Q&A: Catch and release

Third year Purdue veterinary student Tyler Bright is a first generation college student and veterinarian from Hawaii who recently studied abroad in Costa Rica.

She has a passion for shelter medicine and the different exotic animals she’s dealt with, along with the difficulties of graduate school and compassion fatigue.

“On the veterinary team, we mostly worked with the nursing animals," she said. "Like orphans or very young animals, or injured animal or recently admitted rescues that come to the center.”

The interview with her has been transcribed below in Q&A format. It has been edited for length and clarity.

What is shelter medicine?

There are a lot of aspects to it, but essentially, when you have street animals, and they come into the clinic, the majority of shelter medicine is doing things like spays and neuters to make sure we keep the population controlled.

There's a large issue with a lot of stray cats, and there are issues in wildlife being affected by that because cats tend to go after our native birds and other animals.

There's also this thing called toxoplasmosis, which is a type of parasite that can get in. It goes to the feces, but it can get into waterways, and it's been affecting our sea life, so we've been having Hawaiian monk seals die from it.

Essentially with spraying and neutering them, there's something called TNR trapping and releasing, so trapping them, neutering them, then releasing them again to keep their populations lower. But also trying to find the shelter animals homes because there’s an issue with overcrowding.

Did you do your undergrad at Purdue?

I did my undergrad at Chaminade University of Honolulu. Originally, I didn't want to be a veterinarian. I thought I couldn't do it, because of imposter syndrome, but also being a first generation college student. And then just not being surrounded by others in my family who had professional careers like that. You know, it just felt very intimidating.

I volunteered at the Hawaii Humane Society, and I think that reignited my love for animals, but also shelter medicine and sheltering them and trying to find them homes. I just kind of fell in love with medicine and caring for animals.

So then I applied to Purdue’s ‘Vet Up’ program, and it’s set up as if you’re going through the first year of school, but it was during COVID so we had to do it all through Zoom.

It was literally 9 a.m. there, and I had to wake up at three in the morning to attend these daily meetings. Through that program you can apply to early admissions, and that is how I got into Purdue.

Could you tell me about your time in Costa Rica?

It was a two-week program that I did. On the veterinary team, we mostly worked with the nursing animals, like orphans or very young animals, injured animals or recently admitted rescues that come to the center.

We were also responsible for husbandry, which is preparing their meals, feeding the baby birds, and I got to work with baby toucans. We also worked with turtles there, and I got to help.

I was taught how to do wound cleaning for their shells because we had a turtle with a fractured shell, and we also had another turtle with abscesses. We also got to work with a lot of sloths, where we administered eye drops.

When you work in wildlife medicine, you want to reduce as much contact with the animals as possible, because you want them to be afraid of humans so they can survive in the wild on their own.

How were animals brought to the wildlife center, and were most released back into the wild?

A lot of the animals admitted are from locals. We got a baby toucan that fell on the side of the road and was injured, and its mother probably died. It wasn’t able to care for itself anymore. We had a lot of kindred animals admitted by locals.

It honestly depends on the condition of the animal. If we can get them to a stable level fast enough, they can be relieved, but in a lot of cases there's animals who are admitted as pets. We had some talking parrots, although in Costa Rica it’s illegal to own parrots and birds as pets.

We also treated a peccary, which is like a type of pig or boar that was treated as a dog. So he’s a permanent resident. He’s not releasable because he’s too dependent on humans, but when we get baby animals, it’s easier to release them.

We just have to make sure we take care of them, feed them, and provide for them until they’re at the age where they can take care of themselves, but it really depends on the species of animal. It’s not really black and white, you kind of have to take it case by case.

What are some of the biggest challenges of studying veterinary sciences?

In undergrad I was not the best student, and I didn't have the best study habits.

So when I came into veterinary school, my first year I really struggled trying to figure out what works best for me. And it was kind of like I don't know, it was very difficult because I was also 1000s of miles away from home. So it's just dealing with being in a new environment, not really knowing anybody at school, and I think a lot of my friends were also struggling with starting veterinary school.

The workload is so much, I mean, we have like, one to two, maybe even three exams every week and it's just a constant. We just have to be on top of everything. But as you get on, and you kind of figure out what works best for you, trying different study habits and relying on your friends is very important and helped me a lot.

I think when I go to clinics and get to actually work with animals, the hardest part is compassion fatigue. I worked at a veterinary clinic last summer when I was back home. And I went through my first euthanasia, and I felt like, 'I know that is going to be part of my job.'

There might be like a day, that thing you're gonna have to euthanize, and then go to the next room and talk to another client that maybe will bring a puppy, and it's just like, this hard balance of, death is going to be so normal in our lives as a medical professional. You're not really going to have time to process it. I think mental health is a big thing. The rate of suicide is pretty high within medical professions. But I think Purdue does a good job providing resources.

How do you administer different medications across different animals?

In pharmacology, we learn about all the different medications that you can use in exotic animals. There can be overlap. I mean, we have non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs so, let's say it would be our Tylenol, but we can't give Tylenol to animals because it's toxic to them. So they get Meloxicam, and Meloxicam is cross species. I've been able to use in turtles and dogs and cats.

We had a little course in physiology. When you give drugs to certain animals like birds and turtles, you can only give certain drugs to certain parts of their bodies. So with turtles and birds, you want to avoid giving drugs at the high end of their body because it passes through circulation in their livers. The drugs won't be processed properly if it's not administered on the upper portion of their body.

There's also things like birds have new pneumatic bones, because birds have to fly. You can inject or insert in certain bones, you have to make sure to check, but every animal is so different. There are so many exotic animals, so you kind of learn as you go.

Some of the rescues I've been to, it's kind of I see them bring out books and they're like "What even is this." But I feel like there’s a lot of physiology that even overlaps with humans. I feel like most animals are pretty similar to animals in respect to our physiology.