OPINION IN AMERICA ON VETERINARY SCHOOLS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29514, 16 May 1961, Page 6

OPINION IN AMERICA ON VETERINARY SCHOOLS

‘‘Of all the deans of veterinary schools in the United States and Canada. Dean Mark Ailam, of the Pennsylvania Veterinary School in Philadelphia, is the only one who is a strong proponent of the close association of veterinary medicine with medicine, as it occurs in Philadelphia,” said Professor J. W. McLean, head of the veterinary department at Canterbury Agricultural College, yesterday. He was commenting on a Press Association message from Dunedin which on Saturday reported that Dean Allam had told Professor E. G. Sayers, dean of the Medical School in Dunedin, that it was of the utmost importance that a veterinary college should be Sited close to a medical ■ school in preference to an agricultural college The message said •hat the letter in which Dean Allam conveyed this view had been passed on to the Minister of Agriculture 'Mr Hayman), in support of the case for New Zealand's veterinary school going to Otago.

“It might be pointed out,” said Professor McLean, who recently returned from the United States, where he spent 20 months acting as associate editor of the second edition of the “Merck Veterinary Manual,” "that the Pennsylvania School is now establishing a centre in the country about 35 miles out o( Philadelphia where they can do clinical instruction and research with large animals. This practice, which is proving a problem in a number of other schools, has the effect of splitting the faculty into two parts. ‘‘The deans of most of the other veterinary schools in North America in general favour the association with agriculture,” he said. Address Professor McLean is in a position to know how the deans think, for last August, while attending the national conference of the American Veterinary Medical Association. he addressed a meeting of all of the deans of veterinary colleges in the United

States and Canada on veterinary education and practice in New Zealand, Professor McLean, during his address, referred to the establishment of a school in New Zealand and the question of whether it should be associated with medicine or agriculture, and expressed the view that under New Zealand conditions agriculture had somewhat more to offer to veterinary science than medicine, and that veterinary science had more to offer to agriculture than to medicine. Where there were a number of schools, as in the United States. Professor McLean said, it was possible to have some of these associated with medicine and some with agriculture, and as • a consequence for their professional staff to specialise in those things which were more closely allied to medicine or agriculture.

“These views do not imply that medicine and agriculture cannot both derive considerable mutual benefit from an association of medicine and veterinary science, but it is felt that fdr New Zealand conditions and the type of training needed to prepare veterinarians for New Zealand conditions, where the emphasis is on large animal work, the association with agriculture appears to be preferable,” said Professor McLean.