Dr. Melissa Mazan of Tufts Veterinary School

By Dani Tifft

Part of what makes Central MA so unique is its abundance of colleges and universities.  And at each institution, there are professors, instructors, and coaches who go above and beyond simply dispensing academic fact inside the classroom; this special breed of educator becomes mentor, role model, and inspiration.  It is these individuals that we will be honoring in Focus on Faculty.
 
A lama walks into a doctor’s office and…It sounds like the start of a joke, but for Dr. Melissa Mazan, Associate Professor at Tuft’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, it’s just her typical Monday morning. Well, that and teaching, researching, directing the Equine Sports Medicine Program, and being a mom to two young children (She can often be seen in Worcester eating out on Shrewsbury Street with her kids or taking them skating.). She has devoted her life to the study of the equine respiratory system and engages in research about the human respiratory system as well. Horses can certainly “breathe a little easier” because she is around, and so can her students.

Mazan claims that the best moments she has as a teacher are when “…a student can have that ‘ah-ha!’ moment. They don’t get it and they don’t get it, and then all of a sudden I find a way to explain it to them a little differently and you can see that look on their face that says they finally understand.” Her students come to know her in a variety of roles ~ professor, lecturer, mentor, and often the person who stands back and lets them lead the way. She describes her role in Tuft’s problem-based learning courses with “Often I am there to facilitate and guide, to prod and poke.”

It is a long journey to becoming a veterinarian, with years of education and specialization that are not unlike those necessary for becoming a people-doctor. Dr. Mazan started off as an undergraduate at Yale University with hopes of becoming an historian, but after a short time at grad school realized she wanted to go in another direction. She decided that she was ready to spend the rest of her life with the animals she loves in the city that she feels is “under recognized.”

So what is the strangest horse disaster that she’s seen in her clinic? “A foal that had tried to hang itself from a tree [was brought] into the office,” she says. “Well, really it just became tangled up in it. But it was nearly strangulated.”

If there is a professor at your college whom you would like to see featured in this column, please contact the Editor at ldean@pagioinc.com.