Kansas Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine internship program doubles number of trainees

The diagnostic medicine internship program at the Kansas Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, or KVDL, has a long, successful history. Initiated in 2014, the program was designed to introduce Doctor of Veterinary Medicine graduates to the many facets of diagnostic medicine and to enhance each intern’s opportunity to be selected into competitive clinical and anatomic pathology residency programs across North America.

 

The Kansas Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory welcomes a new class of diagnostic medicine interns. From left: Drs. Tatiana Paz, Mikkela Cabanillas, Talis Rehse and Irene Dobles.

 

The KVDL’s internships are one year in length, with a portion of the responsibilities including extensive clinical pathology training for performing after-hours testing for veterinary clinicians. Another important training experience includes rotating through all 13 KVDL specialty sections including bacteriology, histology, molecular service, molecular research and development, necropsy, next generation sequencing, parasitology, rabies, serology, toxicology and virology.

“During each rotation, each intern forms an understanding of the different testing platforms,” said Dr. Daniela Hernandez, internship coordinator and of the KVDL. “More importantly, the rotations allow interns to spend time with each section head learning diagnostic test result interpretation.”

The section rotations are completed during the first six months of the internship. During the subsequent six months, interns can focus on any diagnostic medicine specialty they wish. Dr. Hernandez said most interns have concentrated on clinical or anatomic pathology.

“Initially, two interns were accepted into the program each year,” Dr. Hernandez said. “Because the number of applicants has increased tremendously over the last several years, KVDL now accepts four interns per year. The veterinary experiences of accepted interns, prior to program acceptance, have ranged from new graduates to seasoned private practitioners.”

This year’s interns are Drs. Mikkela Cabanillas, Irene Dobles, Tatiana Paz and Talis Rehse.

“I applied to the program to help me pursue a career and specialization in Clinical Pathology,” said Dr. Cabarillas. “I am already learning so much since I've started and I look forward to learning and experiencing more throughout this year.”

“I found out about the program last year in my clinical pathology rotation when I was a small animal rotating intern at Purdue,” Dr. Dobles said. “[My Purdue colleagues] had heard good things about the program, and some mentioned they had had a resident who completed this program. They said she had the knowledge of a second-year resident when she was only a first-year resident. I also read some articles about the KVDL in veterinary journals and knew it was very prestigious and large, running many samples for the whole state of Kansas and beyond. The fact I had completed an externship at the Veterinary Health Center at K-State in 2019, when I was still a student, also helped me decide to apply. I saw the great institution that K-State CVM is. I felt included and learned a lot, so I knew the KVDL was not going to be different.”

Dr. Hernandez said many interns utilize this program to enhance the probability of being accepted into residency programs. To date 99.2% of the diagnostic medicine interns who started the KVDL program finished. Of those who finished the internship program, 97% were accepted into residency programs on their first attempt.

Applications are accepted beginning in December of each year with selections completed by February. If you have questions about the KVDL Internship program, please contact Dr. Gregg A. Hanzlicek, associate director, at gahanz@vet.k-state.edu.