Mentorship program attracts students

WAUPUN, Wis. – Encouraging and preparing the next generation of veterinarians is one focus of a mentorship program at Waupun Veterinary Services where students see and experience a day in the life of a veterinarian.

Through ride-along experiences, externships and summer internships, the clinic offers learning opportunities for students at various stages of their education. While the program is a team effort of more than a dozen vets, student mentor coordinator Nick Mayer, DVM, said working with students brings renewed energy to the practice.

“Students are fun to work with because they’re so excited about joining our profession,” Mayer said.

He said that after more than 10 years in practice, his day-to-day can become routine, and the enthusiasm of students eager to learn is contagious.

Mayer said he estimates that students spend about 100 days at the clinic throughout the year. Opportunities include summer internships, day ride-alongs for high school students and week-long externships offered to vet students. Interested students apply through the clinic’s website, a process Mayer said helps attract motivated, quality applicants.

One summer intern in 2025 was Chaiden Duitscher, a third-year veterinary student at Iowa State University and an upcoming third-generation veterinarian.

Duitscher worked with several veterinarians in his internship, spending time in the milking parlor evaluating equipment and procedures and conducting milk quality assessments.

“I got to sit in on meetings with several dairy farms and see how the vets are bringing value in more ways than just palpating cows or looking at sick calves or animals,” Duitscher said.

Exposure to the clinic’s milk and bedding laboratories was also a memorable experience.

“(The lab) can (look) at some bedding … and figure out pathogen-wise if there’s an issue there,” Duitscher said.

International students have also benefited from the program. Larissa SpiB, a student from Austria studying at Vienna Veterinary School, said the experience helped build her confidence and skills.

“What I enjoyed most was how much trust the veterinarians placed in me and how hands-on the experience was,” she said. “They really let me jump in, think through cases, and work as if I were already a DVM. Learning about U.S. dairy management styles was incredibly interesting, and its knowledge I know I’ll be able to use for a long time back home.”

The program shows some of the daily routine herd health work, but also some of the emergency situations, such as an emergency calving that another student, Lauren Mcilveen, experienced. Mcilveen comes from a 160-cow dairy in Australia. 

Mayer said those moments mirror what he remembers growing up on a small dairy farm in Sheboygan, watching the farm veterinarian working.

“(The vet) would scrub himself all up and he would perform surgery on this cow and magically (with the vet’s help) she would feel a lot better a day or two later and was back on feed and starting to produce more milk,” Mayer said.

Mayer said students bring new ideas and insights from college research, and while they arrive with a strong academic foundation, the mentorship program helps connect what is happening in the classroom to real-world practice.

“I really enjoy teaching,” Mayer said. “I enjoy highlighting all the things I’ve learned over the last decade, plus things to do (and) things not to do. We call it ‘veterinary practice’ for a reason, right? We’re always honing our skills. Always trying to provide the most current and up-to-date medicine. Always trying to do what we can that’s best for our clients to make them profitable and successful.”

As part of Duitscher’s internship, he worked on a research project focused on data analysis to help the clinic monitor performance and easily share reports.

Using a business intelligence program, Duitscher helped develop a dashboard to track areas including reproduction, transition cows, milk production, milk quality, lameness and young stock, on both a daily and a monthly basis to ultimately help bring ideas, feedback and an overall benchmarking tool.

“One of the really cool things about dairy farms is they’re all so different,” Duitscher said. “There are very few farms are just like another one. There’s a lot of different ways to make it work. Digging into records is one way to understand if we’re doing that to the best of our ability.”

Growing up on a dairy farm himself, progress tracking is something Duitscher said he is interested in, taking classes throughout undergraduate and veterinary school.

“I have spent many years in school and I’ve learned a lot, but I’m not really sure you learn anything (until you) go out and apply it,” Duitscher said. “Getting out there and being able to practice what I’ve spent the last seven years now learning about in school really helps (my understanding).”

Beyond education, the mentorship program also serves as a connection for future employment.

“Inevitably, we likely will need to be hiring in the future,” Mayer said. “A really strong student mentorship program exposes us to the best of the best students.”

Mayer encourages students interested in veterinary medicine to seek out opportunities and make connections. 

“Don’t be bashful,” he said. “Get involved sooner rather than later. Don’t hesitate to reach out. Make those connections.”