Veterinary Report Vol. 27 No. 2: Kudos

Student News

Illinois Earns Recognition at Pathology Meeting
At the annual meeting of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists, held in December in New Orleans, La., several veterinary pathobiology faculty and students received honors.
Drs. Matthew Wallig and Keith Bailey were acknowledged for their role as faculty advisers who have made a major contribution to the field and through teaching, service, and research have inspired veterinary students to investigate pathology as a career choice.
Dr. Amy Waggoner, graduate student, placed second and received $300 in the Young Investigator Toxicologic Pathology section poster competition. Dr. April Paulman, graduate student, received a student scholarship award from the C.L. Davis Foundation.

Oncology Section on the Move
Dr. Barbara Kitchell, veterinary clinical medicine, will be the guest editor of the May-June 2003 Veterinary Clinics of North America, Small Animal Practice, which will feature contributions from Drs. Timothy Fan, Louis-Philippe de Lorimier, and Kitchell.
Dr. de Lorimier will give a presentation on small animal oncology in Montreal in April.
Co-presenting at the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine meeting in Charlotte, N.C., in June will be Drs. de Lorimier and Fan as well as Dr. Kitchell and veterinary technician Nancy George.
Dr. Kitchell also recently gave presentations at veterinary medical associations in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and New Jersey. Others from the oncology section who presented at the Illinois VMA annual meeting were Drs. Sarah Charney, de Lorimier, Carlos Souza, and Amy Wiedemann.

Vitoux Leads New Veterinary Technician Specialty Organization
Jeanne Vitoux, a certified veterinary technician for 11 years who currently works in the dental service in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, recently became the first president of the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians, an organization she helped to found.
The newly organized Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians received a plaque of recognition in November 2002 from the Committee on Veterinary Technician Specialists of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America. The new group becomes only the third such specialty organization for veterinary technicians, joining other groups devoted to anesthesia and to emergency and critical care.
“If there is one thing that I have gained from life, it is that learning is an important part of personal growth,” says Vitoux. “Veterinary technology is a medical profession where skills constantly need to be reviewed and upgraded. Becoming a veterinary technician specialist is an accomplishment that the technician can be proud of, which in turn, brings the whole profession to a higher level.”
Vitoux was made president of the organizing committee for the veterinary dental technician group when the organizing effort began in February 2001. She took on the office of president when the new organization was recognized in December 2002. Her term will run for 2 years.

Drs. Ann Barger, Thomas Graves, Jennifer Matousek, and Joanne Messick, all of veterinary clinical medicine, spoke at the March 6 Spring Meeting of the Eastern Illinois Veterinary Medical Association in Champaign, Ill.

Drs. Larry Firkins and Gavin Meerdink, Continuing Education-Public Service/Extension, were among 120 U.S. veterinarians selected to participate in the first national training on zoonotic bioterrorism preparedness for veterinarians, held in Orlando, Fla., on January 17.
A majority of the biological agents designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as potential instruments of bioterrorism—including anthrax, botulism, plague, and brucellosis—are zoonotic. Attendees were given in-depth material for presentations geared to various audiences.
The training session was conducted by Iowa State University’s Center for Food Security and Public Health, a federally funded organization established to increase national preparedness for accidental or intentional introduction of disease agents that threaten food production or public health.

Dr. Jonathan Foreman, veterinary clinical medicine, has been invited to act as an adviser to the International Mounted Games Association on typical FEI requirements on importation, quarantine, housing, safety, veterinary care, medication, drug testing, and emergency procedures for horses/ponies competing at the international level. IMGA will be holding an international World Cup Mounted Games Competition in Lexington, Ky., in July.
Dr. Foreman, who directs the College’s Large Animal Internal Medicine Residency training program, has also been invited to serve on the Task Force on Training the Future Specialist of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine’s Specialty of Large Animal Internal Medicine. The task force will look for ways to maximize the marketability and competence of graduates from national residency training programs.

Dr. Wanda Haschek-Hock, veterinary pathobiology, studied the pathology of mutant mice while completing part of a sabbatical as visiting faculty at the Comparative Pathology Laboratory of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
She also gave an invited seminar entitled “Is corn safe? A kernel of truth regarding fumonisins and food safety” at Texas A&M University in January. While at Texas A&M she presented a seminar to pathology residents and met with laboratory animal residents.

Dr. Rex Hess, veterinary biosciences, was an invited speaker on topics related to estrogens at three locales in Japan in October: the International Congress on Hormonal Steroids and Hormones and Cancer, Fukuoka City; the University of Yokohama; and the Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co.

Dr. Ann L. Johnson, veterinary clinical medicine, was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors for the Western States Veterinary Conference.

Dr. Uriel Kitron, veterinary pathobiology, will spend 3 months teaching a graduate seminar, conducting a GIS workshop, and collaborating with Dr. Ricardo Gurtler and others on the eco-epidemiology of Chagas disease through a Fulbright Lecturing/Research award at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in academic year 2003-04.

He was also recently elected vice-president of the Society for Vector Ecology. His term as president will run 2004 to 2005.

