|
|
Funding Period: January 1, 2001- April 30, 2005
Total Funding: $897,000
|
The UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine received a Maddie's Fund grant to establish the nation's first comprehensive shelter medicine program.
Maddie's® Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis was created to train veterinarians for work in animal shelters and to establish programs and protocols to help reduce disease and behavior problems in shelter dogs and cats, improve the quality of pet lives during shelter stays, reduce shelter deaths and increase the adoption rate of shelter animals. The Program included three major components:
- Shelter Medicine Teaching – classroom instruction and hands-on shelter experience for veterinary students and post graduate residents.
- Shelter Medicine Research – lab and field-based studies to improve medical delivery for shelter animals.
- Shelter Medicine Service – diagnostic and medical support for shelters, including animal behavior assistance and a shelter consultation service.
Maddie's® Shelter Medicine Program
- Graduated the nation's first two residents in Shelter Medicine, Dr. Kate Hurley (epidemiology) and Dr. Sheila Segurson (behavior).
- Launched the nation's first shelter medicine website, posting dozens of medical protocols for shelters throughout the country to follow.
- Published research papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and conducted a variety of investigations on topics of interest to animal shelters (e.g., bordetellosis, parvovirus, ringworm, calicivirus).
- Provided direct assistance to core animal shelters in areas of disease prevention and control, behavior modification, facility design and management.
- Presented lectures on shelter medicine topics at more than 50 regional and national animal welfare and veterinary conferences.
- Exposed veterinary students to shelter medicine through coursework and externships.
- Responded to hundreds of e-mail and telephone requests for information from shelters across the country.
Following the lead of Maddie's® Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis, many veterinary schools have added classes, externships, rotations and post graduate residencies in shelter medicine. The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association and other professional periodicals have featured peer reviewed shelter medicine articles. The first textbook on shelter medicine has been published. Most animal welfare and veterinary organizations have established shelter medicine tracks at national conferences, and there is talk of creating a Board Certification program in shelter medicine.
Former Maddie's® Shelter Medicine Resident, Dr. Kate Hurley, wrote the excerpt below after visiting with medical staff at dozens of animal shelters in several states:
August 24, 2005
Dear Maddie's Fund,
... what an amazing opportunity the Maddie's Shelter Medicine Residency really was, and what an impact it has had. I was staggered by the number of shelter vets and staff that recognized me, had gone to a talk I gave, read something I wrote, been to our website, or had called or emailed me some time in the past. It was amazing to walk into a shelter at random – 3,000 miles from home – and find that I had helped them control an outbreak of panleukopenia three years before. It was even more gratifying to see shelters actually implementing protocols I learned about and developed as a resident.
As much as I'd like to take credit for all this, I realize it has more to do with the opportunity I was given than anything in particular I accomplished. As far as I know, I was the first person ever - in the whole history of animal shelters - to be given the privilege of uninterrupted time and resources to actually study the health care of animals in shelters. Being able to approach this in a systematic way, visiting many shelters and combining that with access to all the expertise at UC Davis and other universities, not only gave me a unique perspective, it really seems to have helped set a precedent: that shelter animal health does matter as much as other areas of veterinary specialty, that shelter medicine is a worthy scientific discipline, and that we can make tremendous progress in saving animal lives through the same principles we've applied with such success in other areas of medicine. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Kate Hurley
|
|
