a couple of days when the dog is really sick because they thought it would pass. Sometimes they might be a bit less emotionally invested than we’re used to at least in the western world.
But also, I think its kinda funny, but I have a darker colour skin and hair, so I look a little more like I fit in here than the other volunteers. And so [the locals] think that I speak Spanish! So they look at all the volunteers, many of whom do actually speak Spanish, then they continue to direct the conversation at me because I look like I speak Spanish. And I just don’t [laughs].
But I haven’t had many problems, or people not wanting to speak to me. Everyone has been super grateful for us to look at their pet- whether we just gave some parasite treatment or even medication, they are very thankful about that. So that was kinda nice!
Can you tell me about your favourite patient that you’ve treated here?
Its a hard question, because they are all so unique, but I have one patient that has stuck in my mind.
She’s an eight week old boxer, her name is Nena. She first came in one day and was not herself, still eating and drinking, but the owner was concerned. We looked at her and she was bright and alert, a little dehydrated but still ok. So we gave some subcutaneous fluids and general GI medicine to help her stomach and sent her home.
Two days later she came back looking like a different dog. She was totally flat, her eyes were sunken in her head and rolled down. She didn’t look mentally normal, she couldn’t even stand, and was very thin.
So we decided to hospitalise, and we kept her in overnight with an IV catheter to fix her severe dehydration. She stayed with us for a total of 5 days. The first 2 days I honestly thought that we were gonna lose her, she had these neurologic episodes which we didn’t have a diagnosis for. She’d just start screaming suddenly, her head would go back in a kinda torticollis motion and she’d urinate. And then she’d get up and act like everything was fine. Its was very weird. She just didn’t look mentally normal.
So we had her on some antibiotics that would penetrate the central nervous system and just tried to treat as an infection at that point. We were playing with the idea of maybe giving steroids, but we obviously don’t want to do that if it was something infectious, which we were suspicious of.
Then it was over the weekend, the clinic was closed except for emergencies. I’d already put Nena in bed for the night and given her fluids and her dinner. Then at 4 in the morning I head all this barking, and I went downstairs, and she was this totally different dog. She just wanted out of the crate, she just wanted to play! So that was a rough night for me but better for Nena.
The next day she was running around the clinic and wanted to play with everybody. She actually came and slept in our room that night because she did not want to be without people. And then she went home the next day with her owner.
And today, its 3 days later, she actually came back to the clinic and is doing fantastic. The owner is very happy. And because we don’t have diagnostics we still don’t know exactly what was wrong, But the fact that we saved this dog, she really looked like she was gonna die, then she left our clinic looking like a healthy puppy, it was really cool!
What’s your favourite thing about living on the Galapagos islands?
The weather is phenomenal!
At this time of the year [April] its snowing at home but here I think it has rained for a total of 2 minutes in the past 3 weeks! Its really been constant sunshine and warmth. And its just paradise.
And how do you find the conditions living in the clinic?
The conditions aren’t bad, its a communal type of living. There’s 2 separate rooms with bunk beds in them, with a shared bathroom. And the kitchen… its interesting. But I wouldn’t let that hold anybody back. The whole island just doesn’t have the same kitchen equipment, like microwaves or ovens that we are used to. But we are able to cook food, there’s a refrigerator. Overall, the accommodation is definitely a nice place, and if everyone keeps it clean its not bad at all. You get close, you get to know everybody that you’re with and its a little community which is nice.
What do you tend to do in the daily Siesta break time?
There is plenty to do in Siesta! You always have the option of actually napping of course, but most the time we hang around [the local town].
There’s a couple of local beaches around that you can go to within a half hour walk. You can go snorkelling. There’s the Darwin Research Centre [a conservation centre] which has Galapagos Tortoises, which is for free. There’s a lot of restaurants where you can go eat lunch. Some of the restaurants have a really good lunch menu, where you can get a soup, a local juice of the day, some fish and rice and a little side and dessert- all for like $4.
And then there’s some other activities that would take up the whole four hours. You can catch a taxi up to the highlands outside of town where they have a tortoise reserve and lava tunnels.. But it is hot, that’s the one thing about siesta- there is so much to do but its the hottest part of the day- so sometimes laying at the beach and snorkelling in the ocean is the best choice.
And do you find that you hang out with the other volunteers a lot?
Yeah, most days we hang out. The good thing is that if you just want to have some alone time, there definitely is enough space in the clinic, and in the town where we live as well. You can easily go on a walk and get your own personal space. It feels like a really safe area to do that. But I mainly do hangout with people in the clinic.
You get to know people in the town too, you think its big but its really not. So you can make friends with people at the restaurant or at the beach. Often times the vets have been here for an extended length of time and know some people as well, so they can put you in contact, and you can find some good friends here on this island.
Do you feel that you’ve made a difference in the lives of the animals that you’ve worked with here?
Yeah, I do think we’ve made a difference. Cases like Nena, yeah. But even for example, we’ve had a lot of puppies that come here, that already have lots of worms. And by giving them wormer we can see we help them so much, we’re saving a pups life.
And with the sterilisation project that they have going on here, we’re not only saving the cats and dogs lives, but we’re educating the owners, but we also protecting the wildlife as well just by dampening the effect that the overpopulation of our domestic animals are having. So you can look at it two ways- from the small individual animal that you are helping, to the bigger picture of protecting the Galapagos, which is very cool working at one clinic.
Yeah, especially because on the weekends we can go out and see the wildlife all around, so its easy to say, well that’s what we’re here for, to protect these guys.
What advice would you give to other vet students who are thinking of volunteering here, and would you recommend it to them?
Yes, I absolutely would recommend it to them. I think its a great experience and even though I have been to visit other volunteer clinics, this has been a whole different experience!
You get to learn a lot and its a lot of hands on experience, whereas some clinics won’t let you have that experience unless you’re already a vet. If you’re here and you’re willing to do something, then there’s always someone who is willing to teach you.
Do you think its helped you to develop as a vet?
Yeah I definitely think it has. We’ve come across cases where the vets ask me, what would you do in this case? And I’ll give an answer that’s just second nature to me, and they say well I’ve never heard of that, that would be a great idea but we can’t do that here, so now what? So I think its teaching me to think of different ways to do things, like what’s the next option and what’s going to best benefit the animal? So I think being in an environment like that makes you a much better vet and person in general. You use different parts of your brain that you didn’t know were there!
A huge thanks to Katelyn for sharing her experiences at Darwin Animal Doctors with me!
Further Information
Want to know more about volunteering at Darwin Animal Doctors? Get all the info on the Darwin Animal Doctor’s profile page, or head to their website.
Check out more interview with vets who work in amazing location on the Global Vet Interview Page!
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