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MSU veterinary club hosts national event
MISSISSIPPI STATE – When Mississippi State University’s Pre-Veterinary Club hosts the 2011 American Pre-Veterinary Medical Association’s Symposium, they will be showcasing the college and Southern hospitality to students from around the world.
The theme for the March 11-13 event at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine is “Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Hands.” More than 500 students and advisors are expected to attend from across the United States and as far away as Canada, Australia, England and the Caribbean islands.
Margaret Gattas is president and Caitlan Ferraez is vice president of the MSU Pre-Veterinary Club. Ferraez said about 30 to 40 of the club’s 70 members will assist at the symposium by giving tours and helping with some of the labs.
“Our focus this year was to have a wide variety of lectures and labs,” Ferraez said. “We wanted to be able to offer plenty of hands-on labs and interesting lectures. We focused on what MSU has that other schools may not to show the different areas a student could get involved in.”
Byron Williams and Peter Ryan are the MSU Pre-Veterinary Club faculty advisors. Williams said the club put the bid packet together last spring with the support of the CVM administration and presented the bid to host the symposium last spring at the 2010 APVMA Symposium held at Purdue University.
“It has been a tremendous amount of work to get it all together, but the officers and committee members have worked very hard to get it organized,” Williams said.
Because MSU is hosting the 2011 symposium, Ryan began serving a three-year term as a national APVMA advisor in March 2010.
“This is truly an international event and affords MSU and the College of Veterinary Medicine a great opportunity to showcase our campus,” Ryan said.
Lectures will cover such topics as pet overpopulation; practice management; reptile, aquatic and laboratory animal medicine; canine physical rehabilitation; rural medicine; public health; small animal emergency care; and global veterinary medicine. Labs include diagnostic imaging, equine podiatry, veterinary dentistry, wildlife research, disaster management, suturing and bandaging, communication and wildlife research.
The symposium was organized by the students of the MSU-PVC and is supported by the deans of CVM and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the Office of the Provost and CVM faculty.
Contact: Dr. Byron Williams, (662) 325-8428
