Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audiences Veterinary Students: Senior Veterinary Students (4VM students) Summer Internship Program: (2VM & 3VM students) Food Animal Mentoring Program:(1VM, 2VM, 3VM & 4VM students) Food Animal Production Tour:(3VM students) Pre-veterinary students: 4-H and FFA student & leaders/instructors: (6th - 12th grade) Veterinarians practicing in the Texas Plains & Panhandle Changes/Problems:During the life of the grant, the only issue was the Covid-19 event. It delayed some of the objectives of the grant. We asked and received an extension. Thank you for allowing this extension. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Veterinarians: Communication workshop - 2 meetings Mentoring Practitioners on extern successes - 4 meetings Panhandle Livestock professional - CE group - 24 meetings Partnership VERO/HPVMA/TVMA - Annual CE - 4 meetings Stockmanship / low-stress cattle-handling workshop - 2 meetings Network established with 11 rural mixed practices in the region. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Panhandle Livestock Professional - one annual meeting per year TVMA - annual convention TAMU/ WT/ VERO advisory committee - annual?report HPVMA meeting - annually What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Nothing
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Veterinary Students: Provide clinical externships, targeted for students to participate in rural TPH&P veterinary practices. Therefore, increasing the current veterinary student's clinical exposure to veterinary practice opportunities in the TPH&P rural communities and training through clinical rotations especially in the veterinary shortage counties identified by the TAHC. Rotations 2020 - 2023 - 51 - two-week rotation over the life of the grant. Rural Practice Rotation - 39 students trained Dairy Rotation - 41 students trained Cow Calf Rotation - 34 students trained Feedyard Rotation - 29 students trained Equine Preventative Health Rotations - 4 students trained Total students trained - 147 Summer Internship Program: Provide 9-week summer working internships to train veterinary students that have expressed a desire to serve rural communities and livestock agriculture prior to these students entering their final year of professional training. The structure will increase current veterinary student's knowledge and skills to serve the TPH&P livestock raising systems and rural veterinary practice therefore increasing their potential success to serve these areas after graduation. As beef and dairy are the principal livestock groups represented in the TPH&P, livestock operations and rural practices that care for these animals will be the targets. During the life of the grant, 46 veterinary students participated in the 9-week summer internship program. Each student worked in either a dairy or feedyard for 4 weeks and 5 weeks in in clinical private practice. There are 19 veterinary students that have graduated that participated in the summer internship program. Thirteen veterinary graduates (68%) entered rural mixed or large animal practices, and five (26%) joined small animal practices. One participant (6%) went into the veterinary health industry. This is a very impactful clinical experience that helps recruit veterinary students to mixed and large animal practices. Food Animal Mentoring Program: Support a "food animal student mentoring" program at TAMU-CVM for veterinary students to work with food animal faculty that helps them explore the potential food animal veterinary practice opportunities, gain the appropriate educational opportunities, and maintain their interest throughout their curriculum. Both directors actively participated in the TAMU-CVM "food animal student mentoring" program Over the life of the grant, we mentored 14 veterinary students. Food Animal Production Tour: Support a yearly week-long tour of TPH&P veterinary practices and livestock operations for selected third year veterinary students. This will provide students with a broader exposure to the TPH&P region, including meeting with area experts, discussing opportunities in rural communities, observing first-hand how livestock industries are served, and exploring opportunities for potential rural practice development. We hosted 30 students over the four tours (May 2019 - 10 students, May 2022 - 10 students, December 2022 - 4 students and May 2023 - 6 students). Covid 19 restrictions caused us to cancel the production tours in May 2020, December 2020 and May 2021. Recruiting Pre-veterinary students: During the life of the grant, the directors visited the eleven Texas Panhandle & Plains regional colleges and universities pre-veterinary clubs; WTAMU, Texas Tech, University, Clarendon College, Amarillo College, Frank Phillips College, Wayland Baptist University, Lubbock Christian University, South Plains College and Western Texas College. 4-H and FFA student & leaders/instructors: to explore their respective organization's veterinary career education programs and to participate in the veterinary career contests offered by those organizations. The target age group of this effort is 6th - 12thgrade. Veterinary Science Camp - 5 3-day camps - 150 students over the life of grant 4H Livestock Ambassador program - 5 meetings annually - 150 students over the life of grant FFA Veterinary Science Career Development Event on WTAMU & Clarendon College campuses. - 2,100 students' involvement over the life of the grant. (2020 and 2021 events cancelled due to Covid)
