Caring for zoo animals as a veterinary technician

In a dvm360 interview, Kourtney Conti, CVT, from the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, Pennsylvania, explained that her role is less client-facing than that of a more traditional veterinary technicians in a small animal practice. Veterinary technicians on a zoo medicine team also work more with many different species. In this video, Conti discusses what her day-to-day work looks like and how veterinary technicians bring value to the health of zoo animals.

The following is a transcript of this video:

Question: What is the primary role of a veterinary technician in zoo medicine?

Kourtney Conti, CVT: At a zoo, we're kind of the boots on the ground person. So anytime a keeper notices a problem with an animal, or they had a concern, we go out and do the triaging and seeing what's going on with that animal. And then, we also do help with the preventive health program. Almost all of our animals are in some sort of preventive health program.

So they don't all get sedated for exams, but a lot of them do, and during that is when we do more of a clinical role: managing the anesthesia, doing blood collection, placing catheters, taking radiographs, all of those types of things, But more the day-to-day, I'd say, is problem solving with sick animals, prescribing medications, helping keepers if animals aren't taking their medications, because a lot of our zoo animals are very particular. So, a lot of just boots on the ground day-to-day work.

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