Michelle Moyal, DVM (Host): Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast, where we do a deep dive into the discovery, care, and learning that happens at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I'm your fun and, might I add, fresh from a haircut host, Dr. Michelle Moyal, visiting Clinical Professor and General Practitioner, and our guest today is Dr. Paul Maza. I'm gonna read this, because there's a paragraph, because, like, you've done like, a few things in your life. So, it's not just like, you know, you eat burgers and you teach at Cornell. So, I'm gonna read this and keep my act together. Dr. Paul Maza is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Biomedical Sciences.

He received his Veterinary degree at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and his PhD at Syracuse University. We love a double doctor here. I call you all the double D's. So, at Cornell, he teaches courses in anatomy and physiology. He also leads veterinary clinic trips locally and around the world with the non profit group FARVets, which we will get into because I'm very excited about this.

 This group helps underserved communities with sterilization. Let's say spaying and neutering, for those of you who might not use sterilization in the normal lingo. And wellness clinics for pets, super important. You have won multiple awards for your teaching and community outreach and I'm very excited to have you here. Welcome to the show, Dr. Maza.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Thank you. Thank you very much. Just FYI, I do eat a lot of burgers.

Host: Okay, let it be known. Wait, do you have a favourite place in Ithaca, for those that I'm trying to draw in to come to Ithaca, do you have a favourite burger place in Ithaca?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Oh yeah, there, there are several. There's the Ale House, of course, the whole big bunch of burgers down there, so that's a fun place to go to. Red's is also good. Simeon's across the street from Red's has a good burger. There's the Antler's and there's the place called Brewers. So there's a lot of places specializing in burgers, but a lot of places that have you know, burgers on their menu for, for, with, with a bunch of other stuff.

Apparently, you know, Ithaca, I've read, per capita has one of the highest number of restaurants.

Host: What?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Nationwide. So it's, it's interesting. Yeah, that's what, that's what I read. It depends what, we qualify as, as restaurant. Of course, there's takeout places, there's sit down places. But yeah, I, I read one time that there was, per capita, one of the highest number of restaurants.

Host: That's amazing. Well, we've got to support our students, right, with lots of taste, and then we have to support our faculty. I'm going to disappoint a lot of listeners by telling them, or maybe I'll thrill a lot of listeners by letting them know I'm a vegetarian. Shout out to Glenwood Pines, who also supports with delicious burgers for the meat eaters, but also has a veggie burger for those like myself.

So, I appreciate that we just discussed that. What a way to start! This is great! We're gonna jump right in because I think you do a lot of really cool things. And, I would love to just know, like, can you just give us, like, a little summary of your path? Like, did you always want to be a veterinarian? Like, how did you get to here?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So, like most of our veterinary students, of course, we're, we're really interested in animals and people and science and medicine. I grew up really loving nature shows, wildlife shows, and I kept that passion and hobby all the way through college and one of my original career goals was to study wild animal behavior in the field, especially, large cats and wild dogs and their relatives.

For practical purposes, you know, it was, thinking about careers and jobs and being a professional in the field and going to veterinary school, was a natural kind of related career path and in doing so, you know, I said, well, you know, I'll work on wild species, wild cats and wild dogs as a veterinarian. Practically, though, that we know that it's very difficult.

You know, shout out to those that pursue those fields. Uh, very, yeah, very hard field to get into. And, so for practical reasons, you know, went to private practice. My backup plan, I did get into a graduate program in animal behavior and I was going to go there, but then I got into vet school. So I went to vet school instead.

Host: Yeah, so your backup plan for becoming a doctor. That's really neat. Like, you had that ready. You're like, well, I'll just do this other, like, really also very cool thing. That's incredible.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: My second backup plan was to be a zookeeper. I was a zookeeper assistant in college and had a great time doing that. And the zookeeper I worked with, she really wanted me to stay on, but, I wanted to pursue some other stuff first.

Host: Okay, now you're making me deviate from the plan, but I'm okay with this. Favorite animal at the zoo when you were a keeper?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Oh, so, one of my jobs was to encourage the giraffes to cross over the walkway. They stayed in a barn on one side and their habitat was on the other and, they had to cross. The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle and things have changed and, you know, things are much bigger and well connected. But at that time, the giraffes had to cross a walkway and it was my job to sit up on the little ridge and encourage them to come over with bread in my hand so they'd come over and they'd wrap their tongues, their prehensile tongues around my hand and eat the bread. That was a fun experience.

Host: Giraffe crossing guard. That's what I'm picturing. Like, bring it in. That's incredible.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: That was fun.