Publications
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience Are target audience for this grant: 1) Junior High School (6-7-8 graders) and High Schools (9-12 graders) students interested in careers in veterinary medicine 2) College and University studentsinterested in careers in veterinarymedicine 3) Veterinary professional students interested in rural mixed animal practice with a focus on food animal medicine. 4) Senior veterinary students interested in externships with rural mixed animal practice in the Texas Panhandle . 5) Veterinary continuing education for veterinarians in the Texas Panhandle and Plains The effort that were used: 1) Outreach and recruitment through high school visits - State FFA Conventions, 4H veterinary science camp, and FFA Career DevelopmentEvents. CDE 2) Recruitment trips to 9 universities / colleges in the Texas Panhandle: Amarillo College, Clarendon College, Frank Phillips College, West Texas A&M University, Wayland Baptist University, South Plains College, Texas Tech University, Lubbock Christian University and Westen Texas College. 3) The training of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year veterinary students is through two events: a) Food Animal and Rural Practice Tour - The tour's focus is to have food animal and rural practice interested students actively take part in learning about the opportunities in Food Supply Veterinary Medicine by visiting TPH&P feedlots, dairies, and swine operations. b) Food Animal Production and Rural Practice Summer Internship program - this is a 9 week training program for 3VM veterinary students. They are employed in animal agriculture industry and rural practices for this 9 week training program. 4) Senior externship and training at VERO complex opportunities in Feedlot, Dairy, Cow/Calf and Rural Practicetwo week rotations. 5) Veterinary CE - collaborationwith the Hi-plains Veterinary Medical Association and Texas Veterinary Medicine Association to host a 7 hours CE event on the Texas A&M Veterinary Education, Research & Outreach program or West Texas A&M University campuses. The Panhandle Livestock Professionals CE monthly meetings. Changes/Problems:The PI requested and was granted "No Cost Extension" of the grantfor one year to help mediate the Covid restriction that impacted our effort over the last 2 years. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The VeterinaryContinuing Education effort: The fourthannual veterinary continuing education meeting hosted by the "High Plains Veterinary Medical Association" (HPVMA) to host 30 rural large animal veterinarians and 30 to 40 small animal veterinariansplanned for November 2021at WTAMU was canceled due to lack of interest andCOVID-19 meeting restrictions. The Panhandle Livestock Professionals monthly meetings were accomplished with 12 virtual meetings. The CE focus is in food animal production. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A regional meeting of the area's livestock specialist, Panhandle Livestock Professionals (PLP) is occurring monthly. We continue to disseminate information about the grant objective and accomplishments at these monthly meetings. We also enlisting the veterinarians to participate in pre-veterinary and veterinary mentoring activities What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Sept 2022to August 2023 Clinical Rotations for Senior Veterinary Students - 14 Rotations (3 Rural Practice Rotations, 3 Cow Calf Rotations, 4 Feedyard Rotations and 4 Dairy Rotations) Food Animal & Rural Mixed Animal Rotation - two tours will be offered this next year due to cancellations due to covid restrictions 1) Dec 2022 - Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine VERO 2VMveterinarystudents 2) May 2022 - Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine 2VM & 3VM veterinarystudents Food Animal & Rural Mixed Animal Rotation - Summer 2023(10 veterinary students) Recruitment trips to all 9 university/ colleges in the Texas Panhandle & Plains Recruitment efforts in high schools and junior highs will be offered to Texas Panhandle & Plains school districts Host high school students interested in pre-veterinary curriculum visits to WT campus. 4H veterinary science camp (30 students) - July 2023 State of Texas FFA Convention - July 2023 Mentoring sessions with applications to veterinary school.