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Center for Public and
Corporate Veterinary Medicine Update
by Valerie
Ragan, DVM, Director
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As we move through 2012 here
on the Maryland campus of the Virginia Maryland College
of Veterinary Medicine we are continuing to evolve to
best position ourselves to meet the demands for future
public veterinary practitioners.
In May 2012 the National
Academy of Sciences released their long awaited study
which was requested by the American Association of
American Veterinary Colleges (AAVMC) entitled “Workforce
Needs in Veterinary Medicine.” The study concluded that
there are sectors of unmet needs for veterinarians, but
little evidence of widespread workforce shortages at
this time.
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However, the study found an
imbalance in the distribution of veterinarians, and expressed
concern about the state of veterinary workforce in critical
areas of veterinary medicine, such as the public sector. The
report identified a tremendous need for veterinarians to become
involved in food and water security and safety.
Dr. Andrew Maccabe, the AAVMC
Executive Director stated, “As the population increases and
veterinary medicine evolves, we expect that veterinarians will
fill more roles in a broad range of careers not typically linked
in the public’s mind with veterinary medicine, including
bioterrorism and emergency preparedness, environmental health,
food safety and security, food production systems, regulatory
medicine, diagnostic laboratory medicine, biomedical research,
health promotion and disease prevention, public health research,
and epidemiology. Veterinarians are already working in these
critical areas, but the need for veterinary expertise in
non-traditional areas is increasing.”
Luckily, we have been anticipating
this finding, as it is the same thing we are hearing in our
discussions with the federal agencies and others. As a result,
we have been modifying our public and corporate track curriculum
and working to expand our partnerships and opportunities for
students over the last several years.
In addition, we have prepared a
white paper on a proposal for the CPCVM to truly function as a
National Center of Excellence, with the ability to serve as a
national resource for veterinary students interested in public
practice, and veterinarians wishing to make career transitions
throughout the country. If you are interested in seeing that
monograph, please feel free to send me an e-mail at
vragan@umd.edu.
As an example of change, we have
just concluded the first semester of a brand-new course Problem
Solving in Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine. In this
course students were engaged in using analytical tools to
identify issues, stakeholders and solution sets for complex
problems that public veterinary practitioners have faced.
Real cases are used, and when possible, we featured the
veterinarian who had to resolve the issue.
One of our guest presenters was Dr.
John Clifford, USDA’s Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) for the
United States, and the U.S. representative to the World Health
Organization for Animals (OIE). Dr. Clifford led a discussion on
how a country’s CVO would lead the response to a disclosure of
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly referred
to as “mad cow disease.” The discussion revolved around managing
a national response to such a challenge, including the technical
steps for confirmation at an international laboratory, as well
as appropriate communications with the press to minimize impacts
and prevent public overreaction.
The students were asked to develop
and present their own brief press statements as if they were the
CVO, and Dr. Clifford then played the role of the press and
asked them questions, some of them quite difficult to answer.
Ironically, about two weeks after that class, BSE was disclosed
in the United States, and Dr. Clifford was all over the news as
he responded to it. The students in the class enthusiastically
followed his management of the case, and were sending me press
statements and YouTube videos where they had carefully observed
and noted his comments and the response of the press.
Although I would never wish for a
case of BSE to be disclosed in this country it was a great
learning experience and demonstrated to the students the
importance of appropriately and swiftly managing the case, and
communicating on a topic that has huge public interest and the
potential to devastate our multi-billion dollar export market.
We are also continuing to build our
collaborative efforts with other agencies and veterinary
colleges in the public and corporate arena. Dr. Gary
Vroegindewey from our faculty has reinvigorated and is leading a
“One Health” clerkship in the Dominican Republic in conjunction
with the Via College of Osteopathic Medicine. As I write this he
is in the Dominican Republic with two of our fourth year
students, working on developing a One Health risk assessment for
Punta Cana, including government and non-government human health
agencies, endemic zoonotic diseases, human and environmental and
factors contributing to health risk, and options for prevention
and control.
Gary will also be delivering a
global health course in conjunction with Tufts University at
Mississippi State University the last week of July. He also
recently delivered a lecture on veterinary global health at the
Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.
One difficult change for us has been
that Dr. Steve Sundlof, who has been with us for the past two
years funded by the Food and Drug Administration, has completed
his detail here and has moved on. He was a huge contributor to
the CPCVM, and we are very grateful to the FDA for allowing him
to work with us over the last two years. We are seeking his
replacement, but he left very big shoes to fill. We will advise
you of our progress.
We are so excited about the
potential for the Center. We see ourselves as continually
evolving to meet the challenges of the future, and to be able to
best prepare our students and those veterinarians who wish to
make career changes for new careers in expanding areas of
veterinary medicine. The MVMA has been a great partner, and I
would like to thank both the MVMA, and especially Tom Armitage
who has served on our advisory board over the last several years. |
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Important
Links from this article
Center for Public and
Corporate Veterinary Medicine
Virginia-Maryland Regional
College of Veterinary Medicine
Curriculum Changes to Better Equip Studens Seeking Careers in Public and
Corporate Veterinary Medicine
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