Michelle Moyal, DVM (Host): That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm not going to jump into the worst because I think what a cool experience it was, and by worse, I mean, like, toughest animal it might have been to work with because that's so neat that you got to work with giraffes. Oh my gosh, okay. So, we kind of know what sparked the career path, but how did you end up here teaching students?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So, it's just kind of a happenstance. The coming out of vet school, one of my first jobs was teaching gross anatomy. It was a temporary job. And I had so much fun doing it. And I remember, being with my classmates in school and such dedicated instructors. I was like, oh, this is fun. I could see myself doing this. And so having that one year temporary job teaching anatomy sparked my interest in pursuing that, but I wanted to get clinical experience as well. So I went into clinical practice first and then ended up in Rochester, New York, all the while keeping my eye out for opportunities to work in an academic setting teaching veterinary students. And fortunately, you know, Rochester isn't too far from Ithaca, some jobs opened up and I was able to come down and interview and eventually got the job that I have now.

Host: Which is incredible, and this is not to age anyone, but you were there when I was a student, and so it's very exciting for me to talk to you in this capacity, I know we have a lot of amazing experts at Cornell and amazing clinicians, but there is, because I'm a general practitioner, there is a little bit something different that hits when a general practitioner or someone that has been doing it clinically teaches the anatomy because you're, you're like, this is what we see in practice, like, pay attention to this, this plays a really important role.

And we have incredible anatomists, and I've been taught by some as well, but there's just, like, I really, really appreciated that as a student, just kind of knowing to pay attention to those little things, especially as someone who does a lot of surgery. So like, ooh, that's so neat. So we, we heard what, you know, kind of led you to become an instructor.

And so this is neat because you're part of a curriculum that not every veterinary school teaches. And I want to make sure we highlight this because it was a big part of the reason why I went to Cornell for vet school. We call it PBL for short, but essentially it's called Problem Based Learning. And so I think it's a really unique experience for students. And can you share with the audience, what the heck that means and why it might be great for some students?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Sure. Yeah, so Problem Based Learning has been the focus of the curriculum here at the Veterinary College, 35 years or so, maybe 40, this is my 25th year amazingly, and it's gone through a lot of changes, improvements, et cetera, to make it more efficient for learning. But basically Problem Based Learning, as its name implies, we use a problem to help drive the learning.

And what we mean by that is our problems are clinical cases. There is an issue with a patient, whether it's a dog with a breathing problem, or a horse with a lameness, and we use that problem to help drive the learning, and, like I mentioned, we teach in an anatomy class. So the first semester of our students vet school curriculum and career is in anatomy and we have our, it's called the Animal Body and our Problem Based Learning course is all based on things related to anatomy.

And that's gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, clinical anatomy such as imaging and surgical anatomy and, developmental. All those topics are taken into consideration when we use this case to help drive our learning. For example, we have a dog that had trouble breathing, we start to process the case.

We're given a history of the case and it starts out with small group discussions. We have our, what we call it, tutor groups and each tutor group has seven or eight students and a faculty facilitator that helps the students, process the case. Yeah. You remember that. Yeah. And so, for example, that's right.

We have, you know, a case and a dog comes in with a bit of a history and we process the case by looking at what the facts are in that particular page of the case, what questions one may have and the questions are important because the questions are, we're thinking as veterinarians, like we're asking the owners hypothetically, you know, what side did the dog get hit on if there's trauma or, what do they mean by trouble breathing? Is it shallow or is it, is it deep? Is it labored? We can also ask questions of ourselves like what structures are involved with trouble breathing? Is it the lungs? Is it the trachea? Is it the larynx? Is And then we can start to think about the anatomy of that, right? What is the pathway of air from the outside down to the lungs? What are the muscles of respiration? What does the gas exchange surface look like histologically? You know, how do we get innervation to and from the lungs? Things like that.

Host: So down to microscopic, down to the nerve. So, and this is why it worked well for someone like me because I learn really well in context, right? So then when I'm like, oh gosh, I don't know, is it the lungs? Then we trace breathing through the mouth and the nose, right? Down the trachea, like you said, and then those are the things we're reviewing in anatomy.

So like, for me, it really was like, an incredible experience and really great way to remember things. And you mentioned group, which is also really good, even though, listen introverts, I know I could say this because I'm an extrovert, and I like working in groups, and I know sometimes there's a feeling of dread when an introvert is like, don't tell me, Dr. Paul Maza, double doctor, that we have to work in a small group of eight to ten people, but actually it's really incredible for learning. The onus is not on you, you all share as a group, right? So if someone read something and you're like, where did they get that? They would tell you and you'd share.

So there's a lot to be said for that.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, I, I myself am an introvert and,

Host: Sorry.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, it's, it's hard to believe, but you know, we, we took, every year students, you know, do, Myers Briggs, evaluations, et cetera. And sometimes I'll do it for fun and, you know, I always come up as an introvert. You know, there are several letters, but the base of it is, introvert. There's one year where the personality was matched to a, an animal, and my animal was a Labrador Retriever. And so I'm not sure what that means.

Host: I don't know if I would name them as an introvert.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, it's, odd. You know, maybe, you know, there's, you know, energy and other types of things going on there. But in this curriculum, there's still a lot of room for all personalities, extroverts and introverts. And so when we do group study, yeah, there are extroverts that said, yeah, I really love this. I love working with others. And introverts, you know, they may thrive at working with one other person or by themselves, et cetera, but there's still a lot of ways for everyone to contribute to the discussion.

