Welcome to the College of Veterinary Medicine
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Dean Michael Kotlikoff
Austin O. Hooey Dean of Veterinary Medicine Assistants to the Dean: Patricia Janhonen : paj4@cornell.edu Eileen Cunningham : emc62@cornell.edu Dean's Suite Phone: 253-3800 Location: S2005 Schurman Hall - Strategic Plan Executive Summary |
This year celebrates the 250th anniversary of the formal establishment of the veterinary profession with the founding of the first veterinary college in Lyon, France. The effort began with a group of experts disseminating knowledge and pursuing discovery on working and food-producing animals and has grown to one of almost unparalleled breadth.
Today veterinary medicine encompasses education, discovery, and patient care covering domestic animals, wildlife, and increasingly the interface between humans and animals in our complex and challenged environment. The range of our activities presents enormous opportunities, but equivalent challenges. On the one hand, as we increasingly understand the vital nature of human-animal interactions and negotiate the tensions of productivity, welfare, and sustainability, our profession becomes increasingly relevant; on the other, the value and consequence of veterinary medicine derives from our ability to produce practical advances and to deliver relevant information that will shape and guide society’s choices across the entire landscape of animal disease. Our drive to innovate—to discover, and translate these discoveries into practical advances—is the focus of the current issue of ’Scopes. Cornell takes enormous pride in the innovations that have been forged by our students and our faculty in education, medical delivery, and disease discovery, and in this issue we highlight some of those.
In our classrooms, exam rooms, and laboratories, and in our engagement outside of the campus, faculty and students are immersed in development and discovery. From improvements in hands-on training and assessment of that training to development of courses that motivate and educate middle school students about conservation medicine to research that helps elite equine athletes breathe easier and improves our understanding of cellular transformation, our faculty and students are delivering and advancing knowledge. In doing this, we rely enormously on the strength and quality of Cornell, a great university with a unique commitment to practical engagement. We are indeed a small profession and progress requires and is enriched by collaborations with others: chemical biologists, physicists, engineers, computational biologists, and experts in education, to name a few. Similarly, critical international partnerships leverage the strength of other institutions, engage effectively with partners in industry, and forge essential connections with the public.
A traditional and ongoing strength of our College has been the commitment to Life Sciences, serving as the foundation for high impact discoveries like a new assay for Lyme disease, insights into the genesis of cardiac arrhythmias, and the unique reliance of cancer cells on a specific energy source that suggests immediate applications. The 2011 Annual Report, included in the current issue of 'Scopes, documents the tremendous success of researchers at the College who drive NIH-funded research on Cornell’s Ithaca campus and participate in increasingly collaborative programs with our medical school colleagues. At the same time, Cornell’s reputation rests equally on its almost 150 years of educational innovations, which continue to thrive in our classrooms and teaching hospital. At a time of significant discussion within the profession regarding the sustainability of veterinary education, its ability to change to meet societal needs, and the emergence of lower cost, for-profit educational institutions, Cornell is doing what it has since James Law arrived–advancing and setting a standard for veterinary education. I am pleased to report that self-examination, creativity, and yes, innovation, are in fine feather in Ithaca, and that we are actively engaged in improving on a legacy of success.
Working for today, with an eye on tomorrow: innovations and applications. As always, I welcome your calls and emails.
Cordially,
Michael I. Kotlikoff, VMD, PhD
Austin O. Hooey
Dean of Veterinary Medicine
