Residents Create Global Impact
UC Davis takes pride in training residents, interns, and fellows through the nation’s largest veterinary house officer program. Earlier this year, corporate and private donations enabled the school to expand that program with four new positions, bringing the total to 127 house officers in 39 advanced training disciplines.
This advanced training program allows veterinarians to become board-certified in a specialty field and routinely attracts candidates from all corners of the globe. Since 2010, it has drawn participants from more than 35 countries (on six continents) and nearly every state, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. When these veterinarians take their skills back to their home countries and states, they give UC Davis’ training program a global impact.
The equine surgery residency program alone has produced more than a dozen board-certified surgeons over the past 15 years. They are currently in private practice or academia in Germany, Canada, Australia, England, Poland, California, Arizona, and several East Coast states. Others have stayed in the U.S. or contributed both domestically and in their home countries. These are four of their stories.
Marcos Perez-Nogues, DVM, DACVS
Dr. Marcos Perez-Nogues acknowledges his residency at UC Davis in equine surgery as the most important step in his career. He credits the variety of surgeries, broad experience of the faculty, and ability to collaborate and learn from other specialties for his positive experience. He also notes that completing his residency at UC Davis has given international recognition to his career.
Originally from Spain, Perez-Nogues received his veterinary degree from Complutense University in Madrid in 2010. His career path was set the first time that he saw a colic surgery performed on a horse.
“The number of people, skill, facilities, and preparation needed to perform a lifesaving surgery on a 1,200-pound animal impressed me so much that it guided my career to surgery,” said Perez-Nogues.
He then spent five years pursuing internships and work in private practice before being accepted at UC Davis for a residency in 2015.
“UC Davis is known for its large animal focus, as well as having one of the strongest equine surgery groups in the world,” Perez-Nogues said.
After his three-year residency, Perez-Nogues passed his board certification examinations and stayed at UC Davis to fill a staff veterinarian position in equine surgery. His patients are usually horses, but he consults on orthopedic cases in farm animals and teaches small animal surgery laboratories for third-year veterinary students. He has also conducted research at UC Davis developing new minimally invasive orthopedic approaches and surgical techniques in horses.
Perez-Nogues always thought that he would go into private practice, but the work environment, teaching experiences, and daily collaboration with other specialists at UC Davis made him want to pursue an academic position.
“I am doing what I dreamed of when I was a second-year vet student volunteering as an equine surgery working student,” said Perez-Nogues. “The variety of surgeries makes this a unique position where no day is the same, and the ability to discuss cases with other surgeons and other specialists makes it easier to achieve the best outcomes for my patients.”
Jessica Rivera, DVM, DACVIM
Originally from New Jersey, Dr. Jessica Rivera is a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from El Salvador. As an undergraduate at Penn State, she was a recipient of the Bill Gates Millennium Scholarship – a full scholarship for minorities based on academic merit. She and her two younger brothers were the first in her family to go to college. Following graduation, she went on to complete veterinary school at the University of Florida and her residency in neurology at UC Davis in 2016. She is now in private practice in Virginia.
“The residency at UC Davis gave me the tools necessary to achieve my goals of becoming board certified,” said Rivera. “Beyond working with both medical and surgical neurology cases, I am able to teach the veterinary community about neurology.”
Rivera’s veterinary reach goes far beyond Virginia. She routinely gives neurology lectures in Spanish to veterinarians in Latin America.
The neurology residency at UC Davis is considered one of the most intense advanced training programs in all of veterinary medicine, but Rivera excelled, earning her board certification following the three-year program.
“Knowing that my faculty and resident-mates would be there for me was the best part of the residency,” Rivera said. “They were there not only for the good times, but also through tough situations.”
Rivera explained that all the hard work was worth now having the ability to see the smiling faces of owners when their paralyzed pets are able to walk again.
Matt Munro, DVM, DACVIM
Dr. Matt Munro came to UC Davis from Australia in 2016 for a three-year residency in internal medicine. Following completion of the program and earning his board certification, he returned home and is now a lecturer and clinician in small animal medicine at his alma mater, the University of Melbourne Veterinary School.
“My time at UC Davis fostered my enthusiasm for a career in academia,” said Munro. “I really enjoyed working with the students on their hospital rotations to help them develop into strong clinicians.”
Munro’s time at UC Davis allowed him to explore all aspects of small animal internal medicine and ensure he was at the forefront of veterinary practice. He utilizes that knowledge every day in his current position, which presents many interesting and challenging cases.
Looking back on his experience at UC Davis, Munro felt fortunate to work with a broad group of residents across the spectrum of specialties.
“I couldn't have asked for a better cohort of small animal internal medicine resident-mates throughout my time at UC Davis,” Munro said. “They continue to be an endless source of support and inspiration, and we will forever be friends.”
There were many rewarding cases and connections with clients, faculty, and animals that stand out to Munro.
“It was exciting to work in a hospital with so many skilled clinicians and feel like you were working to make a difference in the lives of people and their pets.”
Munro now passes that experience along to residents he trains.
“It is exciting to support residents who share the same goal I had – to become an internal medicine specialist,” Munro said. “It is nice to be back at my alma mater and feel like I can give back after the wonderful experience I had.”
Wayne Berry, BVSc, MMedVet, MRCVS, DACVIM
Dr. Wayne Berry completed his residency in neurology and neurosurgery at UC Davis in 1999. Internationally renowned in his field, he currently specializes in spinal and brain surgery in Irvine, California.
“For me, the joy of helping a previously paralyzed patient walk again is the most gratifying of all,” Berry said. “It gives me the greatest pleasure to share that good news with the patient’s family.”
Berry appreciates each aspect he has gained during his veterinary career – from private small animal practitioner in South Africa, to a large animal veterinarian in England, to an academic internal medicine specialist, to a resident in neurology and neurosurgery – followed by creating a multispecialty emergency hospital.
Berry recalls that when it came time to apply for a residency, he only considered UC Davis because of the veterinary school’s excellence.
“UC Davis had the reputation for producing outstanding specialists,” Berry said. “Since I was moving to a country with a young family, I only wanted the best. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, I believe that it takes a faculty team to train a resident.”
Learning from mentors during his residency, Berry rotated through the clinical specialty services of the veterinary hospital, both small and large animal. He remembers the priceless training aspects of it – the experiences in emergency medicine and critical care, the opportunity to hone surgical skills from fellow surgical residents and their mentors, the many interactions with faculty radiologists and clinical pathologists, and the knowledge gained during pathology rounds.
Berry is eternally grateful for his residency and for the opportunities it has provided him. He and his wife Roz arrived in the United States with nothing other than two suitcases and their two young sons, aged 7 and 5. The ability to start from scratch in private practice and the opportunity to become a U.S. citizen and raise their children and educate them in this country are all wonderful privileges he does not take for granted.
“The opportunities for students to get such superb training in veterinary medicine at UC Davis – not only in the traditional disciplines of my generation, but in such diverse fields as aquaculture and exotic medicine, with opportunities of collaboration with other schools on and off campus – couldn’t have been imagined when I was delivering calves on the wind-swept Somerset hills 30 years ago,” Berry said.
As a way of paying it forward, the Berrys have contributed a gift in support of the new All Species Imaging Center (ASIC), a major project of the future Veterinary Medical Center. The ASIC will be pivotal to each clinical specialty and centrally located to serve all patients, large and small. The strategic placement of imaging technology and expertise will expedite diagnosis and patient care, while reducing stress and wait time for our patients. Staffed by the largest veterinary diagnostic team in the world, it will be at the cutting edge of detecting, diagnosing, and treating disease and trauma.