Whether or not it's leading a discussion or, you know, drawing on the board or looking up in the dictionary, terms, typing on the computer to keep notes. There's lots of things for everyone to do.

Host: I love that. And, introverts everywhere, I want you to know that I didn't say sorry to him because he's an introvert. I said sorry to him because he has to deal with me very much an extrovert, like 100 percent extrovert. We actually have a ton of introverts in veterinary medicine. And I think PBL is really great for that. Do you find that, how do students react to Problem Based Learning initially?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, that's one of the first things I ask students when they visit during their information sessions early and when we meet them for the first time during orientation. I ask them, you know, what do you think Problem Based Learning is and how do you think it'll work for you? And fortunately, most of the responses we get are, well, I chose Cornell just like you did, Michelle; I chose Cornell for Problem Based Learning because they want to keep things in context. They want to learn where things are relevant and apply their knowledge. And they also, happily will work in groups and in teams. But then there are some, there are others that aren't as enthusiastic, and sometimes, could struggle a little bit.

So even though there are ones that are so super enthusiastic about joining the curriculum, there is a kind of a steep learning curve, even though those that are extroverts, may struggle a little bit. I think the reasons are, threefold, you know, they're starting vet school, which is hard enough, right? They're moving to a new city, most of them, oh, maybe fourfold, starting a new type of teaching and learning, and then that teaching and learning is regarding, all things anatomy, which isn't a prerequisite for, for most vet schools. So, a lot of students may not have that kind of foundation coming in, which is fine.

 And we build that foundation and we increase it. But, it's just a, another way for students to have a slightly difficult, transition. However, you know, we, we quickly help them realize, the benefits of Problem Based Learning, like you said, relevance. We learn best by, learning a topic that means something, and then we can apply it. For example, we learn the anatomy of physical exam, the rib spaces in which to listen for points of maximal intensity of a murmur or the layers to do a thoracocentesis, et cetera.

Host: Will you define thoracocentesis for some of our listeners?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Thoracoscentesis means sticking a needle into the chest cavity in order to draw out fluid or air. That was the topic of our first Problem Based Learning case, a dog with air trapped in its what we call pleural cavity, but one of the cavities of the thorax outside the lungs, and it kind of compresses the lungs away from it. So a dog has trouble breathing. And to, to relieve that, we'll stick a needle, through the side of the, the body wall, to try to take that out. You may have seen that in, you know, medical shows and, in movies and things, yeah.

Host: And I don't want to give too much away because I want, you know, if people are coming here, I want them to be immersed in it, but this is really cool, because you're telling me they don't just stop at the lesson of the anatomy, which is what I was thrilled with, they keep going, so they learn about the x, they see the x-rays associated with a dog with trouble breathing. They talk about thoracocentesis, which they're not even going to even think about until they're further along in school. So, I still remember some of those cases. And this is what's really interesting. And I know I joke about context, or I'll joke about cases, but still in practice, I'll be like, oh yeah, I know what that is.

I'll never forget it. That was week one, right, of vet school. And what our students may not realize, too, is some of this, all of this actually runs concurrently with them, just like you said, like when they're reviewing anatomy, in the lab, they're also practicing listening to the lungs and the heart of live animals at the same time.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: That's right. So, there's this course called, Block 7, which we call Foundation, I mean, Animals, Veterinarians, and Society. And we try to make the resources surrounding our Problem Based Learning curriculum relevant to what they're doing in their small group discussions. The small group discussions are the hub of the curriculum, the center point, where we do all the discussions and the students, with the help of their facilitators, try to figure out what they don't know, right?

And so, oh, I don't know what the layers are for a thoracocentesis or it's sticking a needle through the chest wall. So they'll make that a learning opportunity. They'll write it on the board and then we'll discuss, well, where can we find out information for that? And this is one of the keys for Problem Based Learning is teaching students how to find resources to solve the problem.

And this is how it applies to veterinary medicine. There's so much information in veterinary medicine. We can't expect any veterinarian or any veterinary student to know it all, right? In four years or eight years or whatever.

Host: And new stuff comes out every day.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, new stuff every day. I was just reading about some new drugs just the other day in the JAVMA, in the Journal of the AVMA.

 We can't expect anybody to, to remember all that, but what we can do is try to help instill a habit and a way for students to be resourceful, to look up the information and find it efficiently and use it appropriately. That's what we try to do, which is one of the other main areas of, difficulty transitioning is, students coming from undergraduate curricula, you know, they're given notes, you know, they take notes, they might have notes, taken by other people for them, they have slides, they're, they're told to learn that material and take the test at the end of the week, right?

