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.     

Emergency medicine clerkship: a joining of private-practice referral veterinary medicine with an academic institution

Novel approaches to the clinical training of veterinary students in many disciplines are being sought by veterinary colleges. In 2004, the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine approached the Small Animal Department and Florida Veterinary Specialists (FVS) in Tampa with a proposal to jointly design and run an elective clerkship in emergency medicine. The program would focus on providing increased emergency case exposure in a real-world environment to interested third- and fourth-year veterinary students. The purpose would be to better prepare these students for emergent cases while increasing their overall level of clinical confidence. This article reviews in detail the clerkship structure, its objectives, and the logistics of training and support at FVS. In this instance, the academic-private institution partnership has been successful in providing effective learning for veterinary students over the last three years. This clerkship structure may serve as a template for other institutions exploring alternatives to the traditional clinical training of veterinary students.     

从兽医视角解读微量元素

正铜、铁、硒、锌等微量元素对平衡猪的营养以维持其生产均很重要。不仅要从营养角度审视它们,还要从对健康的作用来看待它们,这样做会有收获。在最小需求量之上添加微量元素的一个众所周知的案例是以治疗仔猪大肠杆菌相关疾病为目标的应用。正变得越来越清晰的是,对猪健康和猪营养进行的田间研究事实上是一枚硬币的正反两面。当猪得到正确的饲喂时,它们的健康水平好像也会变得更高;同时,当猪感觉健康时,它们的采食量似乎也会变得更高。德国汉诺威兽医大学的J.Kamphues教授在最近的一次演讲中,当提及动物日粮中微量元素的添加时,他从兽医的视角明确表达了该观点。     

Perspectives on academic veterinary administration

It is important for veterinary administrators to apply knowledge bases from other fields to their own unique administrative needs. For example, although some resources are written for business managers, the discussions of four key management competency areas, guidelines for mastering these skills, organizational assessment tools, and other self-help tools may provide interesting food-for-thought for veterinary administrators.(76) In developing their own administrative styles, administrators should seek to apply those principles that seem to intuitively fit with their personal research styles, work situations, managerial styles, administrative preferences, and unique organizational culture. Through strengthening their liaisons with community and university business programs, counseling agencies, employee assistance programs, and psychology researchers, administrators can continue to be exposed to and benefit from new paradigms for consideration in veterinary medical environments. Through these liaisons, the unique needs of veterinary medical environments are also communicated to individuals within the fields of psychology and business, thus stimulating new research that specifically targets veterinary medical environment leadership issues. Each field has unique contributions to help veterinary administrators work toward creating veterinary medical environments that are creative, energetic, visionary, pragmatic, and highly marketable in order to help administrators recruit and nurture the best and brightest veterinary researchers, teachers, and clinicians.     

Sexual harassment in the veterinary academic environment

OBJECTIVE: To survey faculty and house officers of clinical departments of colleges of veterinary medicine (CVM) to identify characteristics of sexual harassment (SH) in the veterinary academic environment, to report the opinions of survey respondents on how SH is being handled, and to determine how the process can be improved at veterinary academic institutions. PROCEDURE: On the basis of lists obtained from 25 CVM, a survey was mailed to 1,294 academic veterinarians. Four hundred seventy-eight completed surveys were returned. RESULTS: The prevalence of SH in the population of respondents was 31%. Nonphysical forms of SH were reported 6 times as often as physical forms of harassment, with the most common type reported being offensive sexual comments and unwanted attention. Fear of reprisal was the most prevalent reason cited by respondents for not confronting the harasser. Survey respondents rated the following as very important to improve the system of dealing with SH at their academic institution: guarantee of protection from retaliation, assurance of confidentiality, clear explanation of what will happen to you, and a clearer definition of SH. CONCLUSION: A clear definition of SH is the first step in preventing SH. Other cited steps include professional development programs to educate the academic population as to what constitutes SH, inform the entire academic population what the institution's SH policy is, and enforce this policy with sensitivity, fairness, confidentiality, and quick resolve to protect the victim.     

Tuberculosis as a zoonosis from a veterinary perspective

Tuberculosis is an important disease among many zoonoses, because both Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis, which are the major causes of tuberculosis, are highly pathogenic, infect many animal species and thus are likely to be the source of infection in humans. In particular, monkeys are highly susceptible to these bacteria and are important spreaders. Recently, two outbreaks of M. tuberculosis occurred in four different kinds of monkeys and humans were also infected with the disease in Japan. In zoos, tuberculosis was reported not only in monkeys, but also in several different kinds of animals, including elephants. Pets such as dogs and cats are believed to be generally less susceptible to M. tuberculosis, but in this article we introduce a case of infection from man to dog by close contact. Japan is one of the few countries that have been able to control M. bovis infection. In other countries, however, cases of bovine tuberculosis and human M. bovis infection have been reported, and thus further attention is still required in the future.