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Clinical Rotations for Senior Veterinary Students 14rotations were accomplished from Sept 1, 2021- August 31, 2022. All of these senior veterinary student clinical rotations are two weeks long. There were: - 4 Dairy Rotations - 3 Rural Practice Rotations - 3Cow / Calf Rotations - 4Feedlot Rotation. The yearly week-long tour of TPH&P veterinary practices and livestock operations for selected 2VM or 3VM veterinary students was not accomplished due to covid restrictions. The Food Animal & Rural Mixed Practice tour was moved from May 2022to Dec 2022. The Dec 2022 tour is scheduled.This tour will provide students with a broader exposure to the TPH&P region, including meeting with area experts, discussing opportunities in rural communities, observing first-hand how livestock industries are served, and exploring opportunities for potential rural practice development. The Food Animal & Rural Mixed Practice Summer Internship Program was accomplished in this reporting period. The summer internship program was from June 7, 2022to August 7, 2022. There were 10 veterinary students participated inthis 9 week internship. Each student participated in 4 weeks in either a dairy or a feedyard operation. They also invested 5 weeks in rural mixed private practices in the Texas Panhandle. This year we had eight veterinary students fromTexas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and twoveterinary students fromTexas Tech School of Veterinary Medicine. We participated in recruiting events for the advancing of veterinary medicine: -Texas Tech UniversityPreVet Society - Fall 2021 - Clarendon College - Fall 2021 - West Texas A&M University - Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 12 WT Prevet Meetings ~ 60 pre-vet students visits to WT campus 300 mentoring sessions with undergraduate students - Texas State FFA Convention - July 2022 - 4H Veterinary Science Camp - July 2022 The covid restrictions kept us from visiting high schools and junior high schools
Publications
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:Are target audience for this grant: 1) Junior High School (6-7-8 graders) andHigh Schools (9-12 graders) students interested in careers in veterinary medicine 2) College and University studnet interested in careers in veternary medicine 3) Veterinary professional students interested in rural mixed animal practice with a focus on food animal medicine. 4) Senior veterinary students interested in externships with rural mixed animal practice in the Texas Panhandle and Plains. 5) Veterinary continuing education for veterinarians in theTexas Panhandle and Plains The effort that were used: 1) Outreach and recruitment through high school visits - State FFA Conventions, 4H veterinary science camp, and FFA Career Developement Events. CDE 2) Recruitment trips to 9 universities / colleges in the Texas Panhandle: Amarillo College, Clarendon College, Frank Phillips College, West Texas A&M University, Wayland Baptist University, South Plains College, Texas Tech University, Lubbock Christian University and Westen Texas College. 3) The training of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year veterinary students is through two events: a) Food Animal and Rural Practice Tour -The tour's focus is to have food animal and rural practice interested students actively take part in learning about the opportunities in Food Supply Veterinary Medicine by visiting TPH&P feedlots, dairies, and swine operations. b) Food Animal Production and Rural Practice Summer Internship program - this is a 9 week training program for 3VM veterinary studnets. They are employed in animal agriculture industry and rural practices for this 9 week training program. 4) Senior externship and training at VERO complex opportunities in Feedlot, Dairy, Cow/Calf and Rural Practce two week rotations. 5) Veterinary CE - colaboration with the Hi-plains Veterinary Medical Association and Texas Veterinary Medicine Association to host a 7 hours CE event on the Texas A&M Veterinary Edusction, Research & Outreach program or West Texas A&M University campuses. The Panhandle Livestock Professionals CE monthly meetings - Changes/Problems:The covid restictions caused the cancellation of the Food Animal & Rural Mixed Animal Practice Tour, all of the high school recruitment trips and most of the college recruitment trips. The PI would like a "NoCost Extension" for 1 year for this grant due to the numeorus cancelation of events due to covid restrictions. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We had planned to offerseven hours of certified CE through the HPVMA 2nd annual CE meeting in November 2020, but it was canceleddue to COVID-19 meeting restrictions. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A regional meeting of the area's livestock specialist, Panhandle Livestock Professionals (PLP) is occurring monthly. We continue to disseminate information about the grant objective and accomplishments at these monthly meetings. We also enlisting the veterinarians to participate in pre-veterinary and veterinary mentoring activities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Sept 2021 to August 2022 Clinical Rotations for Senior Veterinary Students - 14 Rotations (3 Rural Practice Rotations, 3 Cow Calf Rotations, 4 Feedyard Rotations and 4 Dairy Rotations) (40 students) Food Animal & Rural Mixed Animal Rotation - Dec 2022 ( 10 vetereinary students) Food Animal & Rural Mixed Animal Rotation - Summer 2022 (10 veterinary students) Recruitment trips to all 9 univerisity/ colleges in the Texas Panhandle & Plains Recruitment efforts in high schools and junior highs. Host high school students interested in pre-veterinary curriculum visits to WT campus. 