Host: Right. Kind of rote memorization, like they memorize it and they spit it back.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: That's right. And so, so they do that and they take the test and they, they do well, of course, to get into veterinary school. But when they get to veterinary school, that technique may not work. But they do learn that learning to look up the information in, in an efficient way, long term helps with retention of that material. And then one thing that we should note is that, students often think that when they come in, you know, we have our group discussions and they look at the schedule and there's a lot of other activities. There's imaging lab and there's gross anatomy lab, histology lab, and it seems kind of haphazard. But we go through weeks and months of years of planning the curriculum such that their experience in their small group discussions is supported by these other activities. For example, like I mentioned, there's a concurrent course in physical exam. If in the case, small group discussion, we're talking about doing a respiratory exam, they'll learn how to do a respiratory exam in the other course block seven, and we'll learn the muscles of respiration in gross lab in the path of airways in histology, et cetera.

So, all the other activities in the course go to support our students during their case discussions.

Host: Having you know, experience with the curriculum, I realized just how far in advance the amazing faculty are doing. I mean, sometimes years in advance, they're really working on shaping this. Now, I know this is a little bit of a love fest for PBL and I want to keep moving on, but, I know it's really tough and, I know I love the program, but it is a lot of volume and I know that these students work hard, so I'm sure that they appreciate having somebody who's intimately involved with designing the curriculum that they're actually also teaching. So that's really awesome. Okay, but I'm going to switch topics because there's just so much.

And I want to talk about your work with FARVets. So it stands for Feral Abandoned Rescued Animals Veterinarians, and or field, right? Abroad, excuse me, I don't want to leave that out. Like, abroad reaching out veterinarians. Oh, that's awesome. Okay, sorry. I'm, I'm so excited. I was just reading from that.

So, this is a program or an organization, you're gonna tell me more, that's been in operation since 2010. So, can you just tell me, how it got started and then just, like, let our audience know, like, what it is what you do?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Sure. I'll start with what it is. We are a group

Host: Feel free to re say, you know, you can repeat the title since I, like, was reading it.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: No, like,

yeah. You did just fine. So, you know, FARVets, you know, there's an acronym that stands for, Feral Abandoned Rescued Animal Veterinarians, because those are the population mostly that we work on. We do work on a lot of pet dogs and cats from, from communities. And then they also, the other acronym, you know, Field Abroad, Reaching Out, goes along with a FAR. So the FAR vets, we, we go near and far to work in communities and help our animal welfare, uh, organization partners achieve their or address their missions and goals.

And, like you said, Michelle, it's, regional, so we go as close as Auburn, just, you know, a few miles away, down to Elmira, and then,

Host: The need is there no matter where, right? So the need is there local, the need is there, far away.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: And so how we got started was, it's kind of an interesting story. There is a, the anatomy teaching world, just like the veterinary world is kind of small. So, Dr. Evans, Howard Evans, who we all know and love; one of his friends, Raymond Tarpley, from, at that time he was at Texas A& M, introduced me to him. And Dr. Tarpley asked me to introduce me again, then to an animal welfare organization in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. This place was called Coco's Cat Rescue, run by Laura Rakes from the UK.

And how I got introduced was that, Raymond, ran his own non for profit organization called MARVet, in which they do education programs for veterinary students in marine animal medicine, which is really cool. And some of our vet students have done that. So he, one of their programs is in Playa del Carmen, and they met, Laura Rakes from Cocos Cat Rescue, she has just gotten started in a cat rescue and, wanted some help with doing sterilizations of their cats. From my experience doing, doing some similar work here, I said, yeah, we, we could, we could probably do that. So I, I got a group of students together and we went down there, they, they had some veterinarians working with them also.

So, so we all teamed up. And we ran a clinic at CoCo's Cat Rescue, and it was such a great experience for everyone, that we kept going back just once a year to help CoCo's Cat Rescue. CoCo's Cat Rescue since has grown just dramatically, and they, they call themselves CoCo's Animal Welfare now, because it's more than just a cat rescue. They, they do a lot of other things. So the first few years, we would take one trip a year, either spring break or the summertime, and we'd go down and run a clinic with Coco's Cat Rescue. So that was in 2010.

So the first three years or so, we just did that and then others in the area heard about our work there and said, Hey, you know, maybe you can come down to our community in Puerto Morales or in Chetumal, et cetera. And so we started communicating with them and traveled to those places as well. And since then, by word of mouth, we've gone all over the world, actually.

Host: That's incredible. So two things that stand out. One, networking. Even just talking to people and introducing people to other people can create amazing opportunities for animals and the people who love them and want to care for them, which is just outstanding. And two, wow, word of mouth is a big deal.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: We do have a website, and we do have a Facebook page, but to be honest, you know, they're a little bit outdated. There's only been a few times where we've reached out to others to say, you know, would you like us to come work with you? People have, have heard us, like I said, through word of mouth, talking to others and then have contacted us and we, we try to communicate with them and see if we can work something out.

Host: How many trips a year do you take on average?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: The first couple of years was just one trip a year. And then it grew to like two trips a year. Before, COVID, we had a couple of years we were doing four to six, now it's about four to six again. There was one year we did as many as seven, I think, but now it's kind of settled down into four to six.

