CVM Faculty Selected For Bayer Animal Health Development Program

COLLEGE STATION, January 20, 2006 - Four faculty from the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University have been selected to attend the 2006 Faculty Development Program of the Bayer Animal Health Communication Project at the Bayer Institute for Healthcare Communication in New Haven, Connecticut, June 11-16.

Proposed to Bayer Animal Health by the college's Center for Executive Leadership in Veterinary Medicine, this project provides comprehensive training in the area of veterinarian-client communication and utilizes the train-the-trainer model to be shared with the entire faculty, says Dr. E. Dean Gage, executive director of the center. Faculty members selected to attend are Sharon Kerwin, Dan Posey, Joanne Hardy and Alice Blue-McLendon. "This is a great honor for each of these faculty and they will become our leaders in training," says Gage.

One of the major priorities identified by the center's External Advisory Council was to find ways to integrate more leadership, business management, communication and team-building education into the current veterinary curriculum. "Those skills sets are the ones we are systematically integrating into the four years without adding hours to the curriculum or taking away from any of the science," explains Gage. "The Bayer Animal Health Communication Project held in June will train our faculty representatives how to incorporate these skills into the classroom and the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital."

The Bayer Institute for Healthcare Communication is a world leader in healthcare communications and training in both human and veterinary medicine. "Bayer has the best training and development programs in this area of any institution available to us," Gage says. "We appreciate Bayer's support of our veterinary executive leadership program and we look forward to taking full advantage of this exciting opportunity."

The goal of The Center for Executive Leadership in Veterinary Medicine is to become the nation's leading program in DVM leadership and to provide model leadership programs for other colleges.

Contact Information:
Angela G. Clendenin
Director, Communications & Public Relations
Ofc - (979) 862-2675
Cell - (979) 739-5718