The Lincoln Memorial University College of Veterinary Medicine, just starting Year 2 in its brief history, has added 100 students and several faculty members and is about to open the brand-new Small Animal Clinical Skills Center. Eighty-three women and 17 men—representing 26 states and selected from among 654 applicants—make up the Class of 2019. They join nearly 100 second-year veterinary students on the Harrogate, Tenn., campus. In nearby Ewing, Va., which houses the 700-acre DeBusk Veterinary Teaching Center, students will spend time in the 43,187-square-foot Small Animal Clinical Skills Center. “Our inaugural class is beginning their second year where they will be learning small animal skills, and now, students have the opportunity to train in a state-of-the-art facility using the latest technology,” said the college’s dean, Glen Hoffsis, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM. The building, scheduled for completion around Nov. 1, will feature a treatment room with six tables, a 3,500-square-foot surgery suite, a laboratory, and digital radiography and ultrasound equipment. A classroom equipped with mobile tables, flat-screen monitors, wireless microphones and high-definition cameras will bring students face-to-face with live or artificial animal patients. Also inside the Clinical Skills Center will be lockers and changing rooms, a student kitchen and lounge, study rooms, and faculty and staff offices. Under Lincoln Memorial’s distributive education model, students will spend the first 2½ years on campus and the remaining semesters at off-campus veterinary hospitals and other clinical sites. As enrollment rises, so does the employee headcount. The veterinary college has 49 faculty members, up from 31 a year ago, Dr. Hoffsis said. “As a developing college, we will be adding faculty and staff in order to meet [the] needs of the curriculum and our research, outreach and other missions,” he said. The newest faculty members include: Udine Christmann, BVSc, Ph.D., Dipl. ACVIM, an assistant professor of equine internal medicine. Vina Faulkner, MS, Ph.D., an associate professor of veterinary medicine and the former dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences. Beth Kitts-Morgan, MS, Ph.D., a physiology instructor. Ashutosh Verma, BVSc, MS, Ph.D., Dipl. ACVM, an assistant professor of microbiology.
