A Bare Bones Feature

 
A feature within the SAVMANews highlighting just what your national SAVMA team, executive board and delegates, are doing for you. Each edition showcases a SAVMA officer and what all their job entails. This featured officer this month is Lincoln Memorial University’s senior delegate, Aaron Maness.
Anthony Pizzelanti from the University of Pennsylvania was the designer behind the Bare Bones logo. 

All SAVMA delegates sit on a committee within the House of Delegates (HOD). Aaron is a member of the Government Affairs Committee(GAC). Within the GAC, he is the liaison to the Legislative Action Committee(LAC) of the AVMA. A lot of acronyms, I know. The general purpose of the LAC is to make sure that veterinarians and the veterinary community are properly represented in the federal government’s legislature. As liaison, he gets to listen and weigh in on the LAC’s monthly conference calls about new and current legislation involving the veterinary community. The LAC helps to advise the AVMA on what stance to take on new legislature and how to appropriately lobby for our profession. He travels to D.C in the spring to meet with the LAC and discuss issues concerning SAVMA, the AVMA, and more importantly the veterinary community. He has learned so much from holding this position in the HOD and is always grateful for the knowledge he has gained. It has taught him the importance of advocating for our profession because nobody else will. With that being said, please represent your profession any chance you get and get involved with your government!

Find out the many ways you can get involved in government and advocacy in both local and national issues here.  

Bare Bones Feature - SAVMA's International Exchange Officer

 Introducing our new mini newsletter, The Bare Bones. It is a feature highlighting what your national SAVMA team, executive board and delegates, are doing for you. Each edition will showcase a SAVMA officer and what their job entails. Our first featured officer is our SAVMA Executive Board, International Exchange Officer (IEO), Kayla Caturay, from Ross University.  

Anthony Pizzelanti from the University of Pennsylvania was the designer behind the Bare Bones logo. 

Kayla first began her SAVMA involvement as a Delegate for Ross University SVM and now represents SAVMA as the Exchange Officer within the International Veterinary Students’ Association (IVSA). On the global scale, SAVMA encompasses all of the AVMA-accredited schools to embody IVSA SAVMA – (the member organization (MO) recognized by IVSA). As IEO, Kayla travels to four events annually representing SAVMA; both the national conferences, SAVMA Symposium and AVMA Convention, and both the IVSA global events, IVSA Symposium and IVSA Congress. 

Just to name a few of Kayla's duties as IEO:

• When stateside, Kayla serves as one of the SAVMA Executive Board members, working hard to voice and address student concerns, such as representation of island schools in the House of Delegates;
• implementing constructive solutions and student initiatives, such as “Reasons to Go G10bal with IVSA” and the cultural sensitivity project (coming soon);
• overseeing and aiding the local IVSA SAVMA chapters at each university;
• acting as an advisor to the SAVMA International Veterinary Experience Committee (IVEC), and;
• facilitating exchanges between international students seeking veterinary experiences within SAVMA and SAVMA students pursuing international excursions.
• similar duties when representing SAVMA abroad

There are many parallels between SAVMA and IVSA, and the IEO ensures continuity within her member organization (MO) as well as between the MO and IVSA global. So early on as students, the unique opportunity to build international relations and shape the profession presents itself.

*As a friendly reminder, all SAVMA members are automatically members of IVSA