Host: Wow. A settled down. Mm. Mm hmm. In addition to your teaching. So, because that's like, not, you know, not that much. You're just hanging out. So what is a trip? I'm very much joking. This sounds like a lot. What does a trip entail? So, like, how long does it last? So, like, you get on the plane, you arrive where you're at.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, so, I do have to fit these trips in amongst my teaching schedule, so, that is, you know, spring break, like I mentioned, winter break, and, I do teach a summer class, so it has to be around the summer, oh, I do, I should mention, though, that there is a pool of veterinarians, either alumni or ones that I've worked with or joined trips for that have led teams and can lead teams in my place.

So I don't have to do them all anymore. Which is great, but I, I still, you know, do all the planning. It takes months of planning and organization. Maybe if it's a new location we're trying to communicate with, it takes up to a year of planning and communication. But once all that's done and we've prepped the students and we have all our supplies and we're on the plane and we, we land, we all try to, either go as a group or at least, meet at the airport where we're in the country that we're visiting, at a specific time. And then we travel as a group to our local, location. It's usually, late at night and, we will do a brief prep or we'll prep in the morning, just another, last minute orientation, in addition to all the planning we've done ahead of time in teaching the students. We'll set up in our location, with our supplies and the locations in where we go can vary.

Sometimes, once in a while, we'll work with an animal welfare organization that is also an animal hospital. That's a luxury. In other places, but most of the, yeah, but most of the time, our animal welfare organization partners are very much grassroots, small numbers of people in anorganization.

 So, you know, we tell them, well, any place that is covered and has water and electricity, at least nearby, we can work and set up. And so we've worked in town pavilions and in garages and, lobbies of abandoned hotels and, Buddhist monasteries now in Thailand. We work there. And in Guatemala, we worked in the living room of our animal welfare organization host partners. And so we ask them to, you know, get some tables set up and they might have tables or just put pallets up on cinder blocks, et cetera. You know, hopefully there's lights. If they don't, we have our, our headlamps so we need a place to do surgery and we need some tables to set up the surgery equipment and anesthesia supplies and an area for the animals to recover.

And once we have all that, then we're ready to, we're ready to work and our host partners will do all the scheduling of the animals to come in each day and, the order in which they're done. We'll just ask them, okay, who's first, who's next. Then our students will go out and, meet the pet owners, if there are pet owners, otherwise, you know, we'll, we'll go and, examine as best we can the dogs and cats, and we'll introduce ourselves. Sometimes we have native speakers, like when we go to Guatemala, Honduras, et cetera, Bolivia.

Yeah. Other times, you know, we have some rudimentary Spanish like myself, and if not, then we can always use Google's Translate, which has been a big boom. When we, when we went to Kyrgyzstan, we learned that, you know, you can just hold the phone up to, a form or menu and it'll translate it for you. It was amazing.

 So, you know, we would tell them, you know, this is who we are, this is what we're going to do. If they have any questions, et cetera, and then we'll examine the dog or cat as best we can, making sure that of course, the biggest thing is they're healthy enough to go under anesthesia for sterilization surgery, spay or neuter.

And then we'll proceed. We'll give a sedation, insert catheters and administer drugs to make them sleepy and then prep them for surgery. And then the surgery is done by the team veterinarian, myself or one of the other veterinarians, we have at least one veterinarian on each team. In the early years, it was just me with veterinarian students.

And sometimes it still is just one veterinarian. Fortunately, those veterinarians are highly, highly experienced and not just in surgery, but in this field work as well. And most of the times though we try to get more than one veterinarian and maybe even a licensed veterinary technician to come support the team as well. We'll do the procedures and, the students will get to prep the animals and monitor anesthesia, which is very important. And then other students will rotate through and students will assist in surgery. So they'll learn how to, hold tissues and gauze and instruments.

And, as the days go by, they'll start to learn surgical techniques as well, like tying sutures, ligatures and, instrument control, et cetera. So it's a great experience for all.

Host: That's awesome. Even touching the tissue for the students, I think, is a really, something they may not think about that's really important. For everybody listening, I really want to make sure that they understand. I think sometimes when we think about surgery, and you're the best person to talk about this, they're like, it has to be done in a very sterile room.

Everything is pre we're, you know, head to toe covered. But we can do very clean, very safe surgery, even in a pavilion, right? Like, you guys are using sterilized instruments, right? You're masked, you're capped, you're wearing gloves. So I want to make sure people understand that that's the case. This is not like, you're just doing it haphazardly.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: That's a very good point to make, Michelle. And of course in hospitals, the floor is clean enough to eat off of, et cetera. But in areas we go, there may not be any access to veterinary care in that town or maybe even in that region. Yeah.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So, the question is, well, what do we do then? You mean, do we do nothing? Cause we, we can't have, all the modern equipment. But there are, like I said, there are ways to make things very clean. We use masks and gloves, sterile gloves, of course. If we don't have access to autoclaves, which we often don't, we'll use a pressure cooker to sterilize.

