The Wildlife Medical Clinic (WMC) is a nonprofit, volunteer-operated, donation-funded clinic within the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
Teams of volunteers are responsible for the intake, care, and release of all animals admitted to the clinic while under the supervision of the Medical Director, the Illinois zoological medicine residents, and two student managers. Volunteers in their second and third year of veterinary school with one or more years of experience in the WMC act as team leaders.
Teams consist mostly of veterinary and pre-veterinary student volunteers. Team size varies year-to-year, around twelve to fifteen members per team. We have reworked the responsibilities for team members to follow a points system, which will still add up to about 5-10 total hours in the clinic a week. These hours will be spent doing patient treatments, taking care of orphans, and taking on-call pager shifts to triage patients. Each member will be required to accrue a minimum number of points, and will receive rewards the more points they earn. The points system is designed to reward extra efforts put in by any volunteers and provide them with additional labs, lectures, WMC gear, and others. Volunteers sign up for their own shifts one week in advance, so there is usually quite a bit of flexibility. Non-veterinary University of Illinois students will be considered on a space-available basis, during a specific application time-frame (detailed below), and following an application and interview process. Current volunteers consider working in the WMC to be a privilege and a serious responsibility; please consider this when applying.
Here is the link to our information page:
https://vetmed.illinois.edu/wildlife/student-volunteer-program/academic-year-program/
Here is the link to our application:
https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/1577032?fbclid=IwAR1DAPtYB-i49tb3tEQfO9jdyXUGdcx76kundrtoetzsy3Y1aqi3gh5nCIE
We will be happy to answer any questions students may have through our email at WMCChair@gmail.com.
