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Enroll Now in International Wildlife and Ecosystem Program
Enroll Now in International Wildlife and Ecosystem ProgramEnvirovet Summer Institute 2000 will provide a comprehensive educational/field experience program on terrestrial wildlife and ecosystem health to 25 veterinary students, veterinarians, and wildlife biologists. The Envirovet program will highlight the transdisciplinary, cooperative nature of work required for effective wildlife and ecosystem research, management, and long-term problem solving.
From June 17 to July 1 the program will take place at White Oak Conservation Center near Jacksonville, Fla., with a focus on understanding wildlife health in the context of overall terrestrial ecosystem health. From July 9 to July 29 the program resumes in Kenya, with emphasis on wildlife health and the need for coordination between future development and ecological protection in an international context.
For more information, visit the Web site at www.cvm.uiuc.edu/vb/envirovet/ or contact Dr. Val R. Beasley, program director, at 217/333-9360 or val@uiuc.edu.
Enroll in Certificate Program to Build Executive Practice SkillsMission statement, employee manual, budget, retirement plan . . . does your practice have all these?
To enhance their executive practice skills, veterinarians and hospital managers are invited to register for the Executive Veterinary Program (EVP) Certificate in Small Animal Health Management starting in September 2000.“The kinds of documents participants produce in the course are really ‘must-haves’ for any small animal practice to be competitive today,” says program coordinator Dr. Lydia Miller. “Without these practice basics, it’s difficult to know what your goals are or how to reach them in an efficient manner.”
The program, which meets for three-day modules every other month for two years, also covers producing newsletters and brochures; role-playing with media and disgruntled clients; celebrating the human- animal bond; and designing and reporting clinical trials.
The 21 participants in the current Small Animal EVP class are already making dramatic changes in their practices and their lives. Several have hired an associate; others have purchased, merged with, or expanded a practice; some have even ventured into writing, speaking, and teaching.
Nationally recognized speakers such as Fritz Wood, Roger Cummings and Karyn Gavzer have brought energy, enthusiasm and expertise to the modules. Sponsors of the program include Pharmacia & Upjohn Animal Health, Merial Limited, the UICVM Companion Animal Fund, Bayer Animal Health, Veterinary Economics, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc. and the Iams Company.
Module One of the second Small Animal EVP, to be held September 13 to 15, will challenge each participant to develop a personal and professional vision for the year 2010, along with a plan for achieving it. Computer training on common software programs and practice-tips sharing sessions add value to this comprehensive, interdisciplinary course, which can also provide credit toward a master’s degree.
For information or to register, call Dr. Lydia F. Miller at 217/333-2907 or visit the Web site at www.cvm.uiuc.edu/ceps/SA_EVP/ (e-mail miller@dpc.net).
Dr. Doug Yanik Brings Industry Experience to Student AffairsTwenty-five years ago, a young man from Connecticut applied to veterinary schools. He had good grades, but he didn’t get accepted. (Non-resident applicants had a tough time back then too.)
What happened next not only led to his acceptance at both Iowa and Illinois when he next applied, but also later inspired this man to seek ways to give back to the veterinary profession: he got a call from Illinois’s veterinary admissions office inviting him to come discuss ways to make his application stronger.“That day my veterinary career started,” recalls Dr. Doug Yanik, the new assistant dean for Academic and Student Affairs.
“I took this job because I feel strongly about affecting the future of our profession,” he says. “If we in student affairs do our jobs well, from initial counseling and recruiting to supporting students throughout the four-year program, then our graduates will make an impact on veterinary medicine.”
Dr. Yanik, who started on January 24, brings to the position 14 years’ experience at Hill’s Pet Nutrition, first in the customer service and product development areas and most recently as the company liaison to 12 U.S. veterinary colleges and four overseas. He also practiced veterinary medicine in Illinois and Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1984, completed a pathology internship at the University of Florida veterinary college in 1985, and earned a master’s in business administration in 1994 while working at Hill’s.
The opportunity to contribute to “the future of our profession”—in this instance students Abbey Cowan and Tara Ooms—motivated Dr. Doug Yanik to join the Academic and Student Affairs staff.
Dr. Yanik speaks of providing an “enriched environment” for veterinary students, and he has quite a list of specific ways he’ll be working to do that. On the curricular side, he’ll be looking for ways to add emphasis in behavior, nutrition, and business. In recruiting, he sees the need for attracting to veterinary medicine gifted students from underrepresented groups.
