Florida Tech Panther Scholar-Athlete Spotlight Recognizes Softball Player Alex Hendrian

Hendrian is majoring in Biomedical Science

BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – In this Scholar-Athlete Spotlight, we are featuring Alex Hendrian of Florida Tech softball. This summer, the Aurora, Colorado native is gaining meaningful experience at an internship in his desired field. We caught up with Hendrian to learn more about the incredible opportunity.

What company are you interning for this summer? What is your title and role with the company?

This summer, I had the opportunity to work at Littleton Equine Medical Center in Littleton, Colorado. As an ICU Summer Intern, I mainly worked in the Intensive Care Unit, tending to patients who required different treatments every three hours.

Through rotations, I also got to experience various areas of equine medicine. In the field, I assisted with emergencies, surgeries, exams, and even horse show medicine.

What drew you to this internship?

My goal is to attend veterinarian school after I finish my undergraduate degree, so a big part of what drew me to this internship was the experience. I was previously not exposed to the equine medicine world, so I wanted to expand my knowledge in another field of veterinary medicine.

LEMC is also a renowned equine hospital that is well-regarded for its amazing veterinarians and teaching programs. An environment like LEMC’s is demonstrative of the kind of environment I’d like to place myself in in the future.

What steps did you have to take to earn your position within the company?

I found out about this internship a year ago, just after the application deadline. During winter break this past year, I showed up to the hospital with my resume in hand to prove how much I wanted this internship and how dedicated I was to earning this opportunity. After interviewing, they offered me the Summer Intern ICU position!

What are some exciting tasks or projects that you have been able to be a part of?

In the ICU, our patients typically receive treatments every three hours. During these treatment times, I oversaw doing checkups on my patients, administering different medications, taking note of their appearance and attitude as well as their food intake, and other responsibilities depending on the patients’ needs.

One thing I learned this summer is that horses are unable to vomit. So, when a horse comes in with certain abdominal issues, the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) must place a Nasogastric tube through the horse’s nose into the stomach. We then have to siphon/lavage the feed material out of their stomach for them.

I’ve also been lucky enough to see a few different surgeries performed, as well as enhance my learning through observing necropsies.

What is your major at Florida Tech? Why did you choose this direction for your education and is this something you always wanted to pursue?

My major is Biomedical Science (Pre-med). I chose this major to obtain all the appropriate prerequisites for veterinary school. I’ve wanted to become a veterinarian since I was a little kid. This internship, along with past volunteer work, will help me gain the experience I need and reinforce that this is the career I want to pursue.

How has being a scholar-athlete prepared you for the work you are currently doing in your internship? What skills have you taken from your time as a scholar-athlete that helped you in your internship?

For this internship, I work with Veterinarians, Veterinary Technicians, other interns, and externs. Working with so many people requires a lot of communication and teamwork. Also, given that I haven’t had a lot of medical experience with horses beforehand, being coachable has been a necessary trait to learn what I need and still be safe.

Working with large animals can be extremely dangerous, but I always feel comfortable learning from and listening to my coworkers who have grown up with horses or even have horses of their own.

I’m typically in charge of 1-2 patients on my own, and because different patients have different treatment plans, time management is crucial to get everything done correctly and on time.

How is your internship preparing you for a career you would like to do after graduation?

I’m super grateful for this internship because it’s given me the opportunity to learn about a whole other side of animal medicine that I could potentially see myself in. I loved being able to help improve the lives of the horses in the facility, but I also think the science behind what we do is amazing.

There are so many things you can learn about a horse and what is wrong with it just from their bloodwork, and this applies to all animals. Getting to watch board-certified surgeons perform on 1,000-pound animals is also an exceptional experience. Previously, I have worked only with small animals so the exposure I’ve gotten this summer working with large animals has allowed me to expand my interests and stay open-minded.

What advice would you give another scholar-athlete/prospective scholar-athlete who is looking to pursue a similar path?

If you’re looking into veterinary medicine, it’s super important to build a network of people that you can talk to about future career opportunities.

That might be my favorite takeaway from doing internships and volunteer work because not only are they important for your veterinary school application, but you get to meet so many different people and veterinarians who can talk to you about their experiences and their journey through their education.

You always feel better when you have more people in your corner to cheer you on throughout an intensive career path like veterinary medicine!

CLICK HERE FOR BREVARD COUNTY NEWS

Similar Stories