4H veterinary science camp (30 students) State of Texas FFA Convention Mentoring sessions with applications to veterinary school.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Clinical Rotations for Senior Veterinary Students 11 rotations were accomplished from Sept 1, 2020 - August 31, 2021. All of these senior veterinary student clinical rotations aretwo weeks long. There were: - 4 Dairy Rotations - 3 Rural Practice Rotations - 2 Cow / Calf Rotations - 2 Feedlot Rotation The yearly week-long tour of TPH&P veterinary practices and livestock operations for selected 2VM or 3VM veterinary students was not accomplished due to covid restrictions. The Food Animal& Rural Mixed Practice tour was movedfrom May 2020 to Dec 2020. Both of these were canceled due to covid restrictions. This tourwill provide students with a broader exposure to the TPH&P region, including meeting with area experts, discussing opportunities in rural communities, observing first-hand how livestock industries are served, and exploring opportunities for potential rural practice development. The Food Animal & Rural Mixed Practice Summer Internship Program was accomplished in this reporting period. The summer internship program was from June 7, 2021 to August 7, 2021. There were 10 veterinary students fro this 9 week internship. Each student participated in 4 weeks in either a dairy or a feedyard operation. They also invested 5 weeks in rural mixed private practices in the Texas Panhandle. We participated in recruiting events for the advancing of veterinary medicine: - Texas Tech Unviversity PreVet Society - Fall 2020 - Claredon College - Fall 2020 - West Texas A&M University - 12 WT Prevet Meetings, ~ 50 pre-vet students visits to WT campus, 300 mentoring sessions with undergraduate students. - Texas State FFA Convention - July 2021 - 4H Veterinary Science Camp - July 2021 The covid restrictions kept us from visiting high schools and junior high schools The Vetereinary Continuing Education effort : The third annual veterinary continuing education meeting hosted by the "High Plains Veterinary Medical Association" (HPVMA) to host 30 rural large animal veterinarians and 30 to 40 small animal veterinarian planned for November 2020 at WTAMU was canceled due to COVID-19 meeting restrictions. The Panhandle Livestock Professionals monthly meeeting were accomplished with 12 virtual meetings. This event is a colaboration with the veterinarian, nutritionist and feedyard management community. The CE focus is in food animal production.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period, the project directors have actively enlisted and secured the collaboration of mixed veterinary practices in the Texas Panhandle to serve as mentors during nine-week summer internships for 2VM and 3VM veterinary students from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University (CVM-TAMU). The practices secured are all multi-veterinarian practices that will provide hands-on training for the students. Being multi-veterinarian practices will increase the variety of services and interactions the veterinarians in the practices will have to offer the student interns. Additionally, the grant directors have enlisted and secured livestock operations that will mentor the students in hands-on livestock husbandry, care, feeding, welfare and caregiver interpersonal training. The livestock operations secured include; beef cattle feedlots, dairy cattle milking operations, dairy calf rearing facilities, and swine farrowing and breeding facilities. The support the grant targeted objectives have received is exciting and has been so embraced, one animal health corporation is financially supporting the expenses for two of the summer internships. The WTAMU administration is collaborating with the CVM-TAMU to provide housing for veterinary summer interns and 4VM extern students during this coming year. The summer internship was from June 2020 to August 2020. The practices are all multi-veterinarian practices that provided hands-on training for the students. Being multi-veterinarian practices, they increased the variety of services and interactions that the practices offered the veterinary student interns. Additionally, the grant directors have enlisted and secured livestock operations that mentored and trained the students in hands-on livestock husbandry, care, feeding, welfare and caregiver interpersonal skills. . The livestock operations that the summer interns worked included; three beef cattle feedlots, several dairy cattle milking operations, a dairy calf rearing facilities, and several swine farrowing and breeding facilities. Our weeklong Food Animal & Rural Mixed Practice Tour scheduled for May 2020 was rescheduled for later in 2021. The tour's focus is to have 3VM food animal and rural practice interested students actively take part in learning