Another focus will be building career services for students and graduates. Workshops on topics such as business etiquette and interviewing; summer internship opportunities that will expose first- and second-year students to career paths in public health, large-scale production medicine, and other areas; and a job fair being instituted as part of the annual Fall Conference for Veterinarians are a few of the ideas he’s pursuing.
Dr. Yanik hopes to collaborate on these goals within the College, through groups like Continuing Education/Public Service and Development and Alumni Affairs, and beyond the College, for example, with the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association.
“Dr. Yanik brings a fresh perspective to the workings of the Office of Academic and Student Affairs,” say Dr. Gerald Pijanowski, associate dean of the office. “Being new here lets him question many things we take for granted.”
We welcome Dr. Yanik aboard—and even forgive him for having chosen Iowa State over Illinois for his DVM degree.
Dr. Warwick Arden to Head Veterinary Clinical Medicine DepartmentDr. Warwick Arden, from the Department of Surgery, University of Kentucky Medical Center, will join us in late March to head the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine. Dr. Arden earned a BVS degree (equivalent to a DVM) from the University of Sydney, in Australia. He completed a PhD in physiology and biophysics at the University of Kentucky, and he is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. A profile on Dr. Arden will appear in the next issue of Veterinary Report.
Conference Showcases Advances in Infectious Disease ResearchThe Third Annual Conference on New and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases, April 20 and 21, will provide an overview of disease emergence and will communicate recent advances in the study of the microorganisms that cause disease. The Urbana conference has been approved for 1.4 continuing education units. For more information, visit the Web site at www.cvm.uiuc.edu/idc3/ or contact Dr. Roberto Docampo, 217/333-3845; email, rodoc@uiuc.edu.
Get Your Hands on New Recruiting Tool
A new recruitment brochure is available from the Office of Academic and Student Affairs. The 4" X 9" handout briefly covers such topics as career opportunities for DVMs, preparing for veterinary school, the application procedure, and tuition. New booklets with detailed admissions information will be printed this summer.
To request copies of the brochure, please call 217/333-1192.
Identification of Suspect Organism in Feline Infectious Anemia Will Aid Diagnosis and Treatment
by Jim BarlowAn organism long suspected as the cause of feline infectious anemia (FIA) is indeed the culprit, according to the findings of veterinary pathology assistant professor Dr. Joanne Messick and graduate student Dr. Linda Berent. Their research has led to creation of a diagnostic tool and the discovery that the bacterial organism is a mycoplasm, not a Rickettsia.
For years, suspected cases of FIA have been treated with antibiotics. Cats can become very anemic as red-blood-cell counts plummet. Even if symptoms disappear, the organism remains. The prevalence of the disease, lacking a diagnostic tool, has been impossible to determine.
Drs. Messick and Berent developed a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) assay and used it to detect Haemobartenella felis in infected cats. Their technique will help veterinarians better grasp the scope of FIA infection. It also will help researchers find the carrier and identify risk factors associated with chronic infection. Once the genes involved in disease activation are isolated, says Dr. Messick, a vaccine could be made.
“These organisms are teeny tiny parasites,” says Dr. Messick. “For years they were thought to be rickettsial, but our laboratory and at least two other laboratories now show that they are not rickettsial. They are mycoplasma organisms.”
Rickettsia is an intracellular parasitic bacterium whose transmission has been linked to fleas, ticks, mice, and lice. Mycoplasma organisms are tough, evasive bacteria that lack a cell wall. They are the smallest free-living cells known to exist, and how they are transmitted is uncertain, though believed to be in the same way as Rickettsia.
The research was described in the January issue of Veterinary Pathology. Dr. Messick will also present her findings at the 18th Annual American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum in Seattle.
Long-term infections with mycoplasmas relate to rheumatic diseases such as arthritis, she notes. “However, the long-term consequences of a cat living with H. felis, even if inactive, are unknown.”
Toxicology Experts to Address Emerging ProblemsAt a May 5 short course entitled “Emerging Problems in Toxicology,” more than a dozen veterinarians and toxicologists from the College of Veterinary Medicine and the ASPCA National Animal Poison Control Center will speak about new substances of toxicological concern. Toxicants to be covered include many products that are new on the market and that have caused severe and even fatal effects in animals.
Sessions will cover decontamination basics; innovative insecticidal products; herbal remedies; the toxicity of selected topical medications when consumed by animals; and human medications, such as antidepressants and the resultant serotonin syndrome. The day includes tours of the NAPCC, the University of Illinois Laboratory of Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine, and the College’s poisonous plant garden. At a practitioner-driven open forum, attendees can raise their own topics of concern.
