Global Aggies: Backyard Immersion With Knights Landing One Health Center
By the Global Learning Hub on January 14, 2020
"Amanda Crofton is a person of dual lifelong passions: veterinary medicine and language exchange. These combined interests in science and liberal arts led her to UC Davis, where she graduated with a B.S. in neurobiology, physiology and behavior and a B.A. in Spanish—followed by enrollment into the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine doctoral degree program.
'Completing a major in Spanish was honestly just as important to me as my science major,' she says. 'I’ve been studying Spanish since I was five years old and developed a real love for the language. I feel like having a science major and a humanities major gave me a more balanced education—and have prepared me for the parts of my future career that are not fully science-based.'
Enter health care. Although science is foundational to this career path, being able to converse in an additional language enables practitioners to reach more patients from even more diverse backgrounds. And in Crofton’s case, that translates into more human clients and more animal patients in her role as co-director of the Knights Landing One Health Center (KLOHC) veterinary clinic.
'For me, it’s the job of health professionals to meet their clients’ needs,' she says. 'If that need is met by offering services in a language that works better for them, then I think that’s really important. It’s not just about how to get to a diagnosis or treat a patient, but about communicating this information compassionately and making a connection with clients.'"