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Sarah Pauley DVM
Leadership Role

Sarah Pauley, DVM
Sarah Pauley DVM

Division of One Health Monitoring

Biography

Sarah Pauley received her Bachelor of Science in biology with a secondary emphasis in English from Juniata College in 2011. She went directly from undergraduate school to veterinary school and she received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine (VMCVM) in 2015. During veterinary school, her study emphasis was on small animal and equine medicine. Dr. Pauley completed VMCVM’s summer veterinary research program in 2013, where she presented a poster on her norovirus research at the NIH Veterinary Scholars Symposium.

Upon graduation from veterinary school, Dr. Pauley worked in private practice as a small-animal veterinarian, where she had a particular interest in preventive medicine and implementing the One Health concept. After gaining valuable clinical experience for several years, Dr. Pauley joined FDA in 2018. She is the lead on outreach and antimicrobial stewardship efforts, and she supports Vet-LIRN in consumer complaint responses to potential foodborne illness.

Research

Dr. Pauley currently holds the position of veterinary medical officer in Vet-LIRN. Vet-LIRN was established in 2011 and is FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) special program. Vet-LIRN coordinates facilities, equipment, and professional expertise of government and non-government veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the United States and Canada to respond to high priority chemical and microbial feed and drug contamination events.

Vet-LIRN collaborates with network laboratories in their AMR Monitoring Program. Through this program, Vet-LIRN has applied the One Health paradigm to successfully track AMR in bacterial pathogens from animals since 2017. Additionally, Vet-LIRN provides funding to network partners via capacity-building grants to support antimicrobial stewardship and education efforts. Dr. Pauley is directly involved with coordinating these grants.

The network also provides the means for rapid response to reports of animal injury and establishes protocols to facilitate veterinary diagnostic reporting to FDA. When conducting these responses, Vet-LIRN follows specific Network Procedures for laboratories, owners and veterinarians (more on Vet-LIRN).

Dr. Pauley works with laboratories, referring veterinarians, and pet owners to respond to cases of potential foodborne illness in animals. Every response is different and tailored to the presenting case. She reviews the animal’s medical records, obtains a dietary and environmental exposure history via an owner interview, and, if appropriate, requests additional diagnostic (blood, urine, and/or tissue) samples from the ill or deceased pet.

Vet-LIRN’s consumer complaint response often includes various tests on collected animal feed or treat samples, and analysis of testing results. For example, requested tests may include bacteriology testing (including whole-genome sequencing on selected isolates), compositional analysis (e.g. taurine, thiamine, etc.), and chemical toxicology testing (e.g. toxic compounds, metals, etc.).

Contact Information
Sarah Pauley
+1 (240) 402-1218
+1 (301) 210-4685
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