The program is sponsored by the Department of Veterinary Biosciences, NAPCC, and VDL.
NAPCC, an operating division of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is the only animal-oriented poison control center in North America. It is an emergency hotline providing 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week telephone assistance to veterinarians and animal owners. The VDL, one of only 38 veterinary diagnostic laboratories accredited by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, handles over 15,000 toxicology cases annually.
For registration information, call the office of Continuing Education/Public Service at 217/333-2907.
College Has Dynamic Presence at ACVP MeetingThe 50th annual meeting of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists was held in Chicago in November. Eighteen researchers from the College’s pathology division attended the meeting. Those presenting papers were Drs. Linda Berent, E.J. Ehrhart, Howard Gelberg, Wanda Haschek-Hock, Walter Hoffmann, Julie Johnson, Brian Knight, Joanne Messick, Geoffrey Smith, Philip Solter, Charles Wiedmeyer, and James Zachary. Dr. Zachary was praised for his six-year editorship of the journal Veterinary Pathology.
Wildlife Clinic Reaches Out to PublicThe Wildlife Medical Clinic, a volunteer organization affiliated with the College that treats and releases injured or abandoned wild animals, has good news to report about the public education aspect of its mission.
In 1999, the WMC gave 95 public relations talks at schools, fairs, club meetings, and other events. Using resident animals to discuss wildlife habitats and habits, WMC volunteers reached hundreds of people with a message of conservation and respect.
Its newly redesigned Web site, at www.cvm.uiuc.edu/wmc/, features information such as facts about various species native to Illinois, what to do if you find an injured animal, and how to “adopt” one of the six permanent residents of the clinic.
Phi Zeta Members Win AwardsThe Illinois chapter of Phi Zeta, a scholastic veterinary fraternity, announced the winners of its Literary Award 2000. Dr. Tetsuya Furuya, veterinary pathobiology, won the award in the basic research category for his manuscript on a novel phosphatidylinositol-phospholipase C of Trypanosoma cruzi. Dr. N. E. Mateus-Pinilla, veterinary pathobi-ology, won the award in the clinical research category for her manuscript on a field trial of the effectiveness of a feline vaccine in reducing T. gondii exposure for swine. Both manuscripts will enter competition for national awards.
At the annual Phi Zeta initiation banquet, Hank Hannah gave the keynote speech, “A Lawyer’s 80-year Walk Through the Illinois Veterinary Landscape.”
Student Club NewsNine members of the student chapter of the American Association of Equine
Practitioners attended the national AAEP convention in Albuquerque, N.M., in December. The student chapter of AAEP hosted an exhibit at the Illinois Horse Fair in March and is sponsoring a continuing education program on lameness in April.A dozen Boy Scouts spent the morning of March 4 at the College, hosted by members of the Omega Tau Sigma veterinary service fraternity. Their visit was part of a merit badge blitz in the community. The scouts earning a veterinary medicine badge were shown how to conduct normal physical examinations of College-owned horses and cows as well as of dogs and cats belonging to OTS members. They also learned about zoonoses, general animal husbandry, parasites, and other activities of veterinarians.
Job Fair, Speakers Announced for Fall Conference 2000The annual Fall Conference for Veterinarians, slated for October 12 and 13, will for the first time feature a job fair. Students seeking post-graduate or internship positions will have the opportunity to meet and mingle with practitioners and companies seeking help. Veterinarians should bring a “practice resume,” a marketing tool for attracting staff, to the event. In fact, a session to show how to create one is in the works for Fall Conference. The job fair is tentatively scheduled for Friday evening, so plan to stay over that night.
Many top speakers are lined up for Fall Conference. Dr. David J. Polzin, renal specialist from the University of Minnesota, will offer a keynote session in the small animal track. Dr. Bonnie Mader, from the University of California-Davis, will cover coping with emotional issues in the veterinary profession. Featured equine track speakers are Dr. Harold Hintz, Cornell University, and Dr. Andy Anderson, from Oklahoma.
Theresa Grentz, head coach of the Illinois women’s basketball team, will inspire those who attend the Thursday evening banquet in the Illini Union Ballroom.
For a complete list of speakers and events, look for registration materials in the mail in August. Conference hotels are listed at right.
For information about Fall Conference, please call the Office of Continuing Education/Public Service-Extension at 217/333-2907 or visit www.cvm.uiuc.edu/ceps/.