about the opportunities in Food Supply Veterinary Medicine by visiting TPH&P feedlots, dairies, and swine operations. The students also learned about opportunities in rural veterinary practices by visiting three progressive rural practices in the TPH&P. During this first reporting period, veterinary student recruitment has been active and there were 10 applications by veterinary students to participate in the 2020 summer internship program. It is very important to understand, the students making application know the summer internship program only pays for their expenses and that they make this commitment knowing they will be not be paid a salary for their 60 to 80 hours per week during the nine -week program. This reporting period, we hosted two 2VM and four 3VM veterinary students for the summer veterinary interns program. Pre-veterinary education recruitment of both pre-college secondary education students and college under graduates is currently in "high-gear". Over 190 pre-vet mentoring and recruiting session. Dr. Posey made recruiting visits to four different Texas Panhandle universities or colleges during this reporting period. Dr. Posey did not participated in a recruiting at the 2020 Texas FFA convention because of the COVID-19 cancelation . COVID-19 meeting restrictions prevented our participation in the three veterinary science contests for FFA high school students schedule for 2020. We were able to host hosted and comply with COVID-19 restrictions a 4H Summer Veterinary Science camp in July for 25 campers. Veterinary career education activities for 4-H, FFA and Boy/Girl Scout Explorer Post junior-high and high-school students have been organized and scheduled for the Texas Panhandle. In addition to junior-high and high school, university under graduate veterinary career activities in the form of "pre-vet" clubs is extremely active. The Pre-Vet club at WTAMU currently has a larger number of participants than prior to the grant director's involvement. Additionally, the grant director, Dr. Richard "Dan" Posey continues to work with Pre-Vet clubs in 11 Texas Panhandle and High-Plains region universities. These activities include students, not only form the Texas Panhandle and High-Plains, but from the border states of New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma. Ten veterinary career sessions for students in Texas Panhandle high schools, regional colleges and youth organizations (4-H and FFA) were accomplished during this reporting period. Most of the veterinary career activities will occur on the WTAMU campus, but other universities in the Texas Panhandle will host veterinary career activities as well Revitalization of veterinary practitioner continuing education is an important objective. To this end, we have planned the second annual High Plains Veterinary Medical Association (HPVMA) Large and Small Animal Continuing Education (CE) meeting. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We offered one to two certified CE credits during four of the Panhandle Livestock Professionals (PLP) monthly meetings. All of the PLP meetings were delivered virtually and the attendance was above our 2019 attendance average. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A regional meeting of the area's livestock specialist, Panhandle Livestock Professionals (PLP) is occurring monthly. We continue to disseminate information about the grant objective and accomplishments at these monthly meetings. We also enlisting the veterinarians to participate in pre-veterinary and veterinary mentoring activities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?COVID-19 restrictions considered, we will visit eleven region's college's and universities' pre-veterinary career development programs and participate in six pre-veterinary meetings at WTAMU and we will take the WTAMU pre-vet students to a veterinary school this Fall. We are still in process of initiating a Boy Scouts Veterinary Career Explorer Post for the Texas Panhandle.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Provide clinical externships, targeted for students to participate in rural TPH&P veterinary practices. Therefore, increasing the current veterinary student's clinical exposure to veterinary practice opportunities in the TPH&P rural communities andtraining through clinical rotations especially in the veterinary shortage counties identified by the TAHC. There were three 6VM veterinary students rotations accomplished in the summer and fall of 2020 in TPH&P. Two of the rotations (6 senior veterinary students) were offered in June and July 2020 were a new senior rotation in rural mixed veterinary practices. Drs. Griffin and Posey were embedded in these two practices with 4VM students. The emphasis of these clinical experiences is to increase the mixed animal practice skills of 4VM students and to affirm and display the opportunities in rural mixed veterinary practices in the panhandle. The third rotation was the "Community Connection" rotation that worked with two TPH&P feedlots to develop a "Secure Beef "plan to help the feedlot prepare for a Food & Mouth Disease