How Texas A&M Veterinary Lab is Helping with COVID-19

Awesome vet med shout out! The Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at Texas A&M University has teamed up with local health care providers to process hundreds of COVID-19 samples. Read the full article here. Keep up the great work, Texas A&M!

Vet Students Impacting Environmental Health - April Winner

Congrats to Sierra Bouchard from Cornell University for winning this last month's "Vet Students Impacting Environmental Health" challenge! Read below about her commitment to making SAVMA more sustainable!

"Last spring, when our SAVMA Symposium 2020 planning committee was looking for Symposium Chairs, I volunteered to assist in making the symposium more sustainable - and thus the SAVMA Symposium Sustainability Chair was born! By working alongside the other chairs as a sustainability advisor, I was able to suggest green alternatives to improve sustainability in five specific areas: accommodations and venues, transportation, food and beverage, material use, and merchandise. Some of our major accomplishments included composting for all meals, providing reusable dishware (no disposable cups, plates, or cutlery), working with vendors to provide reusable day trip containers for meals instead of single-use wrapped to-go lunches, local and sustainably sourced food, sustainable merchandise, digital event tickets and lecture materials, provided recommendations to attendees so that they too could be more sustainable throughout symposium, and much more! Though symposium was unfortunately cancelled, I know that my work will be used by future planning committees to provide sustainable symposia, and have already received positive feedback from our vendors about how their views on sustainability have changed, and the role it will play in planning other events. For example, by working with us on such a large-scale event, Cornell Catering is now confident that they can provide sustainable options for any event that they are hired for in the future by providing non-disposable options, improving composting availability, and sourcing their food and beverages from local and sustainable sources. Small individual changes have a ripple effect - resulting in improvements in environmental health over time!"

Well Worn

These beautiful photos were submitted by Katerina Herzberg from the University of Minnesota.

Students Combat COVID - The Virtual 5k

Are you looking for some motivation to get active, or looking for a way YOU can help all the incredible heathlcare providers in the frontlines? Well, look no further! SAVMA (due to the hard work of our incredible GPHO's!) has teamed up with AOSA (American Optometric Student Association), APTASA (American Physical Therapy Association Student Assembly), and SOMA (Student Osteopathic Medical Association) in order to donate to an incredible cause AND have some fun! Your donation is your "registration" fee. It is not required, however, all money raised will be donated to the CDC! You can decide to complete the 5k however you choose, whether that be running, walking, biking, skipping, dancing... we just want you to get active and get outside!

The student organization who raises the most money for the CDC Fundation wins glory and bragging rights... pretty awesome! This will be going on for the whole month of May. Directions are below, and the link to donate can be found here! Have fun with it!

Step 1: Use the above link and click Donate.

Step 2: Select the amount you wish to donate, and fill out the additional information below. Feel free to remain anonymous if you so choose!

Step 3: MAKE SURE YOU DONATE TO YOUR TEAM! Click the drop down and look for SAVMA!

Step 4: Have the best time completing your 5k!

Fun at the vet?

Kari Schultz from St. George's University seems to have an unhappy pup on her hands. As vet students, we know we aren't always our patients' favorite people, but we always do everything we can to make them comfortable!