The AVMA: 150 Years of Education, Science and Service (Volume 4)

By AVMA

This book is a celebration of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and all it has accomplished for its members and the veterinary profession during its first 150 years. There are four volumes to this epublication, and this fourth volume contains Chapters 6-8. A hardcover printed version of the book is available in the AVMA online store.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AVMA
• Release date: Mar 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781882691272

AVMA

Serving more than 100,000 member veterinarians, the AVMA is the nation's leading representative of the veterinary profession, dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of animals, people, and the environment. Founded in 1863, the AVMA is one of the world's largest veterinary medical organizations, with members in every U.S. state and territory and more than 60 countries. Informed by our members' unique scientific training and clinical knowledge, the AVMA supports the crucial work of veterinarians and advocates for policies that advance the practice of veterinary medicine and improve animal and human health.

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THE AVMA:

150 YEARS of EDUCATION, SCIENCE, and SERVICE

Chapters 6 – 8

by

American Veterinary Medical Association

Smashwords Edition

Published on Smashwords by:

American Veterinary Medical Association

1931 N. Meacham Road

Schaumburg, IL 60173

The AVMA: 150 Years of Education, Science, and Service

Chapters 6 – 8

Copyright 2012 by American Veterinary Medical Association

ISBN 978-1-882691-27-2

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the American Veterinary Medical Association.

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CONTENTS

Chapter 6:

ROOTED IN KNOWLEDGE: Education

Chapter 7:

AVMA IN ACTION: Advocacy

Chapter 8:

LASTING ALLIANCES: Partners

Chapter 6

ROOTED IN KNOWLEDGE

David Banasiak

Over the past 10 to 15 years, many changes have occurred in the field of veterinary education. Several American universities are exploring plans to establish new veterinary schools, even as state and federal governments cut funding for education. Schools in the U.S. and Canada are raising enrollment rates to accommodate a growing demand among potential students. Interest in acquiring accreditation from the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Education is on the rise as veterinary schools around the world look to the COE’s Standards of Accreditation as the gold standard and actively seek recognition under those requirements.

But this was not always the case. While the first veterinary school opened in France in 1761 and was followed by other schools in Great Britain, Germany, and across Europe, America throughout much of the 18th and 19th centuries remained largely indifferent to veterinary education. Thirty-six veterinary schools would be established in Europe before the first American school opened. Early American colleges focused their educational mission on preparing graduates to be ministers or priests. The publication 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait estimated that prior to the Civil War, a quarter of all college graduates became ministers. Until the 1800s, America had no veterinary schools, and the few schools founded in the early 19th century were plagued by ignorance, apathy, and greed.

EDUCATION

VETERINARIANS GET NO RESPECT

When Dr. Joseph Bushman, a veterinarian practicing in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War, declined President Lincoln’s request to serve as a veterinary sergeant in a cavalry regiment in the U.S. Army, his decision was about respect. In Dr. Bushman’s native England, veterinarians were commissioned officers in the British army, an advanced rank justified by the high regard afforded veterinarians as trained professionals. Dr. Bushman, a graduate of the Royal Veterinary College in London who had also studied veterinary medicine in France, was a member of a select group of individuals in America: veterinarians who had graduated from a reputable veterinary school.

Dr. Bushman’s refusal to serve at a lower rank was justified, and eventually he received a commission to serve in the Quartermaster Corps, where he was assigned to work in the Giesboro horse and mule depot of the Army of the Potomac. He would later be a lecturer at the Kansas State Agricultural College.

•

Nobody was laughed at more than the horse doctor. Horse doctors were suppose to be a coarse, ignorant group who had made a failure of blacksmithing or farming and had turned to ‘doctoring.’ That they actually knew anything about medicine was an absurd notion."

—Dr. R.J. Dinsmore

in his book ‘Hoss’ Doctor

•

But the Army had good cause to disrespect Dr. Bushman’s profession. During America’s early years, veterinary education, when available, was of dubious quality. The young nation’s growing population of livestock and horses was cared for by blacksmiths, farriers, physicians, and a few European-educated veterinarians. Those interested in practicing veterinary medicine trained themselves as best they could from the scant literature available. If they were lucky, they might apprentice themselves to a European-educated veterinarian. Dr. Charles Wood, third president of the United States Veterinary Medical Association, for instance, began his career as a blacksmith but switched to veterinary practice as a self-taught veterinarian.

When it came to receiving professional health care, companion animals fared even worse than horses and livestock during this period. As Katherine Grier writes in Pets in America, veterinarians considered them useless animals and not worth the effort to treat. Pet owners didn’t share this view of their pets and sought health care for them, which, when they could find it, was often provided by pet shop owners. Grier mentions that in 1884, George Walton, a Boston dog dealer, also advertised himself as a dog doctor.

THE FIRST TWO

The two veterinary schools operating in the U.S. before the Civil War—the Boston Veterinary Institute, which opened in 1854, and the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons, which opened in 1857—did little to dissuade the Army or the public of their skepticism toward the veterinary profession. These schools were privately owned and profit-driven, and their brief existence was troubled by squabbling, inadequately trained faculty; a lack of committed students; poor admission standards; and unethical behavior.

It is no wonder, then, that the term horse doctor took on a derogatory meaning, being a term that, with one meaning, marginalized the work performed by veterinarians by referencing only a single species treated and, with a second, ridiculed the inadequate and shoddy education received in veterinary schools of the time. Dr. R.J. Dinsmore in his book ‘Hoss’ Doctor had this to say on the subject: Nobody was laughed at more than the horse doctor. Horse doctors were supposed to be a coarse, ignorant group who had made a failure of blacksmithing or farming and had turned to ‘doctoring.’ That they actually knew anything about medicine was an absurd notion.

Faculty at the Boston Veterinary Institute frequently pressured the administration to admit uneducated students. The institute’s president opposed these demands, and eventually, the struggle over admission standards became irrelevant when the school closed after four sessions, having graduated only six students.

Of the two early veterinary schools in the U.S., the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons is often considered America’s first practical veterinary school. According to a Feb. 23, 1858, column in The New York Times, the NYCVS was "organized