Effective bibliographic searching for animal alternatives in veterinary medical education: the UC Davis web site

To prepare students in just four years to enter veterinary practice, veterinary medical educators offer an array of laboratory and clinical experiences coordinated with didactic instruction. Recent curricular changes have reduced the numbers of animals involved in painful or terminal procedures. For each use of animals, veterinary educators are required by the USDA's policies 11 and 12 to complete animal-use protocols that include questions on alternatives to procedures causing more than momentary pain or distress. Veterinary medical educators seeking improved teaching resources and methods or completing animal-use protocols may find it frustrating to locate the relevant information, which is dispersed across many databases. This paper addresses a gap facing veterinary educators by presenting user-friendly searching tools that are targeted toward (a) locating teaching resources and (b) conducting effective bibliographic searches on standard teaching laboratory procedures, as required for animal-use protocols. These tools simplify searching by providing streamlined access to the resources being sought. Facilitating efficient and effective searching by users can improve teaching and simplify compliance with USDA requirements.     

Food-supply veterinary medicine and veterinary medical education: an Australian perspective

Food-supply veterinary medicine has been an essential part of veterinary degree programs in Australia since the first veterinary school opened in the late nineteenth century. Australian veterinary schools, like others internationally, are being challenged by the relevance of material in current curricula for modern food-supply veterinary medicine. Additionally, student aspirations are a major issue, as curriculum designers balance companion-animal training with the herd/flock-based issues that focus on productivity and profitability. One of the challenges is to examine the relative balance of education in generic skills (self-knowledge, change management, teamwork, leadership, negotiation) with more technically or scientifically based education. An ongoing process of curriculum review and renewal, which involves input from both external and internal stakeholders and allows regular review and assessment, is needed to ensure continuing curriculum relevance.     

Handheld computers in veterinary medical education: a view from human medical education

Handheld computers are widely used in clinical practice, and their use in both human medical education and veterinary medical education is increasing, especially, for the former, in activities involving point-of-care access. This article references the insights that can be obtained from the usage and activities that are gaining a strong foothold in human medical education. Handheld computer technology gives students access to a large and changing knowledge base for clinical practice, especially when they are geographically dispersed. Differences in use between education and practice largely relate to the importance clinicians place on patient information. Student use focuses on progress mapping and ready access to clinical reference material. Suggestions are made for future use in medical education.     

Computer applications in veterinary medical education

This is a review of the various computer applications used in veterinary medical education. The various applications include drill-and-practice, tutorial, problem-solving, testing, educational management programs, educational games, word processing, educational utilities, authoring programs, and simulations.     

Outcomes assessment in veterinary medical education

The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) agreed to perform outcomes assessment (OA) as part of the accreditation review process for the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). Nine OA instruments were developed and validated by a 20-member accreditation committee. The instruments were also pre-tested by a subset of the target population. The instruments were for alumni one to five years post-graduate, alumni 6-15 years post-graduate, faculty, staff, DVM students, employers of veterinarians, referring veterinarians using the Blacksburg campus, and referring veterinarians using the Leesburg campus. In addition, data were used from OA surveys previously done for the Office of Research and Graduate Studies. Data from the surveys were incorporated into each of the 11 Essentials for Accreditation required by the AVMA. The process of OA provided a comprehensive assessment of the many aspects of the operation of the college. An important follow-up to the OA process is use of data to enhance and/or re-prioritize existing programs.     

Understanding veterinary practitioners' decision-making process: implications for veterinary medical education

Understanding how veterinary practitioners make clinical decisions, and how they use scientific information to inform their decisions, is important to optimize animal care, client satisfaction, and veterinary education. We aimed to develop an understanding of private practitioners' process of decision making. On the basis of a grounded-theory qualitative approach, we conducted a telephone survey and semi-structured face-to-face interviews. We identified a decision-making framework consisting of two possible processes to make decisions, five steps in the management of a clinical case, and three influencing factors. To inform their decision, veterinary surgeons rarely take the evidence-based medicine (EBM) approach. They consult first-opinion colleagues, specialists, laboratories, and the Internet rather than scientific databases and peer-reviewed literature, mainly because of limited time. Most interviewees suggested the development of educational interventions to better develop decision-making skills in veterinary schools. Adequate information and EBM tools are needed to optimize the time spent in query and assessment of scientific information, and practitioners need to be trained in their use.     

Study of the influence of veterinary medical education on the moral development of veterinary students

Although veterinary medicine endorses high moral character and adherence to a code of ethics, to our knowledge, virtually no studies have examined the influence of veterinary medical education on the moral development of its students. Using the Kohlberg standard moral judgment interview, this study examined that relationship in a sample of 20 veterinary medical students (16.0% of the veterinary college's student body). The students were tested at the beginning and at the end of their veterinary medical education to determine whether their moral reasoning scores had increased to the same extent as those of other postgraduate students. It was found that normally expected increases in moral reasoning did not occur over the four years of veterinary medical education for these students, suggesting that their veterinary medical educational experience somehow inhibited their moral reasoning ability rather than facilitated it. With a range of moral reasoning scores between 313 and 436, the mean increase from first year to fourth year of 12.5 points was not statistically significant. Statistical analysis revealed no significant correlations between the moral reasoning scores on age or gender, although there were significant correlations with Medical College Admissions Test scores and grade point average scores.     

Native American tribal cultures: implications for veterinary medical education

This article reviews the literature from veterinary medicine, tribal education, career development, and psychology to focus on the reasons that Native people are currently under-represented in the field of veterinary medicine. Educational implications and recruitment strategies are suggested. Local, state, and national resources are provided to help veterinary medical educators make their programs more culturally competent for Native veterinary students and faculty.     

Effective information design for PDAs in veterinary medical education

Until recently, personal digital assistants (PDAs) have been ignominiously characterized as a solution without a problem. To many, they were glorified versions of calendars, address books, notepads, and calculators that appeared only minimally more useful than their paper predecessors. Today's PDAs cater to a wider range of mobile computing needs, especially in the veterinary field, where they support mobile, information-centric work. Despite the PDA's resurgent popularity, hardware constraints limit its wide-scale integration. Most notably, small screen sizes limit the PDA designers who compose texts, videos, and images for PDA delivery. This article addresses the problem of designing for small screens by re-characterizing the issue as an information design problem rather than a hardware problem. By analyzing how fourth-year students in a veterinary medicine program use their PDAs in their clinical education, we offer suggestions for designing information to meet their needs.