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Curriculum Changes to
Better Equip Students Seeking Careers in Public and Corporate
Veterinary Medicine
Although most veterinarians pursue
careers in private clinical practice, nearly 25 percent of the
nation’s vets are working for government, private industry,
international organizations, or nonprofits. The
Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has
redesigned and expanded its public and corporate veterinary
medicine curriculum to better prepare students for these
careers.
New this year, the third-year course “Problem Solving in Public
and Corporate Veterinary Medicine” provides an opportunity to
test abilities against actual case studies. All students who are
pursing the public and corporate veterinary medicine track take
this course.
“The ‘Problem Solving’ course
exposes students to real problems that veterinarians in public
practice must solve,” said Dr. Valerie Ragan, director of the
VMRCVM’s Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine, .
“For example, we present our students with a case involving an
extensive brucellosis outbreak at a dairy. After a virtual
visual tour of the facilities, they must develop a herd
management plan designed to eliminate the disease from the herd
and prevent human infection. We then compare their management
plans with the actual approach used in the situation in
question.”
According to Ragan, these case
studies demonstrate veterinary medicine’s complex role in
addressing issues such as animal and public health, food safety
and security, and biomedical research. For example, one of the
case studies presents a situation at Yellowstone National Park.
The location not only adds a multi-agency federal and state
regulatory aspect to the mix but also introduces the possibility
of intervention from animal rights groups.
The center added the new course to
the curriculum after Ragan surveyed alumni who had completed the
track and identified ways to match the curriculum with their
on-the-job experiences. The survey also resulted in changes to
courses on “Veterinarians in the Global Community” and
“Veterinarians and Public Policy.”
In addition to providing
instructional support, faculty members at the Center for Public
and Corporate Veterinary Medicine, which is located on the
University of Maryland’s College Park campus, connect veterinary
students with federal agencies in the greater Washington, D.C.,
area for clerkships.
“These clerkships introduce students
to what it would be like working for a federal agency to solve
problems from a national or global perspective,” said Dr.
Stephen Sundlof, an executive with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration who just completed a two-year assignment with the
center. “Instead of figuring out how to treat a disease on an
individual animal, we might ask, ‘How will this impact human
health and the nation’s economy?’ ”
Sundlof added that the college’s
tracking curriculum gives the college an advantage. Implemented
in 1998, the tracking curriculum allows students to explore
their interest areas in addition to completing the core
curriculum that prepares them for entry-level clinical practice
in any discipline.
“The college is unique in that it
has a track for non-clinical practice,” Sundlof said. “Students
in this program have a unique set of experiences to prepare them
for their future careers in the veterinary world.”
The Maryland –based Center has
prepared a white paper outlining a proposal for the Center to
expand to function as a National Center of Excellence. The white
paper is available by contacting Dr. Ragan at
vragan@umd.edu. The MVMA
would like to help strengthen awareness of this unique program
amongst our legislators and the leadership of the University of
Maryland.
Any veterinarian who
has a strong link to our Maryland politicians or to the
University of Maryland, or who may be willing to help convey our
message of support, is encouraged to contact MVMA President Dr.
Krista Evans or past president Dr. Tom Armitage though the
MVMA’s website (www.mdvma.org) or by email:
mvma@managementalliance.com. |
