Partnership helps train Japanese veterinary students

A 27-year collaboration between Nihon University in Japan and Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine is equipping international veterinary students with the skills to be practicing veterinarians.

The annual two-week visit to Pullman, which provides more than two dozen veterinary students from Japan their first opportunity to complete routine medical procedures like x-rays, fluid collection, and injectable vaccines, marks the first since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In Japan there aren't many doctors who can treat exotic animals, but here I saw all kinds of exotic animals from rabbits and parrots to tarantulas," said Yuna Fujimatsu, a fifth-year veterinary student from Japan. "I love exotic animals. I want to work with them in the future, so it was a really precious experience that I saw so many exotic animals during my time here."

During her rotation on the exotics section, Fujimatsu administered her first injection to an animal - a turtle that required antibiotic treatment.

Fujimatsu said the experience was nerve wracking and exciting at the same time. It was the highlight of her trip.

She spent her first week at the teaching hospital's exotics ward, but then moved to the emergency department where some of the most critical patients receive care.

"We don't have an emergency section in the hospital of the university back home, so I really wanted to learn what they are doing and how they are treating the animals," Fujimatsu said.

Across the hospital, Nanako Kato, another fifth-year veterinary student from Japan, shadowed WSU faculty and residents in the soft tissue surgery department, where she completed her first biopsy of a tumor for diagnostic testing. The following week Kato shifted to WSU's equine medicine rotation where she spent the week working with horses.

Kato said she chose equine medicine because in Japan chances to work with horses are rare, and she'd never had the opportunity to work with the large animals.

"Not many people in my country own horses so we don't actually practice with them," Kato said. "If we want, we may work with them in the future, but not as a veterinary student."

All the students are in their fifth year of Japan's six-year veterinary program. Similar to the European veterinary medical education, it is normal for students to enter a veterinary program right after high school, but those programs are six years long as opposed to the four-year model in the United States and Canada.

Yoko Ambrosini, a Nihon University alumnus who went through the program and is now an assistant professor in the Small Animal Internal Medicine service at WSU, said the program was not just her first time shadowing faculty in a clinical setting, it was also her first time working hands-on with client-owned animals.

"The program is meant to provide opportunities that they really can't get in Japan," Ambrosini said. "It's only a two-week program but they learn a lot. We're kind of in a fortunate situation that we always do clinical training - it's our job - so just being able to offer that to international students is a privilege."

In addition to clinical practice, the visit offers cultural education for Japanese and Western students. Ambrosini, who is one of the only Japanese board-certified internal medicine veterinarians in the world, said the Japanese students also get opportunities to mingle with WSU faculty, staff and students, including during a farewell party that pairs traditional Japanese dress with Western food and music.

"It's kind of like this international program is translating what kind of culture this school has," she said. "That's one of the reasons that I applied to come back to WSU."