Marisol Rivera-Ramirez, V26, earns HSVMA award

Marisol Rivera-Ramirez, V26, (she/her) believes in an ethos of giving back to her community and lives out that ethos daily. Her name is recognizable across the campus at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University from her broadcast, “Breaking Barriers,” among budding veterinarians as a mentor in the Adventures in Veterinary Medicine program, and in the greater community as a translator for Spanish-speaking pet owners. When Rivera-Ramirez sees a gap, she fills it, elevating the communities around her and impacting the lives of animals and people.

The Humane Society Veterinary Medical Alliance (HSVMA) honored Rivera-Ramirez’s commitment to animal welfare by awarding her the Veterinary Student Compassionate Care Scholarship. She is one of five veterinary students selected nationally by the HSVMA this year for this scholarship. The awards were announced in September, and she will receive $10,000 to put toward her education at Cummings School.

“When I got the call, I cried,” Rivera-Ramirez says. “As a Hispanic woman in a STEM field, it’s exciting to know that other people can see me as a recipient of this award, helping to further our community in these spaces. It was a big honor.”

After receiving the award, she immediately called her family to share the news. She attributes her success to their unwavering support. She is the first in her family to attend graduate school and will be the first to become a doctor.

“My passions aligned for veterinary medicine—for animals and science, community, leadership, and life-long learning,” she says. “It’s the equivalent to pediatricians of the human world, a voice for the voiceless.”

Rivera-Ramirez’s first exposure to the veterinary field came through volunteer work. In high school, she helped at a nonprofit that adopted out cats and dogs in her hometown of San Diego, California. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Riverside, she volunteered at a farm that sheltered animals with special needs, both physical, such as missing a limb, and emotional, like anxiety. Humans with special needs visit with the animals, including camels, cows, donkeys, and even zonkeys, among others. Rivera-Ramirez appreciated how the farm brought together diverse animals and people.

In college, Rivera-Ramirez also experienced research for the first time, working in the UC Davis Food Safety Lab. She handled slide work for the histologists and later transitioned to a veterinary medicine position rotating throughout the lab, including milk quality control, animal cruelty cases, and shadowing pathologists. She joined UC Riverside’s Pre-Veterinary Club, eventually becoming vice president, and currently mentors students in the club interested in applying to veterinary school.

After completing her undergraduate degree in biology with a minor in psychology, Rivera-Ramirez was sure of her calling—and sure of where she wanted to earn her D.V.M. While touring campus, she was struck by the culture of Cummings School and the breadth of opportunities.  

“Cummings [School] has genuine care for students as people and educates us outside of veterinary medicine to be better doctors, to be well-rounded as practitioners. The school had the best set up for me to be the practitioner that I want to be,” she says.

She notes that Cummings School prioritizes work-life balance, indicative by something as seemingly minor as the designated one hour lunch break. “It adds up to show that they care about you, your mental health, and well-being to take time to stop and take a break. Cummings School felt very fitting for me and most in line with my morals and values.”

Off the bat, Rivera-Ramirez jumped right into community outreach, getting to know the local community and how to best serve them while building her clinical skills. She began volunteering with Worcester Housing Authority (WHA) and Tufts at Tech Community Veterinary Clinic.

With WHA, she travels to low income housing neighborhoods to provide general healthcare services for the pets of clients who are disabled or without the financial means to bring their pets to a clinic. Rivera-Ramirez is Puerto Rican, as is much of the population WHA serves; consequently, she often translates for pet owners. To fill the gap for non-Spanish speaking WHA volunteers who need to communicate effectively with pet owners, she decided to put together a reference sheet with common questions the veterinarians and students ask clients translated into Spanish, along with common answers translated from Spanish to English.

She found herself in a similar role while volunteering at Tufts at Tech, an affordable care veterinary clinic run by Cummings School students in collaboration with Worcester Technical High School. While shadowing the veterinarians and students, she noticed that the Spanish-speaking clients were not taking home the aftercare paperwork. With the help of one of the high school students, Rivera-Ramirez is currently revamping the Spanish language take-home materials for pet owners so that they’re easier to read visually and to understand. She’s additionally developing new materials on topics like diabetes and general puppy care.

Rivera-Ramirez drew on her experiences at WHA and Tufts at Tech to launch a podcast with a classmate last spring called “Breaking Barriers.” (photo 2) The duo interviews experts in various veterinary fields, including Dr. Gregory Wolfus, director of Tufts at Tech and associate clinical professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences at Cummings School, and Eric Richman, clinical social worker at Cummings School’s  Henry and Lois Foster Hospital for Small Animals.

“The goal is to broaden the view of veterinary medicine and start conversations by bringing in specialists to talk about different topics that owners, veterinary students, and practicing veterinarians might be curious about,” she says.

Her work at WHA and Tufts at Tech prompted her to partner with the Latin Veterinary Medical Association (LVMA) (of which she’s a member on campus) to teach Spanish veterinary lessons on the podcast, including one podcast titled, “Introducing Yourself to Clients in Spanish.” “Breaking Barriers” is the first Spanish resource related to veterinary medicine on Spotify.

Inspiring the next generation of veterinarians, Rivera-Ramirez has been a mentor in the Adventures in Veterinary Medicine (AVM) program at Cummings School for the past two summers. She taught hands-on skills with animals to middle school, high school, and college students and hopes to instill in the students a love of science and an appreciation for the veterinary field as a possible career choice. When she was young, she participated herself in STEM programs after school. In college, she tutored STEM subjects to children at elementary schools in low-income neighborhoods, coming up with fun projects for the kids, like how to make neurons out of home supplies. She has always enjoyed working with kids, and this experience was no different.

“I didn’t grow up around people in the STEM field, I’d like to help provide that for my community. Educating youth is such a huge part of moving this field forward,” she says.

Last summer, Rivera-Ramirez wrote a lecture for AVM students called, “Barriers in Veterinary Medicine” that was so impactful it’s now part of the AVM curriculum. She spoke with the students on the dynamics between veterinarians and clients, specifically how to be more aware of—and help alleviate—barriers to care. They discussed examples, such as language and transportation, and brainstormed solutions. The students were so engaged and resourceful, she found herself taking notes on their ideas. In one scenario of a pet owner with vision issues that needs to administer multiple medicines to their pet, the students came up with using an extra-large font on the medicine bottles and marking the morning dosage green and the evening dosage red.

“Simple things that we might not have thought of can improve client visits and animal welfare overall, making their experience with their pets easier,” Rivera-Ramirez says. “Whether going into veterinary medicine or not, it’s about opening your eyes to barriers in the world at large and being more mindful.”

Outside of veterinary care, Rivera-Ramirez is drawn to other activities on campus that bring people together—playing intramural soccer and volunteering on the social committee to plan events for Tufts [Cummings School], SAVMA (Student American Veterinary Medical Association).

“Cummings School gives me the platform to pursue things I’m interested in and get hands-on experience to feel confident in myself as a practitioner,” she says. “And I have role models on campus that embody aspects of myself.”

Long term, Rivera-Ramirez would like to open her own small animal general practice, taking a leadership role and focusing on quality of care that balances medicine in the context of individual owners’ unique situations and challenges.

“I value myself on the impact overall of what I’m doing for the field,” says Rivera-Ramirez. “Receiving the HSVMA scholarship was such a great moment to feel like my efforts in this area of veterinary medicine—serving underserved communities and advancing animal welfare—were valued and recognized by others.”