Dr. Tae-Joong Kim, postdoctoral research associate in veterinary pathobiology, was recently named a Morris Animal Foundation Fellow for his participation in “Characterization of Pox Viruses of Hawaiian Endangered Wild Birds,” a study with Dr. Deoki N. Tripathy that is funded by the foundation.

Dr. Stephen Kneller, veterinary clinical medicine, gave a 4-hour workshop on bone and thorax radiology at the annual meeting of the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association in February.

Dr. Steven Marks, veterinary clinical medicine, presented on the topic of transdermal therapeutics and gave a 4-hour GI endoscopy lab at the International Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Meeting in San Antonio in September. In October he and Dr. Marc Raffe, veterinary clinical medicine, also lectured on critical care to the Chicago Veterinary Medical Association Technician Program on pain management, fluid therapy, triage of the trauma patient, oxygen therapy and critical care case presentations.
In November he and others presented an endoscopy wet lab for the CVMA at Joliet Junior College and also gave 10 hours of lecture at the International Veterinary Seminars on Critical Care Medicine in Key West.
He spoke on transdermal therapeutics to the Eastern Illinois Veterinary Medical Association in Champaign in December. In January he lectured at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando on septic shock, GI ulceration, critical care techniques, protein-losing enteropathy in the dog, and approach to the bleeding patient. He also presented wet labs there on critical care techniques for the veterinary technician and invasive diagnostic procedures.
In February he spoke at the Western States Veterinary Conference. He presented labs and lectures at the American Animal Hospital Association in March.

Dr. Tomas Martìn-Jimènez, veterinary biosciences, gave two invited talks at the 27th Congress of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, in Granada, Spain, in October. One talk was entitled “Dosage Regimen Adjustment Through Therapeutic Drug Monitoring” and the second was “Pharmacokinetic Concepts of Practical Applications by the Clinicians.”
In July he will give two invited talks at the Congress of the European Association for Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology in Lisbon, Portugal. The talks will be given during a Training Workshop in Pharmacokinetics and will cover species differences in PK and interspecific scaling of PK parameters, sources of variability in population pharmacokinetics, and applications of population kinetic in veterinary medicine.

Dr. Nohra Mateus-Pinilla, assistant professional scientist with veterinary pathobiology and the Center for Wildlife Ecology at the Illinois Natural History Survey, became a member of the University of Illinois Environmental Council in December 2002. In January she attended the 3rd National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment, hosted by the National Council for Science and the Environment, where she contributed to U.S. recommendations on environmental security for the United States for the upcoming UN “Decade of Education for Sustainability.”

Dr. Milton McAllister, veterinary pathobiology, received the 2002-03 Raymond B. Allen Golden Apple Teaching Award from the second-year medical class at the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

“The class was appreciative of his marvelous, well-crafted lectures and the obvious amount of time and effort he spent on preparing for class,” according to Dipesh Navsaria, one of the students in the class. “He also recognized the pressures of learning a vast quantity of material and provided us with well-written notes, freeing us to concentrate on his lecturing and thereby un-derstanding the material as well as possible. He also is a friendly, personable instructor with a great sense of humor.”

Kimberly Meenen, director for development, was chosen as a 2003 Chamberlain Scholar by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Foundation for Philanthropy. These scholarships, which include free registration to the March 2003 AFP International Conference on Fundraising in Toronto, Ontario, are awarded to fundraising professionals serving nonprofit organizations who are interested in developing their knowledge and skill in fundraising.

She also received the President’s Award from the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association Auxiliary for her work in coordinating the auxiliary’s scholarship auctions over the past several years.

Dr. Christine Merle, Continuing Education-Public Service/Extension, spoke to the Joliet Junior College Veterinary Technicians on the art of interpersonal skills and client relations in November and to the University of Illinois at Chicago pre-veterinary club. In January she attended the annual meeting for the Association of Veterinary Practice Management Consultants and Advisors in Orlando, Fla. Dr. Merle currently serves as a member of the PR committee for this group and was elected co-chair for its Veterinary Student Committee.

Dr. Allan Paul, Continuing Education-Public Service/Extension, was recently named to serve on the board of the American Heartworm Society as editor.

On June 2 to 4, he will be speaking at the Prairie States Conference of the Illinois Animal Welfare Federation. For information on the meeting, which offers continuing education hours for veterinarians, contact Richard Glessner, 309/787-6830 or rich@qcawc.org.

Dr. Marc Raffe, veterinary clinical medicine, coauthored, with Dr. Wayne Wingfield, The Veterinary ICU Book, a textbook published by Teton New Media in 2002. It is a 1,300-page volume of short topics germane to emergency and critical care medicine aimed at students, interns, residents, general practitioners, and specialists.

Peter Rohloff, graduate student in veterinary pathobiology, received $200 for his poster entitled “Ammonium production and acidocalcisomal alkalinization during hyposmotic stress in Trypanosoma cruzi” at the 13th Annual Molecular Parasitology Meeting, held in Woods Hole, Mass., in September.

Dr. Susan L. Schantz, veterinary biosciences, was invited to speak on nervous system effects of exposure to PCBs and methyl mercury at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in December.

