One Health
Animal-Human-Ecologic Research
Veterinary Externship
Conservet Costa Rica
July 9-22, 2023

Conservet Costa Rica is an on-site conservation medicine veterinary externship that engages human, animal, environmental health professionals and students in considerations of planetary health, including ongoing research investigations, aimed at better defining the drivers of global health and health dysfunction that frame the concept of One Health.

Public health is dependent on understanding how human health intersects animal and planetary health, exemplified by (but not limited to) zoonotic and infectious diseases. Collaborative efforts between veterinary and human medical professionals, along with those from many other disciplines, are needed to safeguard not only the public heath, but also that of the environment on which public health depends.

Since populations often form the units of concern in environmental decline, basic epidemiological concepts, including an introduction to the concepts of geographic information systems, will be presented in individual workshops during the veterinary externship that enable a description of health dysfunction and the development of appropriate interventions available for the ecosystem health practitioner.

Hands-on Immersion in Field Study Methods
Taught by Environmental Biology and Medicine Professionals

This externship examines a One Health approach to animal veterinary and human medicine and seeks to bring together professionals across a variety of disciplines. Applicants from multi-disciplinary professions who are seeking to widen their reach to conservation and public health medicine concepts in the context of montane forest ecosystems of rural Costa Rica are invited to apply.

The instructional format of this global health veterinary externship includes preparatory lectures, labs, group discussions and problem-solving exercises, combined with hands-on immersion in field study methods that examine the complexities of environmental functions and services, as well as the consequences that can result when natural processes are disrupted.

General Externship Information
In the Study of the Animal-Human-Ecologic Health Connection

Join Conservet in Ongoing Research Projects
As We Search for Disease Prevention

Conservet considers the complexities that can compromise effective and sustainable solutions to global wellness by not only exploring the science available to define veterinary and public health problems but also the difficulties in formulating policies that allow scientific knowledge to be effectively applied. To accomplish this, workshops move beyond the more traditional passive didactic classroom formats to create a highly participatory educational environment to provide professional students with the most effective learning platform. Ongoing projects include the following:

Regenerative Agriculture

The regenerative agriculture approach, an important One Health component, seeks to work with, rather than against, natural processes, with the twin goals of sustainability and resiliency. The regenerative agriculture model incorporates more diversity of crops and animals to build healthy soils that can grow nutritious foods while reducing the need for expensive and ecologically harmful inputs such as fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and antibiotics. Healthy, organic soils have also been shown to capture atmospheric carbon, serving to mitigate greenhouse gas contributions to climate change.

Farm animal production in the regenerative model recognizes the value of sound animal husbandry and welfare practices that are central to sustainable veterinary principles.

Since the practice of global medicine very often encompasses socioeconomic dimensions, workshops underscore the need to work across professional disciplines to meet the challenges inherent in establishing protocols that mitigate illness in a context where conflicts of interest can disrupt ecosystem stability.

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Conservation Veterinary Medicine
Animal, Human and Environmental Health Connection