outbreak. Provide 9-week summer working internships to train veterinary students that have expressed a desire to serve rural communitiesandlivestock agriculture prior to these students entering their final year of professional training. The structure will increase current veterinary student's knowledge and skills to serve the TPH&P livestock raising systems and rural veterinary practice therefore increasing their potential success to serve these areas after graduation. As beef and dairy are the principle livestock groups represented in the TPH&P, livestock operations and rural practices that care for these animals will be the targets. During the summer of 2020, six summer veterinary student internships were accomplished (see above) Support a "food animal student mentoring" program at TAMU-CVM for veterinary students to work with food animal faculty that helps them explore the potential food animal veterinary practice opportunities, gain the appropriate educational opportunities, and maintain their interest throughout their curriculum. The focus of this effort is to havetworural practitioners from the TPH&P present and share their career pathway and opportunities in rural practice on the TPH&P this Fall 2020. Due to Covid restriction on the TAMU CVM campus, the meetings with student groups on campus were cancelled. The event will be moved to the spring semester at the TAMU CVM. The focus of this event is to promote the opportunities in rural mixed practices and establish mentoring relationships with veterinary students that are pursuing career in rural mixed and large animal medicine. Through eleven pre-Veterinary clubs in the TPH&P, there will be an active recruitment program. TPH&P undergraduates will receive the outpour of support and exposure offered upon by the opportunities of a rural veterinary career. Pre-vet club meeting are occurring monthly at all eleven Texas Panhandle and High Plains colleges and universities.There were planned trips to each pre-vet club this year. Due to Covid restrictions only four visits were allowed; West Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, Clarendon College and Frank Phillips College. Develop rural veterinary practice sustainability, community involvement and communicationworkshops for TPH&P veterinarians that explore growth potentials for expanding services offered in rural areas and improving veterinarian's local communication ability. Veterinary mentoring to rural student, whether through 4-H, FFA or science projects have proven to stimulate veterinary career interest. Preparing veterinarians to work with the TAMU-CVM veterinary externship students is a critical workshop goal. Mentorship by Texas Panhandle rural veterinarians for veterinary students has been established through the summer internships and each practitioner is now an adjunct professorship at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. This academic status allows these rural practitioners to participate at a higher level with the TAMU-CVM clinical program.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:During this first reporting period, August 8, 2018 to February 1, 2019 the project directors have actively enlisted and secured the collaboration of mixed veterinary practices in the Texas Panhandle to serve as mentors during eight-week summer internships for 1st and 2nd year veterinary students from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University (CVM-TAMU). The practices secured are all multi-veterinarian practices that will provide hands-on training for the students. Being multi-veterinarian practices will increase the variety of services and interactions the veterinarians in the practices will have to offer the student interns. Additionally, the grant directors have enlisted and secured livestock operations which will mentor the students in hands-on livestock husbandry, care, feeding, welfare and caregiver interpersonal training. The livestock operations secured include; beef cattle feedlots, dairy cattle milking operations, dairy calf rearing facilities, and swine farrowing and breeding facilities. The support the grant targeted objectives have received is exciting and has been so embraced, one animal health corporation is offering to fund the expenses for half the summer internships and WTAMU administration is in the progress of designing remodel considerations for the veterinary student's living facilities to allow them the flexibility required to meet the internship time commitments of the collaborating livestock operations and veterinary practices. All the summer veterinary student support in the world is meaningless without students being excited enough to participate. During this first reporting period, veterinary student recruitment has been active and not less than 10 students have completed applications to participate in the summer internship program. It is very important to understand, the students making application know the summer internship program only pays for their expenses and that they make this commitment knowing they will be not be paid a salary for their 55 to 60 hours per week