Recipient Organization
SYS_ORG - MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY
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null,AZ null
Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
Food animal veterinarians are critical in maintaining the health and welfare of food animals, ensuring a safe and ample food supply, safeguarding public health, protecting global food security, and supporting the U.S. economy. For Native Americans, food animals have an additional cultural and spiritual component. Yet, there is a severe shortage of veterinarians that serve reservations, with veterinarians who provide services to food animals essentially non-existent. For example, the Navajo Nation, the largest land area held by a native American tribe in the United States comprising 16 million acres and approximately the size of the state of west Virginia has only one veterinarian that serves the entire community and primary domestic animals. Multiple factors, including the low enrollment of Native American students in veterinary schools, explain the lack of veterinarians on reservations. The lack of exposure of reservation youth to career opportunities in the veterinary medicine field partly explains the limited enrollment of Native American students in the profession. While the shortage of food animal veterinarians is a multifactorial problem, there is an attainable opportunity to help resolve this problem by targeting children from underserved areas such as reservations and exposing them to veterinary practice in a bid to have more students choosing veterinary medicine as a career. In addition, a curriculum-based approach will also help students who are already enrolled in veterinary school.To help solve the problem of shortage of food animal practice veterinarians in underserved areas, the farm animal medicine department at Midwestern University, College of Veterinary Medicine, is starting an externship that involves training of veterinary students on rural food animal practice while involving Native American youths on reservations. This specialized program is specifically designed to meet the deficiencies identified in veterinary curricula and training as well as to expose the Native American youths to career opportunities veterinary medicine. By providing a focus on practice in rural or underserved areas, the program addresses work environments that frequently lack support and guidance for a new graduate. The program involves Midwestern University veterinary faculty and students, veterinary students from other veterinary colleges in United States, and Native American youths in schools. The department will offer veterinary services which include direct patient care as well as herd health/production medicine services for two weeks, three times a year on Navajo Nation. The program is expected to help produce confident food animal veterinarians who will practice for a long time. We also expect the program to stimulate more Native American youth on Navajo Nation to be interested in veterinary medicine and enroll in veterinary schools.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Food animal veterinarians are critical in maintaining the health and welfare of food animals, ensuring a safe and ample food supply, safeguarding public health, protecting global food security, and supporting the U.S. economy. For Native Americans, food animals have an additional cultural and spiritual component. Yet, there is a severe shortage of veterinarians that serve reservations, with veterinarians who provide services to food animals essentially non-existent. For example, the Navajo Nation, the largest land area held by a native American tribe in the United States comprising 16 million acres and approximately the size of the state of west Virginia has only one veterinarian that serves the entire community and primary domestic animals.Multiple factors, including the low enrollment of Native American students in veterinary schools, explain the lack of veterinarians on reservations. The lack of exposure of reservation youth to career opportunities in the veterinary medicine field partly explains the limited enrollment of Native American students in the profession.The deficiency of veterinarians in Native American reservations greatly impacts the health and welfare of animals, especially food animals. While the shortage of food animal veterinarians is a multifactorial problem, there is an attainable opportunity to help resolve this problem by targeting children from underserved areas and exposing them to veterinary practice in a bid to have more students choosing veterinary medicine as a career. In addition, a curriculum-based approach will also help students who are already enrolled in veterinary school.To help alleviate the problem of shortage of food animal veterinarians in underserved areas, the Midwestern University (MWU) farm animal faculty, and the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) aim to enhance the existing infrastructure of their food animal program by establishing an exclusive educational opportunity for veterinary students--a competitive externship in food animal practice that involves veterinary students nationwide and youths from Navajo Nation. This program's objectives will be to provide veterinary students with hands-on practical rural food animal practice experiences and veterinary and business management training and to exposure Native American youths to opportunities in veterinary medicine. This will be accomplished by establishing an intensive 2-week externship entitled Enhanced Education in Food Animal Rural Practice. This specialized program is specifically designed to meet the deficiencies identified in veterinary curricula and training as well as to expose the Native American youths to career opportunities veterinary medicine. By providing a focus on practice in rural or underserved areas, the program addresses work environments that frequently lack support and guidance for a new graduate.Collectively, the program described in this proposal will provide comprehensive training to prepare students for a career in rural practice that food animal-focused students might otherwise not have been exposed to during their clinical rotations on campus or in most private practice settings. By providing this unique training opportunity, MWU is ensuring that the veterinary workforce is trained to meet the demands of the profession, which serves the long-term goal of this program to recruit veterinarian students including Native Americans into food animal or mixed practice and support the retention of veterinarians in the underserved communities. Using a collaborative approach between the project director and collaborative stakeholders to plan, implement, and evaluate the project goals will ensure the project's objective is achievable.Program Objective: 1) To provide veterinary students with hands-on practical rural food animal practice experiences and veterinary and business management training and 2) to exposure Native American youth to opportunities in veterinary medicine. To accomplish these objectives, and through the following three aims, this program will provide on-site instruction and interactive discussions that foster the skills needed for food animal veterinarians to have successful careers in rural food animal practice by specifically addressing unique challenges to this sector of the profession.Specific Aim 1--Rural Food Animal Veterinary Practice: To establish entry-level competency and confidence needed for new veterinary graduates to become successful practitioners in rural areas while providing the needed care to food animals and education to support improved animal and public health in underserved communities.Specific Aim 2--Navajo Youths Participation: To expose the youth on the reservation to the practice of veterinary medicine and encourage them to consider careers as veterinarians.Specific Aim 3--Food Animal Practice Analysis: Identification of root causes and strategy development that recognizes the changing landscape of food animal practice in the United States.