And there resources, that are out there that, approved by, you know, many veterinary groups that are appropriate for conditions like this, you know, like I said, using a pressure cooker, if there's no autoclave and, and similar habits.

Host: That's neat. Many of you know, might know an autoclave is used to kind of clean and sterilize instruments. It uses pressure and heat and all these settings. Somebody much smarter than me created, but here we are. Using something else in a non traditional way, like something we use for food, that can create a similar environment so we can make sure that our surgery is sterile.

And I just think that that's outstanding. And so, okay, you've been doing this for a minute, like 15, almost 15 years, she says, rolling her eyes. Is there a memory that stands out to you? You are like, I will never forget that trip to Thailand, and let me tell you why. Like, is there one of those that you could share with us? Unless there was a lot of swearing, in which case you can pause.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: There's probably one of those for every trip, but some of the things that do stick out that we did a trip to Cambodia once, myself and, one of our, my co director, Dr. Jamie Lange. She's a Cornell graduate 2017. So we went to Cambodia, and did a clinic with a group called Animal Mama and Animal Mama is run by a woman, who worked with, I think it was the United Nations doing child trafficking work, et cetera.

And so, this happens, everywhere we go. There are some people that are just, they get into it for the animal welfare work. That's what they do. But most of our host partners are people that move to these countries or live in these countries and they see the plight of their community's dogs and cats. And they said, well, we need to do something. And so this is one example. So, she, she started this clinic and she invited us to come down and to do a couple of things. To help run some sterilization clinics, some spay and neuter clinics, and also to help instruct and teach some of their veterinarians. And that's a large part of what we do or try to do in addition to running the sterilization clinics ourselves, we like to build some capacity and teach the community there, especially the veterinarians there, how to do these things, and we're trying to do more of this, to empower people to help their own communities. We taught them, you know, surgical techniques and other clinical procedures, et cetera.

But what stood out was a couple things. On one of the days, we went down into the slums of Phnom Penh and, there's, you know, ramshackle houses, et cetera, everywhere. We set up a very impromptu clinic, and that was just, eye opening for the, you know, the types of areas that we were in.

And then in the same trip, we drove then from Phnom Penh to Angkor Wat, where, you know, the temples are, et cetera, and we ran a clinic there at a Buddhist temple. And what was significant about that was it was so popular that people kept bringing in dogs and cats for us to do and, you know, of course, Cambodia, this is December, but Cambodia was still super hot.

And it was myself, Jamie Landry, two veterinary students in their fourth year. So they were able to do some surgeries. Our, Cambodian, veterinarians, which their skills were still developing, just kept on running the clinic. And, you know, when we look back, we did two days there, and each day we did, you know, 50 animals, which is a huge number for us.

These aren't huge numbers for other groups that do similar work, but for us, it was very significant because our, our groups are small. At the end of the day, you know, our veterinary students were passed out on the floor and in the temple because it was, it was so hot and it was so hard working.

And then I just remember on the drive there and back, you know, we think that sometimes we have some really bad drivers in the States and I'm sure we do, but traveling to some of these other places, sitting in the back of the van or the bus and watching them cross the line onto oncoming traffic just to pass the rickshaw or the tuk tuk, and narrowly missing getting hit head on, that was eye opening.

 There's another place we went to. Sometimes, Dr. Landry and I will go to a place to do some instruction, or, do a meet and greet in order to establish whether or not a location will be good for an entire group. And so we were invited to go to, India, Delhi, and we went to the largest shelter in India, I think it was, is this, Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Center.

It was memorable because it was just huge. it was on the outskirts Delhi, but it was like its own walled city. It was five acres all walled off and within it were thousands of animals dogs and cats, of course. But they had, there were emus, there were some goats, there were a lot of cattle just roaming around these streets, et cetera.

And it was just, we think we have animal welfare issues here in the States, et cetera, there and in other countries, it's just mind boggling. And due to, you know, overpopulation and lack of education of proper responsible pet ownership, et cetera. So, it was just amazing the spectacle of all these animals in one location, even though it was five acres, it was jam packed.

We met a number of veterinarians there. They had a large number of veterinarians working at the Animal Care Center. And we did some continuing education type stuff with them, but they were all very, very, strong veterinarians. So we spent the rest of our time, doing like an evaluation on the conditions at the shelter, hygiene and isolation and quarantine.

We also, you know, worked on individual animals, et cetera. So that was, that was pretty, eyeopening as well.

Host: I think what's neat about these trips, and I did some trips as a student, not with FARVets, but with other programs, is that when you go to these countries, you realize that people live in many different types of conditions, and they're still happy, and they're still there with their pets, and they live these lives, and it's really different, and it can make you appreciate what they have, and it makes you appreciate what you have here in the U.S., and then, again, the other thing I think I realized, and I would talk to students about also, is understanding that in some countries, spaying and neutering is actually, like, taboo. Like, why would we mess with, you know, like an animals normal anatomy. So it's a very interesting topic, right?

