May was nationally recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month, so I have been reflecting on wellbeing—which is a priority for the school year-round.

Last December, Matsi, an 8-year-old horse, found herself stuck in an underground space beneath an empty rice silo in a small agricultural community outside of Davis. When Yolo County Animal Services called the UC Davis Equine Field Service for help, their team of veterinarians, technicians, and fourth-year veterinary students jumped into action. Collaborating with rescue teams, they devised a plan to lift Matsi safely from the silo.

A massive outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza spreading among elephant seals and sea lions in South America provided evidence of mammal to mammal transmission of this deadly disease. A study published in the journal Nature Communications and co-led by UC Davis and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology in Argentina shows that the outbreak in elephant seals was a steppingstone amid the first transnational spread of the virus in these species, extending across five countries in southern South America.

ndividuals are generally drawn to veterinary medicine because they have a passion for animals and a desire to help them. But until about a decade ago, there wasn’t much discussion about the dark underside of the career—the fact that female veterinarians are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide relative to the general population, and male veterinarians are approximately twice as likely (J Am Vet Med Assoc, 2019).

While Nhung Nguyen, Class of 2026, grew up in the United States, she and her family maintained deep cultural ties to their homeland in Vietnam. Thanks to the support of the Office for Global Programs, Nguyen was able to spend eight weeks last summer in Hue, an imperial city located in the heart of the country.

But how exactly do microorganisms in the gut—such as bacteria, fungi and viruses—impact communication between this organ and the brain?

Hurley earned her DVM from UC Davis in 1999 and returned in 2001 to start the world’s first residency in shelter medicine.

ancy Ehrlich was in her early twenties when she took her dog to a veterinarian for a checkup, and a female veterinarian walked into the exam room.

“I hadn’t seen that before,” Ehrlich said. “Right then, I knew what I wanted to do with my career.”

 She left her home state of New York and went to UC Davis for undergraduate coursework in the sciences. She applied to the School of Veterinary Medicine in the 1970s but was not admitted, in part due to the limited number of spots open to women at the time.

Compassionate care has always been the gold standard at UC Davis—whether the patient is a pet hamster, a best-in-show dog or an injured wild hawk. That level of care is enhanced when our veterinary specialists collaborate in expanded clinical facilities where advanced equipment allows them to employ new technologies and surgical approaches.