My Nonprofit Reviews

Spay Panama was an amazing experience for me as a second year veterinary student. We stayed for 2 weeks with Spay. We got lots of experience with pre surgical procedures such as shaving animals, expressing bladers, doing IM and SQ injections, talking to owners, drawing blood, anesthetizing patients, intubating and catheterizing. We also did post surgical procedures such as cleaning ears and incision cleaning. As vet students, we also got to partake in surgeries, mainly neuters but we also performed a cat spay. We got to do the surgeries entirely by ourselves with supervision from the veterinarians there and we did many surgeries which was great for experience. In the afternoons, we would see different everyday appointments. We very much liked working with Mati (the technician), Leo and Veronica (veterinarians) and they made us feel like a part of the Spay family.

After our volunteer shift, we would get a tour of different areas in Panama which was great. The food provided to all the volunteers was also amazing and they had big portions. It is evident the difference that Spay is making with the animal population as most animals on the street (which there aren't many anymore) have been fixed by Spay Panama.

Since there are a lot of volunteers that go through Spay Panama and it is a very fast-paced environment, it can sometimes be taunting to enter such a close-knit work group. My only recommendation would be to strive towards building a stronger interpersonal relation with the volunteer even if they are only there for a couple weeks. All in all though, Spay Panama was a one in a lifetime experience with great hands-on opportunities.