Strategies for educational action to meet veterinary medicine's role in biodefense and public health

It is clear that the profession is not well prepared to respond to society's needs in bio-defense and public health. The imperatives that face the veterinary profession, as emphasized by the agenda for action conference deliberations that are reported in this issue of the journal, require action on many fronts, but possibly none more essential than to address how veterinary education needs to change to meet these challenges. Addressing these needs, participants at the agenda for action conference met in groups of 30 to 50 to shape approaches that would address these key questions. The 161 participants were broadly representative of government, private practice, corporate practice, organized veterinary medicine, and academia (Appendix A). Reported here are the results of those deliberations, with each of the seven sections written up by the discussion leader. Included in the participants were 20 students, representative of eight different veterinary colleges, who both participated in the group discussions and have presented their own report.