Christina Swindall
When
the article below was published, Christina Swindall,
Gabrielino, DVM, had just graduated from the College
of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at
Colorado State University in the spring of 2002. Since
then she has been working in a multi-doctor, small
animal and exotic practice in Studio City,
California.
As a little
girl, Swindall brought home stray animals and injured
birds. She told her mother, “I want to fix animals.” As she
went through high school and college her desire to care for
animals grew stronger.
To help prepare herself for veterinary school, Swindall
worked in two different small animal (dog and cat) clinics,
a zoo, and a research setting. The experience in the
clinics gave Swindall her first real “in the hospital”
introduction to veterinary medicine. “The doctors were
great in nurturing my interests in the field and gave me
many suggestions for getting into vet school,” she says.
“Later, they wrote letters of recommendation for me.”
In the zoo, Swindall, learned the roles of the vet and the
zookeepers. “You can’t just walk up to dangerous animals
and examine them,” she said. “Being able to do this
requires the behavioral training, which the zoo keepers
have, or the use of general anesthesia. During that
experience I learned of my passion for zoo medicine with
its never-ending challenge of taking care of a variety of
animals, from small lizards and fish to elephants and
tigers.”
In the research setting, Swindall worked as a laboratory
animal technician, providing daily care primarily for the
breeding colonies mice. Eventually she also was able to
give basic medical care to the sick or injured animals.
“Like many applicants,” she says, “it took me a few tries
to get into veterinary medical school.” She applied and was
accepted at Colorado State University. Since she was a
California resident, she decided first to move to Colorado
and get her Colorado residency so that she wouldn’t have to
pay the high out-of-state tuition.
Meanwhile, she received a call saying that she had been
selected by Colorado State for the special yearlong Vet
Prep Program. If she successfully completed that program,
she would be guaranteed admission to the veterinary medical
school. She jumped at the opportunity. “We took classes in
biology, chemistry, and pathology and were taught how the
school operates and how to manage stress and time,” she
says. “This gave us an amazing start.”
Swindall successfully completed veterinary medical school
and joined an established practice in Los Angeles where she
and seven other veterinarians care for small animals, such
as dogs and cats, as well as exotic animals, such as
reptiles, birds, fish, rodents, and amphibians.
This
article was originally published in the Autumn 2002 issue
of
Winds of Change. (The cover
artist is Virginia Stroud, United Keetoowah Bank of
Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.)