A new initiative has been launched to advance teaching quality in academic veterinary medicine. The University of Florida (UF) College of Veterinary Medicine has formed the Southeast Veterinary Educational Consortium to help encourage collaboration among working veterinarians and teachers at veterinary colleges in the eastern U.S. “We have excellent instructors, but the veterinary program has so many facets as to what is required of teachers,” said Juan Samper, DVM, the college’s associate dean for academic and student affairs. “It’s different to teach in the classroom than in clinics, as it’s different to teach residents than it is to teach veterinary students. There are lots of levels of teaching and we need to address this and make sure we excel in all these facets.” Joining UF as participants in the consortium will be the Virginia-Maryland (VA-MD) Regional College of Veterinary Medicine and the veterinary medicine colleges at North Carolina State (NC State) University, Lincoln Memorial University (LMU), the University of Georgia (UGA), and the University of Tennessee (UTK). The consortium’s member institutions will collaborate to develop, evaluate, implement, and share best practices in veterinary medical education and promote excellence in education at their different institutions. “We veterinarians don’t get taught how to teach,” Dr. Samper said. “We come in trying to emulate the great teachers we had, but in these changing times, technology is affecting the way we do things. The newer generations have a different way of learning, and we need to think about how we as educators adapt to these different learning styles.”
