Cornell's DVM Class of 2015 (150th Anniversary)

Blog by Donald F. Smith, Cornell University, 01.26.11

This a special welcome to the students who comprise the Veterinary Class of 2015 at Cornell University. You are on track to complete your DVM degree during the 150^th anniversary of the university.

Our founder, Ezra Cornell, was an entrepreneur who built a vast telegraph network for Samuel Morse. After amassing his fortune in Western Union stock, Cornell returned to his first love, farming. He acquired an expansive land tract on the top of the hill overlooking Cayuga Lake and then set to work fulfilling his dream of providing an educational institution where any person could find instruction in any study.

Veterinarians World-Wide Mourn the Passing of Dr. Robert W. Kirk

by Donald F. Smith, Cornell University. dfs6@cornell.edu.

Posted January 20, 2011

Dr. Robert W. Kirk, professor emeritus of medicine at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, died yesterday (January 19^th) in Ithaca.

A 1946 graduate of Cornell, Dr. Kirk was one of the most accomplished clinical veterinarians, authors and educators of the 20^th century. His knowledge of general small animal medicine was established through several years in private practice, then honed in his three decades of advanced medical practice, including dermatology, at Cornell University.

Dr. Stephen Ettinger receives Mark Morris Sr. Lifetime Achievement Award

by Donald F. Smith, Cornell University; dfs6@cornell.edu
Posted January 19, 2011.


Dr. Stephen Ettinger received the Mark Morris Sr. Lifetime Achievement Award last Saturday evening at the North America Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Florida. One of North America’s premier annual veterinary recognitions, it is given to the individual who has contributed most significantly to small animal medicine over his or her career.

A New Dean for the Nation's Oldest Veterinary College

Blog written by Dr. Donald F. Smith, Cornell University
Posted January 6, 2011.

CAREERS FOR VETERINARIANS Series

When Professor Lisa Nolan goes to work at Iowa State’s College of Veterinary Medicine on January 15^th, she will be assuming the position of dean of the oldest veterinary college in the United States.[i]



Dean Lisa Nolan
Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine
Photo provided by Iowa State University 



I met Dr. Nolan during an AVMA accreditation review site visit to the Ames campus five years ago. In her position as executive department chair at the time, she clearly and concisely represented the college’s academic programs, and provided a compelling vision for the future direction of teaching and research in the college.

Water For Elephants: A Book, A Movie, and Veterinarians who Graduated from Cornell in 1931

Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel, Water for Elephants, opens as 93-year-old Jacob Jankowski, sits dejected in an assisted living home, verbally sparring with a retired lawyer. As the story flashes back to 1931, we learn that veterinary student Jankowski is about to take his final exams at Cornell University when his parents are killed in an auto accident. Jacob is disconsolate because his father―also a veterinarian―had mortgaged his practice to pay the Ivy League tuition. He abandons Cornell and joins the circus.

Centenarian Dr. Lawrence Waitz is a real member of the Veterinary Class of ’31. He graduated along with 35 other men―sorry, there were no women in the class like the sensuous Catherine who sat beside Jacob with her thighs provocatively touching his―and began his practice on Long Island in the depths of the Depression. Dr. Waitz settled in Hempstead from which he could drive in all directions to riding academies, stables and dairy farms.

Dogs Are Good Medicine

What do some child psychologists, neurologists and family therapists have in common? They use dogs as adjuncts in their medical practices.

A two-page spread is yesterday’s Wall Street Journal features numerous photographs of health care professionals accompanied by the dogs they use in their clinical practices. (URL below) There is even a flashback to Sigmund Freud and his Chou named Jofi.

Veterinarians and physicians use the term “One Health” to describe the growing awareness that animals and people share many health problems. Diseases like Salmonella or influenza are well known examples, but even some environmental-induced cancers are similar in animals and people.

However, "One Health" also refers to contributions that animals make to human health. Whether controlling obesity through encouraging exercise, lowering blood pressure, managing stress or providing companionship to senior citizens, dogs and other pets often part of a holistic human health strategy.

2011 WORLD VETERINARY YEAR

This week the United States Congress voted to designate 2011 as “World Veterinary Year to bring attention to and show appreciation for the veterinary profession on its 250^th anniversary.”

The Congressional citation emphasizes the roles that veterinarians play in promoting healthy pets and healthy families, as well as biomedical research, sports, food safety, conservation biology and the Armed Forces.

It states in part: 

Whereas 2011 will mark the 250^th anniversary of the founding of the veterinary medical profession;

The House of Representatives supports the goals and ideals of World Veterinary Year by bringing attention to and expressing appreciation for the contributions that the veterinary profession has made and continues to make to animal health, public health, animal welfare, and food safety.

The world’s first veterinary school was established in Lyon, France, in 1761. Most veterinarians can trace their professional roots back to this veterinary college established 250 years ago or to the schools that its graduates and their successors later founded. 