during the eight-week program. Pre-veterinary education recruitment of both pre-college secondary education students and college under graduates is currently in "high-gear". Two hundred twenty-two mentoring and recruiting session have been conducted in four different Texas Panhandle universities or colleges and four area high-schools. Additionally, eight meetings with between six and 30 veterinarians to discuss rural veterinary service issues have been conducted. These meetings will be on going, as monthly meetings for Texas Panhandle veterinarian and other interested livestock professionals. One livestock handling workforce training has been held during this grant reporting period. Attending, were 103 employees from cattle operations which are clients of area rural veterinarians. A livestock managers leadership outreach training is scheduled this spring for operations which are clients of Texas Panhandle rural veterinarians. Veterinary career education activities for 4-H, FFA and Boy/Girl Scout Explorer Post junior-high and high-school students have been organized and scheduled for the Texas Panhandle. In addition to junior-high and high-school, university under graduate veterinary career activities in the form of "pre-vet" clubs is extremely active. The Pre-Vet club at WTAMU currently has a larger number of participants than prior to the grant director's involvement. Additionally, the grant director, Dr. Richard "Dan" Posey now works with Pre-Vet clubs in 11 Texas Panhandle and High-Plains region universities. These include students, not only form the Texas Panhandle and High-Plains, but from the border states of New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma. Eighteen veterinary career sessions for students in Texas Panhandle high-schools, regional colleges and youth organizations (4-H and FFA) are scheduled for the next six months of the grant reporting period. Most of the veterinary career activities will occur on the WTAMU campus, but other universities in the Texas Panhandle will host veterinary career activities as well. Dr. Dan Posey, during this grant reporting period has taken Pre-Vet club members on two weekend veterinary career exploration trips. One to Colleges Station, TX for students to participate in a veterinary training "wet-lab" in which students had hands-on veterinary skills training and another to Fort Collins, CO to visit the Colorado College of Veterinary Medicine. Revitalization of veterinary practitioner continuing education is an important objective. To this end, the first annual High Plains Veterinary Medical Association (HPVMA) Large Animal Continuing Education (CE) meeting was successfully completed during this grant reporting cycle. The meeting was held at WTAMU Paul Engler College of Agriculture and Natural Science's Piel-Schaeffer Pavilion. Thirty, which represents half of the Texas Panhandle large animal veterinarians attended. All of these veterinarians were from Texas Panhandle rural communities. The topics included "Community Communication" training by Dr. Tanner Robertson, a WTAMU grant collaborator, equine nutrition; "what practitioners wished their clients knew", "Long-Distance / Tele-Medicine Necropsy Diagnostic Evaluation" by diagnosticians from the Texas Veterinary Medical Laboratory - Amarillo, and "Improving the Field Diagnosis by Cattle Caregivers of Bovine Respiratory Disease Using the High-Tech Whisper Electronic Stethoscope" by Dr. Guy Ellis, Merck Animal Health. Merck so believed in the importance of this objective they sponsored the expenses incurred. Changes/Problems:Our efforts to initiate a Boy Scouts Veterinary Career Explorer Post has been slow to develop, but is still being planned. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The certified CE being targeted for provide to veterinarians has incresed. During this reporting period, eight hours of CE have been provide at speical veterinary training events and at our monthly tPanhandle Livestock Professionals (PLP) meeting. Working as a partner with the High Plains Veterinary Medical Asso (HPVMA), we have seven addtional CE hours scheduled. This will be the largest CE meeting in the organization's history. The CE targets rural mixed and large animal practitioners and will include community biosecurity and control substance training. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A regional meeting of the area's livestock specialist, Panhandle Livestock Professionals (PLP) is occurring monthly. This provides a tremendous forum for disseminating information about the grant objective and enlisting / organizing participants mentoring activities. The attendance is growing, up by 20% in the last year. These meetings have become self-supporting which not only stretches our grant funding but will be key of longterm sustainability. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Our work with the regions 4-H and FFA is growing and we have two more regional veterinary career events this fall. We will again take the WTAMU pre-vet students to TAMU-CVM at College Station to participate in a "Veterinary Skill Training Workshop".
