by Bryan Slinker, dean of the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine
Seeing the rolling green hills of spring on the Palouse is a striking metaphor for positive change. It has me thinking about similar changes in the college—changes underway, and future changes as we continue to meet our new challenges and opportunities.
Over the coming year, for instance, you will see many changes to patient services at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. We seek to perform more efficiently and effectively, which will improve our service to clients and referring veterinarians. The first phase of these improvements is starting to roll out now and will continue to do so for some months to come. We will continue to monitor our progress with ongoing surveys of client and referring veterinarian satisfaction and are prepared to continue to adjust as we receive feedback. I think you will like what you see.
As you will read in our cover story, our DVM education program continues to improve as our faculty, with the leadership of Dr. Julie Cary, builds a stronger clinical skills curriculum and a clinical simulation facility to support it. The first phase of the WSU Clinical Simulation Center is complete. We will now work to increase the technical support staff and the number and sophistication of simulators and models in the center. This will allow our students virtually 24/7 access to practice their basic hand skills and other procedures. Very cool stuff. Next time you visit we hope you will come take a tour.
Finally, in the not-too-distant future we will complete the upgrade of our core imaging systems by installing a new Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI). This new equipment is needed to replace our current MRI that is well past its end of life. The new MRI has enhanced capabilities that will keep us on the forefront of veterinary imaging. To accomplish this goal, we will again call on the generosity of many friends and supporters as we seek to raise $2.5 million to purchase and install this much needed machine that helps us save lives.
These and so many more exciting changes (that my limited space here does not permit me to tell you about) are happening every day at the college. Positive change and renewal are indeed in the air.
Go Cougs!
Letter from the Editor
Advance means to move forward in a purposeful way, to further, or to make progress. Each day we strive to advance in the way we care for animals, how we further our knowledge about human health and medicine, and how we use that knowledge to improve the lives of animals and people around the world.
Since spring is a time of new growth, we thought it would be the perfect time to launch the redesign of our Veterinary Executive Report and give it a new name that better reflects the varied work we do at the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine. From training the best students in veterinary medicine to offering the best care to patients at our teaching hospital, from advances in disease research such as Parkinson’s or prostate cancer to better understanding sleep and obesity, and from understanding the spread of antibiotic resistance to giving dogs rabies vaccinations that can also help save a child’s life, we advance healthy animal, healthy people, and a healthy planet every day.
We hope you enjoy Advance: Healthy Animals, Healthy People, Healthy Planet!
Marcia Hill Gossard, editor