INTERVIEW: Students face challenges on ‘Life at Vet U’
Life at Vet U, the new reality series from Animal Planet, follows a group of veterinary students as they work their way to graduation at University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious School of Veterinary Medicine. These six students are tasked with developing key skills, learning tons of knowledge and applying the principles in real life. They make Ryan Hospital, an institution for companion animals, and New Bolton Center, a place for large animals, their laboratories for learning and succeeding.
New episodes air Saturdays at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet.
Lindsay Gallagher is one of the students featured on the show. Her journey to reality-TV personality began with a Skype interview and some trial recording sessions. After the producers reached out, she was happy to accept the offer and enter into the world of documentary television.
“I thought about it a lot,” Gallagher said recently in a phone interview. “I was definitely excited about the possibility to begin with, but I am a person that goes with my head often more than my heart. So I always do have to kind of think about all the decisions I have to make, but that’s kind of why I decided to get involved in the very beginning. The best way for me to find out more about it is to start the process and get involved … see what they’re all about. And kind of the more information I found out about the show … and the people that were putting it together, the more sure I was I wanted to do it.”
Gallagher said the University of Pennsylvania, known as Penn, is a highly competitive school for veterinarians, and she devotes much of her time to succeeding as a student. “It’s hard enough getting into a school as awesome as Penn, and then, yeah, once you’re there, the veterinary school in general is extremely rigorous,” she said. “I’ve always been academically a hard worker. I’ve always taken honors classes and AP classes. I’ve always pushed myself. I do challenge myself academically, so I’ve been doing rigorous work for a while. But, yeah, veterinary school brings it to a new level.”
At the school, Gallagher needs to learn about a variety of species, not only dogs and cats. She has lessons on horses, cows, rabbits, guinea pigs, snakes and fish. If someone has an animal in their home or on their farm, chances are Gallagher and the team have studied it.
She said that audience members will learn a lot of information about the medication options available to veterinarians, and she hopes viewers begin to see connections between animal medication and human medication.
“It’s a lot of stress,” she said. “It’s a lot of pressure, and we always have to be continually learning. Medicine is constantly evolving, changing, getting better, so you always have to be a student essentially. … I hope people do develop a new appreciation for their veterinarians whether they work with them directly or they have a pet.”
Gallagher, whose speciality and number-one love is understanding animal behavior, what she called psychiatry for animals, continues to learn about these four-legged friends and is actively fulfilling her childhood dream.
“I’ve always been an animal lover,” she said. “I’ve always had animals at my house. I’ve had dogs and cats, but we also had ducks and chickens. I had goats when I was little. I spent a lot of time on my grandfather’s farm. He had beef cattle. … My mom always talks about how I never had dolls. I never liked playing with dolls as a kid. It was always stuffed animals and animals.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Life at Vet U premieres new episodes Saturdays at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet. Click here for more information.
