IVSA Symposium in Slovenia

By Taylor Simon

Louisiana State University

Class of 2013

Each spring the International Veterinary Student Association (IVSA) gathers for a Symposium to bring veterinary students and delegates from all over the globe together to learn, plan, and share. This past January the 59th Symposium was held in Slovenia and the United States had the pleasure of sending eight delegates.

Taylor Simon, senior delegate from Louisiana State University and co-chair of the SAVMA International Veterinary Exchange Committee was one of the attendees and he details his experience below.

The IVSA Symposium in Slovenia was an amazing experience.  The U.S. delegates attending were Deirdre Murdy, Serrin Rayne Johnson, Brooke Wilson-Zaja, Steven Fernandez, Emily Mehlman, Amanda Marino, Lisbeth Ambrosius, and myself, Taylor Simon.  As delegates, we participated in the IVSA general assemblies.  We discussed past business, awards being given, the state of the development fund (which helps schools in developing nations), chose the location of the 2012 Symposium (Serbia) and the 2012 Congress (Norway), the building of a new user friendly website, and the changes being made to the constitution to make it a more lasting document. 

The IVSA Slovenia chapter members were great hosts and put on a very exciting Symposium.  They lined up tours of ancient castles, beautiful caves, and the wonderfully interesting city of Ljubljana with informative guides to tell us all about the country’s history.  The capital city of Slovenia, Ljubljana is located in a basin between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea.  According to Greek mythology and local legend the founder of the city was Jason, who traveled there with the Argonauts after stealing the golden fleece.  The city still carries the dragon Jason slew there as a symbol on its coat of arms.  The country of Slovenia has a wonderful mix of cultural influences going back to Roman occupation, beautiful Baroque architecture, and more modern Italian and Slavic touches.

As for more veterinary related activities we were able to choose from several interesting wetlabs and educational day trips as part of the program.  The wetlabs included workshops involving health care of pigs, domestic ruminants, reproduction, horses, poultry, pathology, exotics, and small animal surgery.  I participated in the domestic ruminant workshop in which we went to a local dairy and dehorned cattle.  We attended lectures on diseases in mussels and oysters, beekeeping, vets in pharmaceuticals, immunology, and food animal medicine.  As group, we toured places like a military dog training facility where we had a demonstration of their skills, a pharmaceutical company, Lipizzaner stables in Lipica (the home of the breed), an open water fish farm, and the veterinary teaching hospital.

There was also a fantastic schedule of social events in the evening for us to get to know our fellow delegates from around the world, let loose, and have a little fun.  Cultural night, where we set up booths and shared food and drinks from our homes, was an especially interesting night.  Another night, the members in charge of Development Fund put on both a silent and live auction, with items donated by the attending delegates, to raise money for veterinary teaching facilities in developing nations.  Our hosts also introduced us to some traditional Slovenian food at a quaint family run restaurant.  We enjoyed a formal dinner and dance the last night as a close to the amazing week of IVSA Symposium, Slovenia.

It was a trip that I will never forget and a once in a lifetime opportunity to make connections with extraordinary people from across the globe.  As we move into the future, the importance of uniting our profession across borders and the globe will become more and more vital to the health and well being of both animals and humans alike.  I am looking forward to opportunities to utilize the connections I have formed with international students to help fellow students here in the States and the veterinary profession as a whole.