College Station – Three Iraqi veterinarians spent two weeks in August at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to learn how veterinary medicine is taught and practiced in the United States. Dr. Majid Hamid Nijidi, Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Baghdad was accompanied by Dr. Majid Nassir Hussain, an assistant professor and assistant dean for administration, Dr. Ali Fuad Ibrahim, an assistant lecturer at the school, and Captain Lawrence Camacho from the U.S. Army’s 1^st Cavalry Division. The request to host the Iraqi veterinarians came from the United States Military and the U.S. State Department.

Faculty and staff from Texas A&M University presented information on the student selection process and curriculum for the professional program, classroom technologies, academic departmental overviews, and provided a tour of the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital for their Iraqi colleagues.

“We were pleased to assist the U.S. Military by hosting the veterinary delegation from Iraq and hope that we’ve helped to support their efforts to advance veterinary medicine and higher education in their country,” said Dr. H. Richard Adams, dean of the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

In 2003, the U.S. Military’s 414^th Civil Affairs Battalion, based out of Utica, NY helped to renovate the University of Baghdad, School of Veterinary Medicine which had been used by Republican Guard soldiers as a fighting position during the war. Although the facilities were never bombed, the battles fought there and the looting that followed caused considerable damage. The school reopened on October 4, 2003 and continues to receive support from around the world in the form of donated textbooks and supplies.

“Veterinary medicine is an important component in public health, food production, and it improves our quality of life through strengthening the human-animal bond,” said Adams. “It was a great privilege for the college’s faculty and staff to meet and share information with our colleagues and new friends from Iraq.”

College Station, Texas – Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a professor at Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, assumed the Presidency of the American Veterinary Medical Association at a special installation ceremony on Tuesday, July 27, at the association’s national meeting in Philadelphia. Dr. Beaver is the second woman and the eighth veterinarian from Texas to serve as President of the 141-year old, 70,000-plus member organization.

In her Friday, July 23 speech to the opening session of the AVMA House of Delegates, Dr. Beaver identified three areas of importance for her presidency – Excellence – Communication – Animal Welfare. “As health care professionals,” said Dr. Beaver, “we are expected to deliver the highest quality of veterinary medicine in the private and public practice areas. For a small profession, we have a lot if responsibility. We serve two publics,” Dr. Beaver added, “the animals and the people.”

“The ability of our profession to meet the diverse needs of society is as strong as it has ever been. Our challenge is to keep it that way,” said Dr. Beaver. According to Dr. Beaver the AVMA is working on excellence in professional activities on many fronts, including education, diversity, productivity, and quality of life.

“Our educational evaluation programs will continue to undergo reevaluation and improvements to ensure they are the best. It is important that we all work to protect the educational excellence of our profession from challenges that are or will occur from inside our borders as well as outside,” said Dr. Beaver.

“In order to effectively serve society with excellence, the profession must promote diversity,” said Dr. Beaver. “This applies to diversity in the expertise we have, and it applies to the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of our colleagues,” she added. “How can we fully appreciate the nature of animal relations to the Native Americans, Asians, or Hispanics in our country,” asked Dr. Beaver, “if we do not seek out the best young people in those cultures?”

Communication establishes the relationship of veterinary medicine with society. The profession, according to Dr. Beaver, needs make a concerted effort to educate the public and even members of the profession about who veterinarians are and what we do. “As a small profession,” said Dr. Beaver, “we must all speak with one voice to be heard in defense of the animal and human publics we serve. We must be willing to listen to each other so that we become advocates for all segments of our profession.”

“Veterinarians,” said Dr. Beaver, “are the ultimate authorities on animal welfare, and it is important that we retain this authority in light of challenges by animal rightists and humane organizations, as has been made evident in recent newspaper attacks. As the world changes,” Dr. Beaver added, “our need to become more outspoken in this area has increased so that the image of the veterinarian being the one true advocate for the animal is not lost. Animal rightists are pushing their agenda in small increments under the guise of animal welfare and with mistruths.”

In order for veterinarians to hold the position as leaders in animal welfare, according to Dr. Beaver, “the AVMA must become more proactive in several areas. First we must recognize that the animal industry and the general public have been asking us to lead in this area. In fact,” added Dr. Beaver, “they expect it.”

Dr. Beaver has proposed and the AVMA Executive Board has accepted a recommendation to develop a Task Force on the Legal Status of Animals to address the hot topics of animal guardianship and non-economic status of animals.

“To retain a high visibility as leaders in animal welfare,” said Dr. Beaver, “the AVMA will need to increase time resources and efforts in the area. This,” she added, “will mean instituting and phasing in a Division of Animal Welfare within the AVMA, staffed by veterinarians who remain current on the global aspects of animal welfare science and issues, and who are respected throughout animal related industries.”

