Press Release: Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative

First released August 5th

Founded during the 2013 AVMA Convention, the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative is announcing today that it has a solid online presence with the launch of its new web site and logo at www.womenveterinarians.com. With a strong social media presence on Facebook and LinkedIn, the Initiative has created the new web site to further its reach through Twitter, blogs, links, and other resources.

Formed as a response to the disproportionate amount of women in leadership positions in organized veterinary medicine, most notably with the AVMA, compared to the number of women in the profession, the Initiative provides a support network for the promotion of women veterinarians as leaders. The mission of the organization is to gather veterinarians and friends to help “develop, encourage, and mentor female leaders for our profession.”

Karen Bradley, DVM, Founder of the Initiative, is excited about this next step. As she states, “my goal is to empower more women veterinarians to be active, appointed, and elected to leadership positions at all levels of organized veterinary medicine. I see a growing disconnect between the demographics of those in veterinary leadership and those populating the profession. Too many people think this will self- correct with time but that has not been the case in other areas—for example, the US population is greater than 50% women yet our US Congress only has 20% women.” The Initiative is already sponsoring candidates for leadership activities in the AVMA and hopes to gather supporters together at formal events starting in 2014.

Currently, mentors to the group include Dr. Don Smith, Austin O. Hooey Dean of Veterinary Medicine Emeritus at Cornell University, and Julie Kumble, Director of Grants and Programs at the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. Dr. Smith has spoken widely regarding the gap of female representation in top association leadership positions as well as tenure-track positions in veterinary schools.

As the Initiative grows, more features will be added to the web site, such as a speaker’s bureau, group discussion boards, and mentorship/promotion networks.

For further information, contact Stacy Pritt, DVM, MS, MBA at stacy_pritt@yahoo.com or 858.790.9208 or Karen Bradley at karenbdvm@yahoo.com.