Balance Is Key for New Department Head

 Dr. Warwick A. Arden will seek to balance the three-part mission of the University of Illinois in his new role as head of the College’s Veterinary Clinical Medicine Department and director of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

“We are in the business of knowledge: generating, disseminating, and implementing new knowledge in veterinary medicine,” he says, which is another way of describing the research, teaching, and clinical service aspects of his department.

His own career reflects such a balance, though that was not his initial objective.

When he was earning a DVM at the University of Sydney in his native Australia, his career goal was to “drive around the country being a rural veterinarian,” he says. “What got me going as an academic veterinarian was identifying problems that had no answers and wanting to find out the fundamental biology underlying the problem.”

After an internship at the University of Sydney-Camden and time in practice in New South Wales, Australia, Dr. Arden spent seven years at the veterinary college at Michigan State University. There he completed a master’s degree and a residency in large animal surgery, became board certified in veterinary surgery, and taught. 

In 1990 Dr. Arden moved to the University of Kentucky College of Medicine as a senior clinical research associate in cardiothoracic and general surgery. In Kentucky he finished a PhD in physiology and biophysics, taught in the medical school as an associate professor of surgery and physiology, and served as director of the surgical research program. His research focused on mechanisms of circulatory failure in ischemia and septic shock, a topic applicable to clinical diseases of humans and animals equally.

While affiliated with the medical school, Dr. Arden remained active as a veterinary surgeon through private practice. Thus, he brings to his new position not only the perspectives of veterinary and human medicine but also the experience of being both a private and an academic clinician.

“Dr. Arden’s unique qualifications—combining experience and board certification in large animal surgery with a PhD in a basic area of biomedical research–exactly fit the needs of our clinical department as it begins offering a PhD program,” notes College dean Ted Valli. 

Dr. Arden came to Illinois because of the University’s excellent reputation and because he believes, with the outstanding people and facilities here, the College is poised to achieve a top standing. His job as department head, he says, is to create the infrastructure and provide the leadership to help that happen.

“It’s a good time to be in the veterinary profession,” notes Dr. Arden. “There’s been a rapid expansion of specialty areas, of client expectations and demands, and of clients’ willingness to pay for services. We need to look at these trends in order to optimally teach, conduct research, and serve animal owners and referring veterinarians.” 

To promote the research mission, one of his first steps will be to confer with the faculty to determine areas of “focused strengths” that will make Illinois a leader among academic veterinary medical centers. He will ensure that targeted areas have an infrastructure of equipment and facilities, key personnel from perhaps wide-ranging disciplines, and core funding.

Of the service aspect he notes: “The hospital is predominantly a referral center. We need to be meticulous about service to referring DVMs and do away with the ‘ivory tower’ image. We’re not the only specialists on the block, and with their smaller size it may be easier for the growing number of private specialty practices to be responsive.”

Among ways to improve communications with practitioners Dr. Arden mentions giving referring DVMs access to their patients’ records via the Web and offering telemedicine consulting.

“The principal reason we exist is as a teaching hospital,” maintains Dr. Arden. “We are one big laboratory—a very intensive one with close exposure to faculty—for the final year of the DVM curriculum.” 

He especially wants to instill in students a strong sense of the value of the profession, preparing them to be successful both financially and as contributing members of the community. 

“It deeply disturbs me when veterinarians undervalue their role, either in monetary or societal terms,” he says. “In Illinois, animal health is a multibillion-dollar enterprise; veterinary medicine plays a huge role in animal health and its associated impact on human physical and mental health.”