Dr. Beaver is a charter diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, and a former President of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association. Dr. Beaver is an internationally recognized authority on animal behavior, animal welfare and the human-animal bond. She has authored eight books, nearly 200 scientific articles, and presented over 400 seminars.

Dr. Beaver will serve as President of the American Veterinary medical Association, through the association’s 2005 meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., July 16-20, 2005. Established in 1916, the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine is one of the world’s leading institutions in animal health care and research.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas- Travis McDermott, third-year student at The College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, was elected Student AVMA President-Elect at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Convention held in Philadelphia, Pa., July 24-28, 2004.

McDermott will serve as SAVMA President-Elect until its March 2005 Symposium when he will be installed as the Student AVMA President. His term will run through March 2006.

As Student AVMA President, McDermott will attend AVMA Executive Board meetings, serve as a delegate to the AVMA Governing Board and participate on the AVMA Legislative Advisory Committee.

“I feel this is a great chance for me to represent the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine within the SAVMA and AVMA,” said McDermott. “There will be many occasions to help educate and inform veterinary students of the opportunities available to them through organized veterinary medicine.”

COLLEGE STATION, Jan. 27, 2004 – Future veterinarian Pat Ryan looks at it this way: if she were a dog, she’d be 392 years old.

The 56-year-old Ryan is in her third year of studies at Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, a highly rigorous academic program for 20-somethings, much less a senior adult. When she graduates next year, she’ll be the oldest person ever to receive a DVM degree at the school, Texas’ only veterinary college.

While it’s not uncommon for older adults to go back to college to earn their bachelor’s degree, it’s extremely rare for professional schools, such as law, medicine or dentistry, to have someone begin his or her practice at age 57.

Ryan thinks it’s great.

“I’m living a dream just being here and that’s the truth,” the Houston resident laughs. “I wanted to be a veterinarian 25 years ago, but a thing called ‘life’ had different plans for me.”

Ryan has had a life of almost Forrest Gump-like scale.

At various times, she’s been a highly paid fashion model who walked runways from New York to Houston, a writer and editor for Mademoiselle magazine, a flight attendant for Pan American Airways, a former Junior Miss of Connecticut, a theatrical producer, a public relations specialist for Neiman Marcus, an award-winning charity organizer who raised $200,000 for the Houston SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and her most important role – a wife of 32 years and mother of two grown daughters.

In between all of that, she battled cervical cancer and was hospitalized for weeks following surgery, which rid her of the disease that struck in her mid-30s.

Like one of the felines she will probably be treating in a year, Ryan has seemingly had nine lives – or at least lived nine different ones.

All students seeking admission to the College of Veterinary Medicine are required to fill out a “personal statement” form, which is more or less an essay on why they should be selected. Ryan’s began, “I’ve waited 25 years to write this essay. Like that of the tortoise in Aesop’s fable, the path leading to this moment has been slow but steady, deliberate and determined. I bring a half-century of life experience to the table, a background as varied as a patchwork quilt and a resume described by a friend as a ‘Renaissance woman gone mad.”

Admissions counselors were hooked – she got in, but not before taking three years worth of prerequisite courses, such as advanced chemistry, physics and others. Ryan graduated in 1970 from all-women’s Smith College in Massachusetts, but her degree was in theater, which is a tad different than doing emergency canine surgery.

She enrolled at Houston Baptist University and the University of St. Thomas to get the required courses behind her, then three years ago headed for Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine, which has an international reputation and the long hours of hard study that go with it. While her architect husband Jeff, who has degrees from Rice and Harvard and whose firm designed the Owls’ state-of-the-art baseball stadium Reckling Park, stayed home in Houston, Ryan rented a house in College Station and settled in with three dogs she adopted – sort of.

“The first year was very, very difficult for me,” Ryan admits. “Besides the course work, which is very demanding, I found out that I just didn’t have the stamina that these 22-year-olds have. I found myself stressing a lot, but I was determined to get through it.”

One big adjustment: computers.

“These kids grew up working and doing research on computers. I didn’t, and I had a lot of catching up to do,” she recalls.

Fellow veterinary medical students, she admits, have been highly supportive of her.

“At first, I had a few ‘hey grandma’ jokes thrown at me, but overall, the students and faculty have been wonderful,” Ryan says. “I’ve come here to learn. I’m certainly not shy about asking questions.”

When she graduates next year, she hopes to work in a small animal practice for a long time.

“I’m not about to go through all of this and practice just a few years and retire,” Ryan says. “I’m living a dream I’ve had for decades. When I get that diploma, it’s the start of my new career. To be a veterinarian is the deepest desire of my heart, so early retirement for me is just not an option.”

Ryan, who proudly says that her silver-colored hair goes well with her white lab coat, is proof that you can teach an old – better make that middle-aged – dog new tricks. Anatomy class, anyone?