Project Methods
Midwestern University (MWU)Enhanced Education in Food Animal Rural Practice Externship Program:A novel, 2-week intensive training program specifically designed to address the ongoing problem of recruitment and retention of veterinarians in food animal practice that will be established and led by the PD and Co-PDs.Pedagogy and Orientation: The first day will outline the goals and expectations of the program. The students will also complete a pre-program evaluation to determine their baseline experiences and knowledge of food animal practice thus far in their veterinary education. The second day of the program involves working through modules using a student-driven, problem-solving approach and will include presentations and interactive discussions. The basic, generic content of the learning objectives include concepts, knowledge, or skills that support the learning necessary for problem solving or task accomplishment. The modules for the segment of the program are aimed at examining the following issues:Module 1:Factors influencing the current shortage of veterinarians entering and being retained in food animal practice.Module 2:Meeting the demands of animal agriculture and succeeding in a fluctuating industry.Module 3:The profit potential of food animal veterinarians and how to succeed in food animal practice.Rural Veterinary Practice: During the remaining 2 weeks, MWU clinicians and students, and Navajo Nation youths will provide food animal veterinary services for Navajo Nation livestock to address previously identified livestock-related issues. Specific season-dependent services that will be provided for livestock include vaccinations, deworming, livestock castration, dehorning, branding, breeding soundness examinations, management of sick animals, pregnancy diagnosis, and nutritional status evaluations. This period will be used to expose and train students in business management and how to successfully provide service in a rural practice setting, while addressing the social, cultural and economic challenges faced by rural practice veterinarians. MWU students will also be peer educators for the Navajo Nation youths (each will be assigned a MWU "mentor"). Peer education raises the competencies and the confidence of the more experienced veterinary students while also allowing for a less intimidating experience for the Navajo Nation youth--something we have previously noted with our clinical students educating preclinical students. Ultimately, this mentorship aims to encourage Navajo Nation youths to pursue careers in veterinary medicine within the reservations. Finally, students will participate in educating producers on relevant topics, including food animal husbandry and herd problems, the integration of nutrition and environmental factors into food animal health programs, and the aspects of the Beed Quality Assurance Programs. Educational discussion with livestock owners will positively impact the Navajo Nation by ensuring a safe and wholesome food supply for the reservation, thereby supporting their agricultural production, economy, and independence.Veterinary Student Recruitment:We will recruit 4th-year veterinary students enrolled in accredited veterinary degree programs in North America to participate in this externship opportunity. Students will be made aware of the opportunity by advertising through veterinary associations (e.g., AAVMC, AABP, AASRP). Interested students must apply for the externship program by October 1st (with selection by December and project initiation in April) by submitting a letter of intent and CV to the PD. Letters must address: (1) their career goals (2) how this externship will impact on these goals, and (3) their previous experience in food animal practice, specifically rural practice. This application will identify students with a high likelihood of pursuing a career in food animal practice and applicants that come from underserved geographical areas who may be more motivated to return to/stay in rural areas to practice. A total of eight students will be selected for each cycle of the program, which will occur three times during the academic year (24 students/academic year)--all students will receive a course credit for participating in the program. This number of students per year equates to 1-2% of the entire U.S. food animal workforce (mixed animal - food animal exclusive) and thus will have a significant impact on meeting the long-term goal of the project. Four spots will be reserved for MWU students with the remaining 4 spots available to out-of-state students--if the reserved distribution is not met, the ratios will shift to fill all 8 positions. The MWU College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) recently purchased a 14-seater passenger van that will be used in this program--the Navajo Nation Program was the main driver for purchase. Previously obtained metrics regarding student cost estimates for distant rotations in food animal, food safety and public health ranged from $700-2,000. Each participating out-of-state student will receive a stipend of $1,000.Navajo Nation Youth Recruitment: Glenda Davis from Animal Rez-Q, acting on our behalf will liaise with local leaders and school principals on the need for students to participate in the program without disrupting the school programs for the students. Initial analyses of the calendar suggest that some of the externships can be done during the time when students are on a break from school, with 4 or 5 Navajo Nation youths per year.Stakeholder Commitment and Communication: Meetings will be scheduled for stakeholders (PD, Co-PDs, collaborators, and the veterinary assistant). Meetings will take place each academic year the program is active:Project Planning Meeting:This meeting will be conducted prior to program initiation to: 1.) review applications and select student participants and 2.) review and analyze all aspects of the proposed externship program to ensure that the instructional activities and discussions meet the project objectives.Project Implementation and Evaluation Meeting:This meeting will be conducted mid-academic year, after two cycles of the externship program have been completed to evaluate the program, discuss problems that may have occurred with the current program implementation, and brainstorm strategies to resolve and improve the program.Annual Project Completion and Evaluation Meeting:This meeting will be conducted after all 3 cycles of the externship program have been completed to assess project evaluations obtained from veterinary student externs, participating Navajo Nation youth, Glenda Davis, and rural community leaders to monitor the progress towards meeting the program's objective and to revise the program accordingly for the subsequent year.Evaluation questions in the post-program survey include:Specific Aim 1--Rural Veterinary Practice:How were student skills assessed and in what ways did they improve from entry-level competency and confidence. How did animal health outcomes improve because of the program or specific intervention? How did the program or specific intervention improve health for the individual and/or the community? Which activities or interventions were most and least effective and why?Specific Aim 2--Navajo Youth Participation: Were the youths familiar with veterinary medicine prior to the implementation of the program? Did the program stimulate interest from the youths? What career path do the youths intend to pursue? Are there any youth who intend to go back to their communities and work as veterinarians?Specific Aim 3--Food Animal PracticeAnalysis:What barriers to providing food animal veterinary care in rural communities were identified? Describe the cost/benefit analysis for the interventions provided from the perspective of the care giver, the client, and the patient. What additional resources were identified that would improve outcomes and how would they do this?