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News from the Center for
Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine
by Valerie E. Ragan, DVM -
Director
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Greetings from the College
Park campus of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of
Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM)! We have been busy working
on expansion of the center to meet the goals of
increasing the national and international visibility of
the center, and increasing opportunities and experiences
for veterinary students.
In the last newsletter, I
was pleased to present Dr. Stephen Sundlof who had
recently joined our faculty from the Food and Drug
Administration. I’m now very pleased to announce that we
have another incredible addition to
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our faculty. Dr. Gary
Vroegindewey, former director of the U.S. Department of
Defense Veterinary Service Activity and assistant chief
in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps, recently joined us
and is already putting our center on the map.
Dr. Vroegindewey is a nationally and
internationally recognized leader in veterinary public health
and disaster management, with broad experience in leadership and
organizational development. He brings to the college a wealth of
global health experience ranging from working in key roles with
dairy production in South America; food safety in Egypt; and
Avian Influenza global planning to developing international
training programs for the Middle East. He is the incoming
chairman of the International Affairs Committee- Association of
American Veterinary Medical Colleges, and was awarded the 2010
AVMA XIIth International Congress Prize for contributions to the
understanding of global veterinary medicine.
In his new position, “Dr. V” as he
is known here, will develop and teach new courses, create
experiential opportunities for students and graduates, and build
strategic partnerships among the public, private, and
professional sectors. In addition, he will lead branding,
marketing, and communications capability programs to promote the
Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. V is already putting the CPCVM
on the map by leading a major international event as he has been
asked to chair the first Veterinary Medical Session at the 17th
World Congress for Disaster and Emergency Medicine being held in
Beijing, China in 2011. Previously the Congress did not include
any veterinary sessions. Under Dr. V’s leadership, the CPCVM has
brought together key partners in disaster response including the
AVMA, the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges,
Veterinarians Without Borders, USDA, the Department of Defense,
and international veterinarians to present programs highlighting
the critical role of veterinarians in global health, disaster
response, and One Medicine.
We’ve continued our international
reach in other ways as well. We were recently approached by
USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and have received a
grant from them to assist with animal health programs in the
Caucasus, with a focus on Armenia and the Republic of Georgia. I
recently traveled to Armenia to start the scoping and assessment
process as step one of the agreement. We met with Armenian
veterinarians, the Armenian Chief Veterinary Officer and the
Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and the US Ambassador to
Armenia. We’re currently drafting a work plan for developing a
national animal health program for Armenia, and if accepted by
the Minister, we’ll be expanding our efforts there. Our grant
includes travel funds for VMRCVM senior students. Our ultimate
goal is to not only help Armenian veterinarians and help the
country improve its animal health and hopefully its export
capabilities, but to provide an opportunity for veterinary
students to see livestock diseases they won’t (hopefully) see in
the United States. We want students to learn how the US
government interacts with foreign ministries and the importance
of those interactions to the United States, to veterinarians,
and to animal health in this country.
I mentioned in an earlier article
about the Memorandum of Understanding we had signed with both
the United States Animal Health Association (USAHA) and the
American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD).
The purpose of partnering with these two large national
organizations is to provide opportunities to educate and mentor
veterinary students interested in public veterinary practice and
diagnostic medicine and research, while providing them
networking and potential future employment opportunities. I’m
pleased to share with you that both organizations waived the
meeting registration fees and that four VMRCVM first year
students accompanied me to the USAHA/AAVLD annual meeting in
Minneapolis in November. Two of those students are Maryland
residents.
There were over 1400 attendees, with
75 people attending from 20 different countries. The students
were able to meet a large number of state veterinarians and
directors of veterinary diagnostic laboratories from across the
country, as well as animal health officials from Canada and the
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and the Chief Veterinary Officer
from the Republic of Georgia. They also attended cutting–edge
lectures on current animal health topics. We were also invited
to the AAVLD Board of Directors meeting, and I’m proud to say
that all four students went to the podium and spoke to the Board
to express their appreciation for being at the meeting and how
much they had learned about the incredible breadth of
significant issues that involve veterinarians. I was also
pleased that the USAHA president announced that one of the major
accomplishments for the year for the century-old organization
was the agreement signed with the Center for Public and
Corporate Veterinary Medicine at VMRCVM.
CPCVM participated in MVMA’s Fall
Conference through developing a Public Practice session with a
range of topics including career transition, global food safety,
international programs, Maryland public health issues, shelter
medicine, public practice opportunities and veterinary school
recruiting presented by nationally recognized speakers.
These are a few examples of what we
are doing to expand opportunities and experiences for our
veterinary students. We are also revising and expanding the
courses we are teaching as part of the public and corporate
veterinary curriculum, but that will be a subject for a future
article. We are excited about the developments at the CPCVM, and
I am thrilled with the top-notch faculty who have recently
joined us. Throughout our planning process and the
implementation of some new initiatives, we have greatly
appreciated the support and input of the MVMA. Tom Armitage,
MVMA President-Elect, serves on our advisory board, and I’d like
to extend a personal thanks to Tom for his time and
participation as we work to develop and expand the CPCVM.
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Important
Links from this article
Training Veterinarians for Careers in the Federal Government
Center for Public and
Corporate Veterinary Medicine
Virginia-Maryland Regional
College of Veterinary Medicine
United States Animal
Health Association
American Association of
Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians
American Veterinary
Medical Association
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