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period, February 1, 2019 to August 31, 2019 the project directors enlisted and secured the collaboration of mixed veterinary practices in the Texas Panhandle to serve as mentors and trainers during a nine-week summer internships for 2VM and 3VM veterinary students from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University (CVM-TAMU). This year's summer internship was from June 2, 2019 to August 4, 2019. The practices are all multi-veterinarian practices that provided hands-on training for the students. Being multi-veterinarian practices, they increased the variety of services and interactions that the practices offered the veterinary student interns. Additionally, the grant directors have enlisted and secured livestock operations, which mentored and trained the students in hands-on livestock husbandry, care, feeding, welfare and caregiver interpersonal skills. The livestock operations that the summer interns worked included; three beef cattle feedlots, several dairy cattle milking operations, a dairy calf rearing facilities, and several swine farrowing and breeding facilities. We completed the weeklong Food Animal & Rural Mixed Practice Tour in May 2019. The tour's focus is to have 3VM food animal and rural practice interested students actively participate in learning about the opportunities in Food Supply Veterinary Medicine by visiting TPH&P feedlots, dairies, and swine operations. The students also learned about opportunities in rural veterinary practices by visiting three progressive rural practices in the TPH&P. There were thirteen 3VM participates in the 2019 Food Animal & Rural Mixed Practice Tour. This was a milestone year because we hosted our 100th student on this tour, which has been hosting students since 2008. All the summer veterinary student support in the world is meaningless without student's being excited enough to participate. During this first reporting period, veterinary student recruitment has been active and there were 10 applications by veterinary students to participate in the 2019 summer internship program. It is very important to understand, the students making application know the summer internship program only pays for their expenses and that they make this commitment knowing they will be not be paid a salary for their 60 to 80 hours per week during the nine -week program. This reporting period, we hosted six 2VM and two 3VM veterinary students for the 9 week summer veterinary internship program. Pre-veterinary education recruitment of both pre-college secondary education students and college under graduates is currently in "high-gear". One hundred and sixty-five mentoring and recruiting session were accomplished during this reporting period. We accomplished recruiting visits to four different Texas Panhandle universities or colleges during this reporting period. We participated in a recruiting at the 2019 Texas FFA convention in Ft. Worth, Texas and had approximately 900 information cards filled out by FFA high school students with large percentage of these students interested in veterinary medicine careers. Additionally, we participated in six meetings with between 15 and 35 veterinarians per meeting to discuss issues facing rural veterinary practices. We conducted three veterinary science contests for FFA high school students. There were approximately 600 students involved in the three veterinary science contests. We hosted a 4H Summer Veterinary Science camp in July for 35 campers. We scheduled a low-stress cattle-handling workshop for agriculture workforce training this October 2019. We hosted Veterinary Science training program for High School Agriculture teachers in June 2019. The objective of this training was to build skills for teaching veterinary skills in Certified Veterinary Assistants programs. This activity gained exposure for access to high school students interested in veterinary medical careers. We serve as the advisors for the West Texas A&M University undergraduate "pre-vet" clubs. There are five pre-veterinary club meetings this spring. The Pre-Vet club at WTAMU currently has a larger number of participants. Additionally, the grant directors works with Pre-Veterinary clubs in 11 Texas Panhandle and High-Plains region universities. These pre-veterinary meetings include students, not only from the Texas Panhandle and High-Plains, but also from the border states of New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma. Most of the veterinary career activities have occur on the WTAMU campus, but other universities in the Texas Panhandle will host veterinary career activities as well. Revitalization of veterinary practitioner continuing education is an important objective. We hosted one continuing education meeting in July for area practitioners and this meeting was held at WTAMU Paul Engler College of Agriculture and Natural Science's Piel-Schaeffer Pavilion.
Publications
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