Becoming a veterinarian doesn't always mean a future as a clinical practitioner. Just ask Dr. Michelle Colby, currently a senior policy analyst working in the areas of agro-terrorism, bioterrorism and visa policy at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President. "I knew from my clinical experiences before entering vet school that I wanted to explore non-clinical career options, but I wasn’t quite sure what those options were," she remembers. While at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM), she learned about a government and corporate track offered through the college and The Center for Government and Corporate Veterinary Medicine (now the Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine). "This program allowed me to explore many of the different opportunities available to veterinarians outside of the traditional clinical practice," Dr. Colby says.

 

Prior to graduating in 1999 with her DVM, Dr. Colby obtained a BS in Agriculture/Animal Science from the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. She completed a three-year residency/Masters in applied veterinary epidemiology, from 1999 to 2002, at the Maryland campus of VMRCVM. Dr. Colby next accepted a position as a post-doctoral research associate at VMRCVM from 2002 to 2003, where she carried out the completion of a Geographic Information System database mapping the poultry industry on the Delmarva Peninsula.

 

Dr. Colby credits her three-year residency in applied veterinary epidemiology with exposing her to a wide array of veterinary opportunities, especially those in the federal government and policy analysis and development. In fact, she says that her experiences with risk analysis and policy development during the residency prompted her to apply for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Science Policy fellowship program, which led to her current White House policy position. She joined OSTP in September 2003 as an AAAS/Nuclear Threat Initiative Global Security Fellow, and was then hired as a full time policy analyst in August 2004.

 

Her message to prospective students and graduates who are interested in non-clinical veterinary careers is to be persistent. "It is highly unlikely that you are going to see a job opening with the title 'Veterinary Policy Analyst', but if you look in the right places you’ll find the types of jobs that are a good fit for you," she advises. "Then it is up to you to justify why a veterinarian is the right person for that policy position." She also stressed that students understand the term policy. "Policy isn’t about politics; it is about collaborating to find optimal solutions to hard problems."

 

Ultimately, according to Dr. Colby, her career has been about the diversity of experiences over the past seven years since graduating from VMRCVM. "In the short time I've been out, I've had so many great opportunities to explore and promote the non-traditional possibilities of the veterinary profession," she says. "My time at OSTP has made me realize how vital the veterinary perspective is in so many aspects of government--from agro-terrorism to environmental issues, to emerging and zoonotic diseases."