Update from the Education and Licensure Committee

Within the Student AVMA House of Delegates there are many committees made up of your student delegates. These committees work hard to create scholarships, grants and other contests that are available to you as a SAVMA member or a club or group at your school. This is free money that they want to give away! To check out the opportunities available to you through these committees, head over to:http://www.avma.org/savma/committee.asp#license

Back in the fall the Education and Licensure Committee picked two recipients for their Extracurricular Funding Grant. The purpose of this grant is to provide veterinary student organizations funding for wet labs or lectures supplementing their college's curriculum. These grants typically are awarded to help fund programs that veterinary students would not normally be exposed to in their traditional courses. The winners for the 2009-2010 school year were an equine acupuncture wet lab held at University of Pennsylvania and the Marine Mammal Conference at University of Wisconsin. You can read more about the Marine Mammal Conference below.

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Where are you headed this summer?

Why not Denmark? Join veterinary students from around the world at the 59th Annual International Veterinary Student Association's Summer Congress in Copenhagen. BUT--Registration closes at the end of this month! So, get your application in by March 30th if you want to get in on this wonderful opportunity. More information and the application can be found at: http://www.ivsadenmark.dk/

Contact SAVMA's International Exchange Officer, Deirdre Murdy for more info at SAVMAIEO@gmail.com

A Cat with More Than 9 Lives

By: Christopher Fulkerson

Class of 2010, Purdue University

I met Barnum during my first small animal medicine rotation.  A scrawny cat at best, Barnum had survived more than most cats would have been capable of and his owners had supported him through more than most would have been willing.  Before I had ever met him, he’d survived hyperthyroidism treated with I¹³¹, septic peritonitis after a gastrostomy tube leaked, inflammatory bowel disease, heart disease, chronic pancreatitis, chronic kidney disease and persistent anorexia.  He was nothing much to look at – nearly toothless, he was more skin and bones than cat and spent much of his time lounging lazily in lateral recumbency.  He sported a bright blue vet-wrap neck bandage that made his head look several sizes too large for his impossibly thin frame.  The bandage covered his bright orange esophagostomy tube, a permanent fixture since his failed gastrostomy tube.  This visit was more bad news for Barnum and his owners – a diagnosis of gastrointestinal lymphoma had been made by endoscopic biopsy.  Where some owners would be disheartened to learn that their beloved pet had cancer, Barnum’s simply took it in stride.  Her only response was, “What do we do now?”

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Symposium Update, part 2

The second day of the SAVMA House of Delegates is flying by and it's hard to believe we're almost finished with our meeting! Today we held the elections for our new officer positions and the future site of SAVMA Symposium 2012. The winners are: Joe Esch for President-elect, Rayne Johnson for International Exchange Officer-elect and Claire McPhee for Global and Public Health Officer-elect. Congratulations to these guys. I know they are going to be good additions to the SAVMA Executive Committee.

The winner of the 2012 SAVMA Symposium bid was....

On the international front, please check out the opportunities available to SAVMA Students at the 59th Annual IVSA Congress. The International Veterinary Student Association will be hosting the Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark this year from July 8-18th, 2010. All SAVMA members are eligible to attend this congress and it's a great way to get to know students from all around the world. Registration is open until March 31, 2010, so hurry up and register! More information can be found at www.ivsadenmark.dk

Live from Madison...it's Thursday morning!!!

 

SAVMA Symposium is here and we are set to take over Madison! Your SAVMA delegates are hard at work already this morning with the 8am start of the SAVMA House of Delegates meeting. It's so nice to see the bright, shining faces of so many dedicated students. Today is an exciting day in the HOD--we will hear nominations for the President-elect, International Exchange Officer-elect and Global and Public Health Officer Ad-hoc-elect (that's a mouthful) positions and we will also take bids for the location of SAVMA 2012. Where's it gonna be? I can't wait to find out! Feel free to stop by the meeting once you get to Madison; we'd love to share with you what it is we do in all those meetings. The SAVMA HOD will be meeting all Thursday and Friday in Ballroom A at the Monona Terrace.