A Holiday Book for your Favorite Veterinarian

Here are two gift suggestions you might consider for your veterinarian or veterinarian-to-be.

GENIUS ON THE EDGE, by Gerald Umber, MD

A new biography on the father of surgery.  In the 1890s, William Halsted and three other doctors established the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. For over 30 years, Halsted pioneered the development of surgery so fundamentally that every university-affiliated surgeon in America can trace his or her lineage back to one of Halsted’s residents.

My fascination as a veterinary surgeon, however, was to realize how accomplished Halsted became in operating on animals. Using mostly dogs, he adhered to strict sterile techniques as early as 1900. Cornell’s veterinary college, by contrast, did not adopt aseptic surgery until 1948.

Why was Halsted operating on dogs? Because that is how he and his colleagues learned and practiced new techniques for humans, and how they developed their understanding of how the body works in health and disease.

White Coat Ceremony for Cornell's Veterinary Class of 2012

How and when did Cornell’s White Coat tradition begin?

When I became dean in 1997, I had never heard about this symbolic coating of medical students at the beginning of their professional education, though it had been inaugurated by Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons four years earlier. 



Members of Class of 2012 celebrate their new white coats
December 4, 2010.

 Washington State University’s veterinary college had also adopted the practice and, in 2002, Dr. Richard Grambow, Chair of our College Advisory Council, became aware of it while visiting WSU where his daughter was on the faculty. He was so impressed that he promoted the idea with the alumni association and our executive staff, and we all thought it was a great idea. From the beginning, it was embraced as a joint alumni-college event with the alumni association providing the white coats and the college sponsoring the venue and reception.

We had our first ceremony seven years ago, in 2004. Rather than have the event during first-year orientation as happens at other medical schools and at WSU’s veterinary college, we decided the ceremony should mark the successful completion of the first two and one-half years of study, when the third-year students embark on clinical rotations. The first Saturday in December was selected.

The Value of Mentoring for a Successful Veterinary Career

As an undergraduate student at Cornell in the mid 1950s, Patricia Thomson was often discouraged from following her dream to become a veterinarian. Her Cornell pre-vet advisor flatly informed her, “You won’t get in.” A career counselor concurred, suggesting that medical school would be the better route for someone with her excellent grades. Trish persisted, however, and became one of three women to receive the Cornell DVM in 1960.

Positive mentors and role models are critically important to young people as they pursue career aspirations. Trish had several mentors, in addition to her wonderful family. An early supporter was her local veterinary practitioner, Dr. Stanley Garrison, who frequently visited the Thomson farm and surmised that Trish would make a fine veterinarian. “Doc was the finest mentor one could have. He played an important role in my developing veterinary interests, and even hired me to work with him during my summer vacations while at college.”

Dr. Patricia Thomson and Dr. Don Herr, 2010

Dr. Gen Kato, the Father of Veterinary Textbook Translation in Japan

Visiting a modern small animal hospital in Tokyo in early November, I marveled at how far the Japanese veterinarians have progressed in the medical care of companion animals in recent years. And one of the reasons for these advances is evident on the book shelves in veterinary offices where I see frequently-used copies of the most influential veterinary textbooks translated into Japanese.

 

Dr. Gen Kato and his technician in front of his CT scan machine



“It wasn’t always so,” 78-year-old Dr. Gen Kato, explained to me. “When I opened my first small animal practice in 1964, I did not know how to diagnose and treat many of the problems of the dogs and cats presented to me because our veterinary education in those days was mostly limited to large animals.”

They Cared Enough to Give Their Name

Students at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine sometimes wonder why we call Lecture Suite I the Murray Room. Or why is there a Flower in the library?

It’s simple, really, and goes to the core of the blending of State tax dollars and private philanthropy in the making of Cornell. Without the combination of the two forms of support, year after year, our facilities would be Spartan.

Walking around the building, students and guests of the college see names in strategic places: ‘Greenberg’ on the M.R.I. suite, ‘Belinski’ on the teaching laboratory, ‘Turrell’ on the linear accelerator cancer facility, and so on.

Amazingly, the practice started just three years after the college was established. As the story goes, our first dean, James Law, was giving ex-Governor Roswell Flower a riding tour of Cornell’s campus in 1897 when the horse pulling their carriage balked in front of the new veterinary college building. The gentlemen used the pause to visit the young college.

World Equestrian Games and Hagyard Equine Medical Institute

The caption on the large mural that greets incoming passengers in the Lexington airport says simply, “The world’s premier equine practice since 1876”. Lexington’s Hagyard Equine Medical Institute identifies the world’s most comprehensive and most advanced establishment in the world for promoting and sustaining equine health.  




        

              Hagyard Poster in Blue Grass Airport, Lexington, KY

 

During the World Equestrian Games being held for the first time in the United States in fall 2010, the Hagyard practice assists enforcing health regulations for horses that come from almost 60 foreign countries. With veterinarians and staff from Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, they also provide medical care for these equine athletes while they are in the Lexington area.