the rural challenge
TRANSCRIPT
NewsNewsNewsNews
586 Australian Veterinary Journal Volume 82, No 10, October 2004
Australian
VETERINARY
JOURNALMANAGING EDITOR MARK THORNLEY
SCIENTIFIC EDITORCOLIN WILKS
CLINICAL EDITORMAUREEN REVINGTON
DESIGNSOUTHERN DESIGN AND PRINT GROUP
PHOTOGRAPHYMARK THORNLEY
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AND SAM McMAHON.
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Cover photo: A prize Charolais bull at
Sydney’s Royal Easter Show. Photo: Mark Thornley
Farm animal medicine specialist KymAbbott has been appointed as the newProfessor of Production Animal
Medicine and Director of Veterinary Scienceat Charles Sturt University (CSU).
Forging an international veterinary careerspanning education, practice and research,Professor Abbott will play a key role in shapingCSU’s veterinary course that will enrol its firstintake of 45 students in February 2005.
Travelling to CSU’s Wagga Wagga campusafter serving at the University of London in theUnited Kingdom, Professor Abbott said CSUstudents would be selected on the basis of theiracademic performance and their demonstratedinterest, experience and knowledge of rural lifeand farm animal production.
The six year CSU course will emphasise theintegration of a range of animal productiondisciplines into animal and public healthmanagement and will culminate in a broadeducation in clinical management of farmanimal, equine and small animal health.
Having worked in mixed and specialist(sheep) practice in Australia he believes thetype of veterinary services that are delivered toour country’s livestock producers has tochange. He cites epidemiology, agriculturaleconomics and population medicine as centralthemes that will permeate CSU’s courses.
“We have to find ways to get vets backonto farms and provide services that farmerswant and are prepared to pay for, “ ProfessorAbbott said.
“We need to train graduates with new skills,in place of some of the traditional skills and wehave to be stronger at looking at whole herd,whole flock and whole farm veterinaryservices.”
Professor Abbott said vets were losing theiraccess to farms and farmers were demandingfewer veterinary services raising problemswith animal productivity, animal welfare andincreasing the risks of delayed detection ofexotic animal disease management.
He believes Australia urgently needs tobroaden the scope of its rural veterinaryservices and that rural disease surveillanceprograms should be subsidised by state orfederal governments. He also suggested arange of veterinary services offered by privatetreaty with producers could help ensure thesurvival of many rural practices and plans totake full advantage of Wagga’s rural setting toaccess local farms.
“The recent FMD outbreak in the UKillustrated the importance of a good close
relationship between a producer and aveterinarian in the early detection of thedisease.”
“It’s recognised that we need to do moresurveillance in Australia and there’s been anumber of initiatives taken recently toincrease that surveillance and that’s certainly apart of the activities that rural practitionerscould become more involved in.”
Meeting the challenge of retaining youngveterinarians in the rural environment,Professor Abbott said CSU would place astrong emphasis on training and preparingveterinary graduates to work and live in ruralAustralia.
“We know that lots of graduates do gointo mixed practice but they often don’t staythere because they’ve spent their universitydays in the city and they don’t feelcomfortable in the bush.”
“I think a contributing factor to this trendis perhaps they don’t have the competenceand confidence that comes from having a veryhigh skill level for working in mixed practices.Together these may be reasons why some ofthe graduates are drifting off,” he said.
The idea for Australia’s newest veterinaryprogram arose from the Review of veterinaryServices conducted by Peter Frawley in 2002and a submission to the review from ProfessorJim Pratley, Dean of the Faculty of Scienceand Agriculture at CSU and AssociateProfessor Peter Cregan, Head of the (then)School of Agriculture.
The Rural ChallengeBy Mark Thornley
The new Professor of Production AnimalMedicine and Director of Veterinary Science
at Charles Sturt University (CSU) Kym Abbott(left) and CSU Vice-Chancellor Professor
Ian Goulter (right).