The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) is a state-supported college of two states, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 and Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, filling the need for veterinary medicine

Veterinary medicine

Veterinary Medicine is the branch of science that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in non-human animals...

 education in both states. Students from both states are considered "in-state" students for admissions purposes.

VMRCVM is one of 28 colleges of veterinary medicine in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association's

American Veterinary Medical Association

The American Veterinary Medical Association , founded in 1863, is a not-for-profit association representing more than 81,500 U.S. veterinarians working in private and corporate practice, government, industry, academia, and uniformed services....

 Council on Education (AVMA COE) and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International

Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International

The Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International, or AAALAC, is a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science through voluntary accreditation and assessment programs. The program started in 1965, when leading...

 (AAALAC). In 2011, the U.S. News 'Veterinary Medicine' Ranking placed the college tied for 17th with Iowa University in a poll of 25 ranked schools.

The college is considered a constituent college of both Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland, College Park

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

. The college's main campus is located on Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg, Virginia

Blacksburg, Virginia

Blacksburg is an incorporated town located in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 42,620 at the 2010 census. Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford are the three principal jurisdictions of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area which...

, with a branch on the University of Maryland's campus in College Park, Maryland

College Park, Maryland

College Park is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, USA. The population was 30,413 at the 2010 census. It is best known as the home of the University of Maryland, College Park, and since 1994 the city has also been home to the "Archives II" facility of the U.S...

. It also operates the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Virginia

Leesburg, Virginia

Leesburg is a historic town in, and county seat of, Loudoun County, Virginia, United States of America. Leesburg is located west-northwest of Washington, D.C. along the base of the Catoctin Mountain and adjacent to the Potomac River. Its population according the 2010 Census is 42,616...

. The college's Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) program is designed to be finished in four years. The first three years are spent at the Blacksburg campus; for the final year, students do clinical rotations at two veterinary teaching hospitals in Blacksburg and with private practitioners. Some students do rotations at the branches at College Park or Leesburg.

History

Historically, there was a shortage of veterinary colleges in the southern and Mid-Atlantic states. In 1950, the state of Maryland began a contract to allow 10 Maryland students to attend the vet school at the University of Georgia

University of Georgia

The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...

 in exchange for the admittance of 10 Georgia residents into the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. By 1972, Maryland expanded its relationship with out-of-state vet schools to include Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...

, Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

, University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

, University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, and Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. Virginia also tried to address the absence of an in-state veterinary school. In 1971, Virginia entered into contracts administered by the Southern Regional Education Board

Southern Regional Education Board

The Southern Regional Education Board is a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta, Georgia that works to improve education in its 16 member states in the southeastern United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma,...

, allotting 15 seats to Virginia students in the University of Georgia's veterinary school and two seats at Tuskegee University's school.

In June 1971, the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association initiated a study of the need for and feasibility of a college of veterinary medicine. In 1973, a commission of veterinarians and members of the Virginia General Assembly

Virginia General Assembly

The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members,...

 found that Virginia did need a veterinary college to adequately meet its need for veterinary services. The commission recommended that this college should be a regional college, should emphasize service to farmers in Virginia, and should be located at Virginia Tech.

In 1978, the Virginia General Assembly officially established the college as a part of Virginia Tech, one of Virginia's two land-grant universities

Land-grant university

Land-grant universities are institutions of higher education in the United States designated by each state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890....

. Meanwhile, in Maryland, the State Board of Regents decided in 1977 to establish a veterinary school at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore; however, on May 11, 1979, the Board of Regents decided to join the Virginia school instead. In February 1980, a memorandum of understanding with the then-Virginia school stated that 24 slots in the entering class would be reserved for Maryland students and 40 places would be allocated to Virginia students. This founding class of 64 students entered the college on September 15, 1980 and graduated with D.V.M. degrees in May 1984. The new college was fully accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association

American Veterinary Medical Association

The American Veterinary Medical Association , founded in 1863, is a not-for-profit association representing more than 81,500 U.S. veterinarians working in private and corporate practice, government, industry, academia, and uniformed services....

 in 1990.

