Since 1983, members of our department (initially Dr. Paul Ponganis, then Dr. Fred Mihm and others) have been involved in providing anesthesia care to exotic/endangered animal species at the San Francisco and San Diego Zoos, and in other locations. Endangered animals occasionally require anesthesia for health checkups, because of illness, or for specific treatments. These anesthetic procedures are undertaken with appropriate caution; all the people involved contemplate the risks of complications that may result in the loss of the precious animal.

Veterinarians have a long history of collaborating with human anesthesiologists; together they combine their respective expertise to enhance the safety of the anesthetic experience. A significant part of what we can provide is access to human monitoring equipment that can be adapted for use in most exotic animals. For example, using state-of-the-art monitoring (blood pressure, ECG, HR, SaO2, PetO2) is one way to ensure a successful recovery.

Many of our faculty are involved in overseas countries providing free anesthesia care to the poor and indigent peoples of the world. Our residents get exposed to these experiences while training, in the hopes that they will find a lifelong passion for this work.

We partner with many organizations, including Interplast (which was started in 1969 with the support of our department), Hospital de la Familia, Medical Missions for Children, Mercy Ships, Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO invites CA2 residents to apply for SEA-Katz traveling fellowships to fund a 3-4 week overseas experience; application deadline is March of each year), Rotaplast, and others. There are also opportunities to serve overseas as an anesthesia educator. The ASA Overseas Training Program has been administrated by one of our faculty, Dr. Alice Edler. This training program supports two indigenous anesthesia training programs: one in Ghana and one in Tanzania. There are also significant opportunities for formal anesthesia instruction with Interplast.