At an early age, Dr. Pratikshya Patil volunteered much of her free time to animal hospitals and shelters, cleaning kennels, and bathing dogs. At the University of Illinois, Urbana she received a BS in Animal Sciences (1999) and volunteered at the Wildlife Medical Center, treating everything from common tree squirrels to a majestic bald eagle. After earning her undergraduate degree, she spent a summer as an Americorps volunteer with the Maine Conservation Corps. She spent days at a time in the Maine wilderness stumping and building cairns to create beautiful trails. A year later she did a portion of her veterinary schooling in Wrocław, a beautiful city tucked into the southwest corner of Poland, and later returned to the United States to complete her training and earn her DVM from Purdue University’s School of Veterinary Medicine (2005).    Dr. Patil is also privileged to be a Veterinary Medical Officer for the United States as a part of the National Veterinary Response Team. This is a federal group deployed in the event of an emergency, disaster or to support working dogs in national special security events (ie Presidential Inauguration, United Nations General Assembly). This past year, in light of COVID, she has deployed for human missions- to help with quarantined individuals and more recently, to vaccinate in rural America.