Academics

Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine offers students a D.V.M. degree or an M.S. or Ph.D. in biomedical and veterinary sciences. The college also has a joint program with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine that leads to a master of public health. In addition to these degrees, students may participate in residency and internships in their desired fields of interest. The college also has a partnership with the American University of Antigua (AUA), which expands academic opportunities for AUA students.

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program

The college offers a four-year full-time program leading to the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) degree. The first three years are taught in a case-based and traditional lecture/laboratory format. At the end of the first year, students choose a track: small animal, food animal, equine, mixed species, or public/corporate veterinary medicine. Students then take courses specific to their track for the next two years. In their senior year, which is 12 months in length, students train for veterinary practice by participating in clinical rotations.

Over the past five years, the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine’s D.V.M. program has had over 96 percent of its students pass the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE). In 2010-11, all of the college’s 85 graduating students passed the exam.

Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences Program

The Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences program is part of the Graduate School at Virginia Tech. The program offers a Ph.D. degree that requires 90 credit hours of course work, research, and a dissertation. The Ph.D. can be completed in four years, and prospective students do not need a master’s degree to apply. The master’s degree requires 30 credit hours of coursework, research, and a thesis and can be completed in two years. A final option of study in this program is a dual-degree program that leads to both a D.V.M. and Ph.D. in six years. In this program, students can pursue research opportunities in biomedical and/or clinical studies.

Master of Public Health

In collaboration with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, VMRCVM is offering a master’s degree in public health, a 42-credit-hour professional program in the population health sciences department of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.

Residency and Internships

The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine provides students with discipline-specific residency programs. All VMRCVM residents must complete a graduate degree (M.S. or Ph.D.). Small-animal clinical residencies and large-animal clinical residencies are designed to provide three to four years of advanced training in specific disciplines in preparation for certification examination by appropriate specialty boards within the veterinary profession. The biomedical sciences and pathobiology residencies, which are part of a combined residency/Ph.D. program, prepare graduates for careers in veterinary clinical pathology or anatomic pathology. The Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center offers residency programs in equine internal medicine and surgery. These programs are fully approved by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and the American College of Veterinary Surgery.

VMRCVM internships are designed to provide post-D.V.M. students with the opportunity for experience in advanced diagnostic and therapeutic techniques in medicine and surgery as well as seminary and manuscript preparation. Internships are also aimed at providing students with training and experience in clinical instruction and preparing them for residency and graduate study or clinical practice.

American University of Antigua

In August 2009, the school started a relationship with the American University of Antigua

American University of Antigua College of Medicine

The American University of Antigua is a private institution of higher education located near the capital city of St. John's in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. AUA has schools of Medicine, Nursing, Veterinary Medicine, and a College of Arts & Sciences.-History:AUA was founded...

 (AUA) that permits students to attend AUA for their first four semesters and then transfer to VMRCVM for their last five semesters. Hence, students in this program will take nine semesters to complete the D.V.M. program instead of the eight semesters that are required of students who start in Blacksburg, and students at AUA start in January instead of September. Only five to seven transferring students are guaranteed third year slots in Blacksburg each fall, subject to the students maintaining high grades at AUA and passing the National Board of Medical Examiners

National Board of Medical Examiners

The National Board of Medical Examiners , founded in 1915, is a United States examination board which sets state recognised examinations for medical students. The NBME is an independent, not-for-profit organization and is headquartered on and adjacent to the University City Science Center research...

' Qualifying Examination. Graduates of this program receive their degrees from VMRCVM. AUA actively recruits students from the United States for this program and holds seminars for prospective U.S. students.

Hospitals

Students of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine can gain veterinary experience by working in one of the college’s hospitals: the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, which comprises the Small Animal Hospital and the Henry T. Peters Large Animal Hospital, or the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center.

Veterinary Teaching Hospital

The Veterinary Teach Hospital, which comprises the Small Animal Hospital and the Harry T. Peters, Jr. Large Animal Hospital, provides care to local clients within a 35-mile radius of Blacksburg. Since the hospital focuses on teaching, residents and interns work closely with clinical faculty members to provide care to small and large animals. Fourth-year veterinary students in the D.V.M. program spend their final year in three-week clerkships designed to give them hands-on experience; these students welcome patients, record a case history, and conduct the initial examination of the animal prior to consulting with the supervising veterinarian.

Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center

The Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center is a full-service equine hospital located in Leesburg, Va., that offers advanced specialty care, 24-hour emergency treatment and diagnostic services for all ages and breeds of horses. The center, which opened in 1984, has board-certified veterinarians in anesthesia, internal medicine, and surgery, as well as veterinarians in residency training programs and licensed veterinary technicians. Since the center’s inception, faculty members have played a key role in the development of both Marquis, the first FDA-approved treatment for equine protozoal myelitis, and GastroGard, a treatment for gastric ulcers, as well as advances in laser surgery joint disease, and treatments for lameness, colic, tumors, tendon and ligament injury, and antibiotic therapy.

Research

Students may also gain experience through the college’s various research centers, which are spread out across Virginia and Maryland. Under the leadership of the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the VMRCVM conducts a broad spectrum of basic/molecular and translational/applied research that is strongly focused on animal health and productivity, and human health and wellbeing.

Additionally, the school operates a library that is located in the Phase III Building of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine on the Blackburg campus. The library is a part of the Virginia Tech library system.

Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine

The Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine (CPCVM) is located on the College Park, Maryland campus of VMRCVM. Primarily, the CPCVM supervises the public and corporate track of the D.V.M. program. It also coordinates internship opportunities and provides summer fellowship experiences for veterinary students from across the United States as well as from several other countries.

Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases

The central theme of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases (CMMID) is “Animal Model of Diseases.” The faculty specializes in using various animal models that include not only traditional laboratory animal models (mice and rats), but also non-traditional (chickens, pigs, dogs, fish, crab, equine) animal models. CMMID employs animal models to better understand the disease processes that impact both humans and domesticated species. The center is geared toward addressing current problems in public health that require the use of appropriate animal and tissue culture models, as well as gene-expression analysis.

Center for Comparative Oncology

The Center for Comparative Oncology (CeCO) is an academic center for basic and clinical research on cancer. The center, which opened in 2002, unites a variety of cancer research programs on the Virginia Tech campus. The center’s mission is to study the development of cancer in animals and in people, to develop new ways to diagnose cancer and to find new treatments to control and cure it. John Robertson is the current director of CeCO.

Center for Reproductive Excellence Using Advanced Technology and Endocrinology

The Center for Reproductive Excellence using Advanced Technology and Endocrinology (CREATE) has three board-certified theriogenologists, each with their own research and species interests. The CREATE Lab offers advanced reproductive services—from breeding soundness and infertility evaluations to genetic counseling—for the following species: equine, bovine, canine, feline, ovine, and caprine.

Laboratory for Neurotoxicity Studies

The Virginia Tech Laboratory for Neurotoxicity Studies conducts investigations studying the effects of toxins on the nervous system. Currently, the laboratory is conducting interdisciplinary research in experimental neurotoxicology studying the effects of agents such as pesticides, solvents, heavy metals, mycotoxins, and nanomaterials in in vitro and in vivo models, funded by federal agencies and industries. Faculty with expertise in toxicology, pharmacology, neuropathology, and veterinary pathology conduct this work.

Veterinary Medical Informatics Laboratory

The Veterinary Medical Informatics Laboratory (VMIL) is an interdisciplinary research and service program within the Office of Research and Graduate Studies. VMIL studies conceptual and structural features of the medical information unique to animals. VMIL also assists in analysis and development of medical information models, databases, and systems. In addition to its research, VMIL acts as a service program by developing terminologies for veterinary organizations.

Future plans

The college is currently expanding its facility in Blacksburg through three building projects. The first is a $10.5 million infectious disease research facility that will be built adjacent to the teaching hospital complex. The construction began in August 2010 and is planned to be ready for occupancy in late 2011. The second project is a $14 million facility that will expand faculty office space and instructional space. The last project is a $70 million translational medicine building that will expand the teaching hospital and introduce new research space.

External links

• http://www.vetmed.vt.edu/