I spent 8 weeks in Phnom Penh working with Animal Mama before starting my third year of vet school at Cornell. I was suppose to work somewhere else and it ended up not working out and I’m so happy to have found Animal Mama. I immediately felt like I had found “my people”. I was so happy going into work every day and even went in on days I was going to take off. I did a lot of blood smear analysis, fecals, physical exams, and helped with surgery. I also loved getting to work with the de-mining dogs, which an experience very unique to Animal Mama. I have already found since being back at school I am able to apply what I learned over the summer.
Cornell teaches a specific way to approach cases and it was so awesome to get to work on some really interesting cases with Dr Laura. Dr Laura really makes you feel like you are part of the team and always makes sure to boost your confidence (there were a lot of high fives) and created such a positive work environment. She is a gem and an excellent clinician. Yulia, who is the Executive Director of the clinic is basically Wonder Woman, she has accomplished so much and definitely served as a mentor and inspiration for me. She also makes you feel so good about the work you do and really looks out for her workers. Her partner, Darren, is also a jack of all trades who has done really impressive marketing for them which has helped them grow their multiple enterprises. I love the variety of Khmer and non-Khmer workers. You could tell everyone had such pride working there. I’m literally tearing up writing this review because I miss Animal Mama so much. Mary who is the general manager, is Khmer but speaks English without an accent, it was so cool getting to eat lunch with her everyday and hear about life growing up in Cambodia. Literally everyone that worked there was awesome. I am excited to use my new skills as they come up, I’m pretty sure I can run fecal flotations better than most vets now and have also gotten so much experience making blood smears and looking at radiographs.
They also have some permant resident dogs like one dog who was diagnosed with a super rare skin-eating fungus that was diagnosed by a visiting parasitologist. There is also a puppy that animal mama took in who was in a moto accident and was in a coma for 9 days before waking up. There are many adoptable dogs with crazy stories such as this living with animal mama...they also have a “cat room” that is literally a room filled with cats who are up for adoption and you can nap there and it’s literally the most amazing place ever. Hope to return ASAP!!
