It's one hour before the final exam. You are nervous, sweating, and terrified. Meanwhile, your professor can't stop playing with a cat kidney.
The bizarre is mundane for students in professor Sam Telford's class on "Infectious Disease Epidemiology" as part of the Masters in Public Health Program (MPH).
Students in the class are from either the medical or veterinary school and are receiving a Masters on top of their doctorate education.
Although classes are held at the medical school, activities like today's final exam are methods the school uses to incorporate animals into the curriculum.
The exam is also an opportunity for Telford -- an infectious disease specialist who also does research at Harvard -- to give students some final thoughts on zoonotic disease.
Students will soon have to respond to a hypothetical scenario of disease exposure which uses the vet school's campus as a staging area.
One group will have to discover a "proximal determinant" of risks around the livestock barns. Other sections will look at the animal hospitals and the surrounding woods.
Before the exam, the students take a tour of the veterinary school campus to learn and take notes about how the experts respond to cases.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine, which started as a converted mental hospital. It is still the only veterinary school in the Northeast, and the only private vet school in the country.
The school is also as popular as ever: there were 707 applications for 80 slots in the 2004 entering class.
The Vet School was divided in the Boston press earlier this year when four masters of public policy students protested the killing of five research animals. But the students here only wanted to talk about how much they wanted to help animals.
According to Tufts public relations official Barbara Donato, the school sees over 25,000 patients a year.
More than 20,000 of these pass through the Wagner Hospital for Small Animals. The school receives referrals from over 400 clinics from across New England, which send their most complicated cases to the facility.
Telford said while "vet students and med students get the same intensity and depth of training in clinical sciences" they bring different skills to the table.
Vet students are more familiar with a variety of species, and therefore have "broader perspective," he said.
"Even so, when it comes to zoonoses it is usually the human [doctors] who are more involved, from research to teaching to informing the public," he said.
Telford said that there is an increased need after Sept. 11, 2001 for veterinarians with public health training, as most of the "bioterrorism agents" are classified as "zoonotic."
The vet school has recently refurbished and enlarged its waiting areas, allowing for separate sections for dogs and cats.
"The dogs didn't seem to mind [waiting with cats]," Donato said. "But cats can get a little nervous."
A quick scan of the wards reveals a diverse clientele. There are dogs being treated for anything ranging from epileptic seizures to anemia to marijuana exposure.
The latter, however, "is not a typical client," Donato said.
In front of the radiology department are three bulletin boards filled with Polaroid snapshots of the ward's four-legged patients. After months or even years of treating the same animals, the staff "becomes very attached to the patients," Donato said.
These close relationships are formed despite a very high volume of animals coming in each day. A technician at the facility said that within five hours she had seen thirteen patients, and more are waiting.
One of the school's dedicated members is Dr. Richard Jachowski, a long-time pathologist at the school who invites the MPH students to join an in-process feline autopsy. The owner has requested an autopsy to see if the death was related to a history of renal failure. The students crowd around as Jachowski holds up a long, crimson chain of tissue.
"You must have seen a lot of kidneys like this before," Jachowski said.
"Not in cats," Telford said. From there, Telford tried to describe potential risk factors for zoonotic diseases, including birds that carry the West Nile Virus. The school examines suspicious cases to help state environmental and health agencies trying to study the virus -- which can be spread to humans.
The school is also host to the Wildlife Clinic, which provides care for local animals and endangered species.
Today the patients include several squirrels, a falcon, and a teenage owl. Director of Wildlife Management Mark Pokras said early spring often sees a full case load.
"It's baby season -- we are seeing a lot orphans this time of year," he said.
The owl was brought to the school by two local hunters who found the bird lying on the ground. Pokras said the owl, who was injured, was just enduring what might be called teenage years.
The foot high bird, covered in brown feathers, will soon grow up to be "the fiercest creature in the forest."
For now, he will be examined by a doctor before being released later in the evening, near where he was originally found.
"What your mom told you about if you touch it -- [that] the mother won't take it back -- is a lie," Pokras said.
Unlike the University's other animal hospitals, the wildlife clinic does not charge for treatment of wildlife animals.Treatment at the clinic is run completely on public and private grants, although the Vet School as a whole relies heavily on state funding for much of its work.
The Vet School has had to fight cuts in state aid over the past few years. Last year Governor Mitt Romney proposed eliminating all money, but $3 million was later restored by the Massachusetts State Senate.
Telford believes the operation is well worth the money. "Tufts is doing great work here, by providing this service to the community," he said.
