title: The Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine Shelter Program.
abstract: The shelter program at the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine provides veterinary students with extensive experience in shelter animal care including spay/neuter, basic wellness care, diagnostics, medical management, disease control, shelter management and biosecurity. Students spend five days at shelters in the junior year of the curriculum and two weeks working on mobile veterinary units in their senior year. The program helps meet accreditation standards of the American Veterinary Medical Association's Council on Education that require students to have hands-on experience and is in keeping with recommendations from the North American Veterinary Medical Education Consortium. The program responds, in part, to the challenge from the Pew Study on Future Directions for Veterinary Medicine that argued that veterinary students do not graduate with the level of knowledge and skills that is commensurate with the number of years of professional education.
authors.affiliation: College of Veterinary Medicine, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 6001, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. bushby@cvm.msstate.edu.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bushby
authors.affiliation: College of Veterinary Medicine, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 6001, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. kwoodruff@cvm.msstate.edu.
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Woodruff
authors.affiliation: College of Veterinary Medicine, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 6001, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. jshivley@cvm.msstate.edu.
authors.forename: Jake
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shivley
keywords: Surgical instruction; animal shelter; shelter education; shelter management; shelter medicine; spay/neuter; veterinary education