Because, you know, you were saying here we really value it as responsible pet ownership. We don't want overpopulation because we don't want these animals to be injured or sick or live their lives in cages. And there's just different types of thought and you have to contend with that as you travel to all these countries.

That's so neat. I'm gonna ask you a really like, odd, I don't think it's an odd question, but in all these countries you've traveled to on all of these trips, I would like to know the favorite item you ate because I need to bring it back to food.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Wow. So.

Host: Yeah, talk to me. Give it, tell us.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: That's a hard one. So, India, of course, in a lot of, a lot of spicy food, a lot of, yeah. In presentation was, it went to a couple of places, presentation was very, very, elegant, and you know, we go to places and we try to eat a lot of local food, and we do, but as far as eating street food, I usually tell our group, well, let's wait until the last couple of days, right, in case if we have,

Host: Right, good idea.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Some, you know, issues. Yeah, yeah, so if you're not sick during when we need to do most of our work. I would say, Thailand had some of best food, for two reasons. It's savory and it's plentiful and it's filling and it's delicious, but it's also very cheap. The first trip to Thailand we took, you know, we would just go from where we're staying just down the road a couple blocks, get breakfast, and our host partners would provide breakfast, which was, you know, very gracious of them, you know. And, but just to experience the, the local culture and food, we would also go down, down the block and go to the street market. Yeah, yeah, we would go to the street market and we'll get, you know, a bowl of a mixture of meat and rice and veggies, off the cart for less than a dollar.

And it was just amazing. Yeah. Sometimes when we go to places, if we get like an Airbnb or rent a house, for the whole group to stay in one place, if there's a kitchen, we often try to make meals, even though it is not too expensive to eat in restaurants in those communities and it helps those businesses.

But we also like to go shopping at local markets and we'll try to get food and make meals that are seemingly local, right? We'll try to mimic what was there. There's one trip we took to Bulgaria, you know, of course, everything was in Bulgarian. We didn't know what things were. We just kind of pick things up that look good, cheeses and meats and veggies, et cetera. And our host partner there, her name was, Gary and she,

Host: Was she like, no, we don't eat that normally. No.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So, um, she, she, yeah, so she, she, uh, she hosted us for dinner once, which was very nice and, and a lunch. And then, we would keep in touch with her through, WhatsApp, or video, et cetera, and we'd show her what we made and said, and she, she looked at it and said, what is that?

Yeah, we don't eat that. And then, the next day, we tried to, there's one meal that she said, oh, that is just really bad for you. Just, horrifically unhealthy. So, the next day we went the other way. And we tried to make, there's a lot of vegetables, a lot of cheeses, vegetables in Bulgaria to choose from.

So we went to make a light lunch, of cheeses and breads and veggies, et cetera. And then she looked at it and said, you guys are trying too hard.

Host: You know what? I appreciate her straightforward attitude.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: She was having a laugh at our expense for sure.

Host: So, you've traveled to all these, there are a lot of different countries you've been to, you've been a veterinarian for a long time. You've been working with different doctors and lots of animals for a long time. Are there similarities across the board, like, with animals and their people? Like, we call it, you know, for people listening, we call it the human animal bond. Like, that connection between animals and their people. Is there a similarity across the board around the world?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: In one of the classes I teach here, I actually have a lecture on the human animal bond. One of the things I mention is that we talked about is that no matter where we go, and we've experienced this firsthand our FARVets trips, no matter where we go, the geographic location, the human animal bond is so strong in the communities that we visit, despite the socioeconomic status, the geographic location, so that's one thing that has been common and standard where we go. Of course, you know, there, the reason we go to these places is because, you know, there is an overall lack of access or maybe overall lower impression of dogs and cats in in that area.

But the people we meet and the people we help and the, the people who have dogs and cats, yeah, they may not be able to get them to their veterinarian either because they can't afford to, or there's not a veterinarian in their town or in their region. They still love their dog or their cat as their family.

 We went to Columbia and ran a trip and people bring their dogs in wheelbarrows and take them home in wheelbarrows. And in Guatemala, a woman had had a basket of cats on her head. And in Thailand, a woman drove up with a motorcycle and a sidecar full of cats. And then when they come to pick them up, they would be hugging their dogs and cats and so grateful for the care that's been given them, and just relieved to have their family member back. So that is one thing that is very common in all these places that we go, the human animal bond is very strong. I do have to say though, that there are some

differences, however. We go to many places where, everywhere we go, the people that we meet, our animal welfare organization host partners and community members or volunteers. And of course the, the, the people that have dogs and cats, care for them deeply. There are some places though that there are some differences, like, some countries we go to, the dog and cat street population are of pests.

And, unfortunately, sometimes, measures are taken that wouldn't be very tasteful for, or allowable in other circumstances like poisoning or shooting, that may happen. But then there are other places where animals are more tolerated and accepted.