In February she spoke at the Duke University Integrated Toxicology Program about mouse studies on brain development and learning; at an NIH-sponsored workshop on children’s environmental health; at the National Institute on Environmental Health Sciences, by invitation of Director Ken Olden, about the Children’s Environmental Health Center; and at the Learning Disabilities Association of America 40th Annual Meeting in Chicago, Ill.

Upcoming presentations include the FDA-/EPA-sponsored workshop on behavioral test methods in June in Philadelphia, Pa., and the European Teratology Society meeting slated for September in Elsinore, Denmark, where she will lead a breakout session.

Dr. Rhonda Schulman, veterinary clinical medicine, will give two presentations at the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in June in Charlotte, N.C. Her topics will be endocrine emergencies and, with Dr. Phil Solter of veterinary pathobiology, neurohormones.

Dr. Randy Singer, veterinary pathobiology, was an invited participant in the Facts about Antibiotics in Animals and the Impact on Resistance (FAAIR) project at the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) meeting in November. This project will develop the methodologies for quantifying the amount of antibiotics used in U.S. animal agriculture.

At the National Academy of Sciences 14th Annual Beckman Frontiers of Science Symposium, held in Irvine, Calif., in November, Dr. Singer was an invited participant and presented a poster entitled “Quantifying, Managing and Politicizing Risk: An Epidemiologist’s Conundrum.”

He and Dr. Claudia Munoz-Zanzi, also of veterinary pathobiology, will serve as the epidemiology section leaders for the 2003 and 2004 meetings of the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases.

Dr. Vishi Srinivasan, graduate student in veterinary pathobiology, received the $400 Don Kahn Award for best poster from the American College of Veterinary Microbiology at the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases.

Jamie T. Stark, a MD/PhD student in veterinary biosciences, was one of 36 international winners of the Caroline tum Suden/Francis Hellebrant Professional Opportunity Award from the American Physiological Society. The award provided free registration and travel assistance for the Experimental Biology 2003 meeting held in San Diego, Calif., April 11 to 15, where he presented his research findings.

Dr. Matt Stewart, veterinary clinical medicine, gave two presentations on cartilage biology at the annual Orthopedic Research Society meeting in New Orleans, La., in February. In April he presented recent findings on epigenetic regulation of articular chondrocyte proliferation at the Segal Symposium on Osteoarthritis Research in Chicago.

Dr. Ted Valli, veterinary pathobiology, was invited to speak at the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine held at the Ludwig-Maxillian University in Munich in September. His topic was the application of the new WHO system for Classification of Lymphomas to Animal Tumors.

Student News
Josh Decker, Class of 2003, has accepted a pathology residency at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville.

Lyn Miller Wancket, Class of 2006, will attend the Leadership Program for Veterinary Students at Cornell University this summer, working with Dr. Helene Marquis to characterize a mutant strain of Listeria monocytogenes.

Three Illinois students were recognized by the American Holistic Veterinary Medicine Association in 2002. From the Class of 2004, Jennifer Phillips received the $1,000 Dr. Richard Kearns Scholarship and Amber Jensen Detwiler received a $300 scholarship. Jacqueline Kottenstette, Class of 2005, received an honorable mention.

Molita Birchen and Erin Johnson, both Class of 2004, were awarded $2,000 scholarships by the American Association of Swine Veterinarians Foundation for case reports presented at the association’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., in March. Judges from private practice, academia, and industry selected recipients for written and oral communications skills and applicability of the research to swine medicine. The scholarships were provided by Eli Lilly and Co., on behalf of Elanco Animal Health.

Students Thank Hill’s Student Feeding Committee for Funding These Opportunities
More than 150 students attended the annual symposium of the Student American Veterinary Medical Association, held in March at the University of Georgia in Athens. Students attended lectures by well-known presenters on many topics, including those not generally part of the veterinary curriculum, such as animal behavior, business, and exotic animal medicine. Hands-on experience was available through many wet-labs.
Illinois took home first-place trophies in volleyball, leisure sports, and basketball, and Tony Cappa and Tige Witsberger won third place in the freshman anatomy challenge.
The symposium also offered many intangible benefits, such as networking with prominent veterinarians and social activities with people from other veterinary colleges. This year’s symposium concluded with a keynote address from Baxter Black, who provided a very inspiring look at the profession.
The Illinois Student Chapter of the AVMA thanks Hill’s Student Feeding Program for its generous support. Funding from the College, the Student Organization Resource Fund, and the ISCAVMA auction fundraiser also helped toward covering the full travel costs for all students who made the trip.

Jessa Ovitt, Class of 2003, spent an 8-week epidemiology rotation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga. The rotation is part of her custom track in epidemiology. She worked on several projects, including one comparing clinical outcome in resistant versus susceptible outbreaks of Salmonella. She also studied the public health aspects of reptile-associated Salmonella and raw meat diets for pets.

Caroline Tonozzi and Suzanne Rovan, both Class of 2003, completed a 2-week neurology externship with Dr. Laurie Pearce at Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Fort Collins.

In early June, Christina Johnson, Class of 2004, completed a two-week preceptorship at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan, New York City. One week was spent working with medical services and the second was spent with an orthopedic surgery unit.