 For example, you know, we went to Bolivia once and the elevation in La Paz is like 13,000 feet and it gets cold. Just walking around the streets, you glance down the street you think you see, you know, like something down the road and you think, oh, there's this small child with his puffy coat on and you look further and say, no, it's a dog wearing a coat.

And, people use, you know, spare clothes and blankets and they put on their dogs, their own dogs or maybe even stray dogs that they see to help them keep, keep, warm.

Host: Yeah, cultural differences are cultural differences and it, and it's tough and I like to travel and sometimes, it can be heartbreaking what's accepted, you know, and I was born, my parents aren't from the U.S. and they didn't have animals in the house so that was a really interesting thing that I decided to become a veterinarian.

Hi, Mom. Hi, Pop. Um, and so, so, with our little bit of time left, because you are not just only a veterinarian, and I want people to understand that. You're not just a teacher. You are, in my opinion, a little, I mean, you run a lot, and I'm struggling to understand why you do that, but what else do you do?

So you're like a marathoner or an ultra runner? Talk to me, talk to me about why you run, why you choose to run when someone is not chasing you, and maybe some other things you like to do when you're not in this space, because we're humans.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So yeah, that's, that's very interesting. So I mentioned my, FARVet's partner, Jamie Landry. So, so she and I run a lot together and we were talking about this the other day. Why do we do these things? And, the answer still eludes us and probably most of people that they do ultra marathons. One thing I like to do it for is the, the adventure, right? These ultra marathons are often in,

Host: How many miles?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Well, ultra marathon is anything above a traditional marathon. So, uh, 26,

Host: So over 26.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So, uh, officially, um, ultra marathon races start at 50K, so 31 miles. And, the Pinnacle used to be for trail ultra marathons used to be a hundred miler. But now, we see and hear about, runners, mountain runners and trail runners going for, you know, 150, 200, 250 mile events and races. It's just amazing. And so, um, the, the adventure of it all and you know, pushing your limits and seeing how far you can go, and testing yourself, of course the, you know, we wonder if it's healthy. Exercise is healthy, but is pushing yourself to these limits healthy? Not sure.

Host: Right. I appreciate that honest answer.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, and then also the, just like the veterinary community, the, the trail running and ultra running community is kind of small and very tight knit and very supportive of one another. And that's a nice thing to get into too.

Host: That's neat. I'm gonna do a little quick thing. Favorite musical artist?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Oh, he's a musical artist. Yeah. So when I'm running, sometimes I'll listen to things and, and have, uh, things just going through my head. Right now it's Bob Marley. I'm listening to a lot of Bob Marley, on my runs and et cetera. Yeah. Another one is from my college and high school days and they're still active now. Punk group, Social Distortion. They're good. So a wide range of things.

Host: Sometimes you need a lot of variety, depending on the day,

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Oh yeah. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I listen to musicals, when I'm out there. Yeah.

Host: Ooh. Mmm. Do you Oh! Good one. I was thinking about that the other day. TV shows and all that you would recommend to others?

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: I just got done watching a series called Warrior, on Netflix. Yeah. And it's based on the writings of Bruce Lee. Interestingly, Bruce Lee was, of course he was a Kung Fu martial artist, but he was more than that. You know, he was an athlete, he was a philosopher, he was a teacher. Yeah. And he was a pioneer in the realm of DEI diversity.

Host: Equity and inclusion for all of you listeners.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yes. You know, back in the 60s, when he came to the States, a lot of racial issues and diversity issues, and he had to deal with that. One of the main things was that teaching of Kung Fu back then was deemed to be only for Asians, only for Chinese, but he wanted to open up for everybody.

He wanted to even be more inclusive, et cetera. So he met a hardship a lot of that way, unfortunately still being the victim or the subject of a lot of, uh, racial stereotypes, et cetera. Anyways, oh, you know what, just, claim to fame, my mom was friends with Bruce Lee back in the day. Yeah.

Host: That's a cool claim!

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: That's what I like to tell people. And so, I just finished watching.

Host: Next time we lead with that, not

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: Yeah, we should. It could be.

Host: Just lead with who's famous. Okay.

Paul Maza, DVM, PhD: So he, based on some of his writings, there was a show on Netflix called Warrior in which a Chinese immigrant moved to San Francisco in the 1800s and tried to find his way in Chinatown and amongst issues of racism and poverty and things. It's fascinating. Very fun to watch. And of course, there's a lot of action in it too.

Host: Well, awesome, everyone a nod to Warrior on Netflix. So many interesting things. Dr. Maza, thank you for joining this extrovert for the Cornell Veterinary Podcast. It was amazing talking to you, and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. And if everybody's listening and maybe watching, again, just a nod out, I just got my hair cut. So you can like the podcast, but you can also just click five stars because you like the host. That's also okay. Click it like and join us for our next episode of the Cornell Veterinary Podcast. Thank you so much, Dr. Maza. And we will talk to you all soon.