The Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges will present the 2019 AAVMC Annual Conference and Iverson Bell Symposium March 6-10 at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Registration information can be found here. The conference will focus on several key areas, including cultural competency, the hidden curriculum, climate, and health and wellness issues. Experts from around the world share new ideas on veterinary recruitment and admissions, especially as it relates to building diversity and inclusion in veterinary medicine. The Iverson Bell Symposium, first held in 1972, is named for the first African-American veterinarian to hold the position of Vice President of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The primary goal of the conference is to promote diversity and inclusion in academic veterinary medicine. The AAVMC Board of Directors meets on March 6, the annual Advocacy Summit will be held on March 7, meeting programming will be held March 8-10, and the Veterinary Medical Career Fair will be held on March 10. For more information please contact the program manager Leslie Wilson at lwilson@aavmc.org.

A regional meeting is planned in Cairo from 5-6 December 2018 on the topic "The Road Toward Accreditation, Educational OIE Twinning, Royal Veterinary College/UK and Jordan University of Science and Technology/Jordan." For more information contact Ehab Abu-Basha at abubasha@just.edu.jo

A 2-day clinical skills workshop will be held at Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (CVASU) in Bangladesh by members of Bristol Veterinary School's clinical skills team (Sarah Baillie and Alison Catterall) with assistance from Bibek Chandra Sutradhar and the local team. The workshop will be presented in January 2019 and is being attended by delegates from the 10 veterinary schools in Bangladesh. The aim of the workshop is to promote approaches to clinical skills teaching that will benefit animal welfare and enhance student learning. The workshop activities include how models can be used in clinical skills teaching, how to make some low-cost models, using evidence-based techniques to teach clinical skills and designing a clinical skills room or facility for each delegate's university. A survey will be used to gather feedback during and after the workshop. The workshop is supported by a travel grant from the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW, UK).

The 7th REEV-Med General Assembly (Mediterranean Network of Establishments for Veterinary Education) coupled with the Mediterranean Veterinary Congress will be held at Kırıkkale - Turkey 13-14 December 2018. For more information contact Ehab Abu-Basha at abubasha@just.edu.jo

The Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, will  host a student wellness and communication skills training and assessment workshop at its Skills Laboratory on the Onderstepoort campus on 18-19 February 2019. Speakers and facilitators include Julie Cary from the School of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, USA; Karen Bordeaux and Munashe Chigerwe, both from the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California - Davis, USA; and Kate May, Ken Pettey and Annett Annandale, all from the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Registration is free. For more information and registrations please contact Alet Wannenburg at alet.wannenburg@up.ac.za

The 7th Pan Commonwealth Veterinary Conference of the Commonwealth Veterinary Association will be held in Bangalore, India 3-7 March, 2019. The theme of the meeting is "The Role of veterinarians in addressing the global challenges to the lives of our pets, livestock, wildlife, humans and our environment." This conference will host participants from all 55 member countries of the Commonwealth Veterinary Association (CVA) in addition to special invitees and speakers from other parts of the world. The Scientific Programme will address the challenges that the veterinary profession is facing in global health, animal production, climate change, food safety and security, and anti-microbial resistance. Parallel sessions will include topics on animal welfare, companion animals, and veterinary education. In addition, workshops on veterinary dentistry, welfare of working equids and animal welfare research are also planned. Read more. Click here to visit our website.

	Photo credit: Veterinary History Society of Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute.

Rinderpest was the first, and is the only animal disease that has been eradicated worldwide due to successful international collaboration through the eradication campaign of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). In February 2017, the OIE initiated the development of a new rinderpest awareness campaign, the "Never Turn Back" campaign, dedicated to assisting the 182 OIE member countries in keeping the history and impact of the disease alive. As part of this campaign, the OIE developed an online game that aimed to help the world remain free from rinderpest by ensuring that the memory of this disease is still vivid in the minds of new generations of veterinarians and laboratory technicians. Even though it has been eradicated, it is critically important that key players in the animal health community remain fully aware of the role that they still must play in this post-eradication era. The game was live from 4 October to 1 November 2018. The Rinderpest Challenge was a successful example of a world-wide online educational game aimed at veterinary students and laboratory technicians, with participants from 89 countries around the globe. The game could be played online or on a mobile app, and the incentive was a sponsored trip to Paris during the OIE General Session in May 2019. Read more.

Journal of Veterinary Medical Education (JVME) 45(2) DOI: 10.3138/jvme.1016-166r1

Annett Annandale, C. Henry Annandale, Geoffrey T. Fosgate, Dietmar E. Holm

Abstract

To optimize bovine pregnancy diagnosis (PD) training, factors influencing student performance were investigated. The objective was to determine whether training method, gender, background (farm, urban, or mixed), previous experience in bovine PD, and current career interest influenced the accuracy of bovine PD by trans-rectal palpation (TRP). Fourth-year (of a 6-year program) veterinary students (n=138) received one PD training session in groups using either simulator training on Breed'n Betsy (BB) or training on live cows (C). Students completed a questionnaire on gender, background, and career interest. Students' PD accuracy (pregnancy status and stage) was determined after training when each student palpated six cows with known pregnancy status. Students' accuracy in determining pregnancy status was measured as sensitivity and specificity (the ability to correctly identify the presence and absence of pregnancy respectively). Factors that influenced overall accuracy with a higher student sensitivity of bovine PD by TRP were training method, farming background, an interest in a mixed animal career, and stage of gestation. Gender of students and previous experience in bovine PD did not have an influence. Training on BB simulators was associated with lower student sensitivity for pregnancy detection in cows <6 months pregnant. Student sensitivity for pregnancy detection in cows >6 months pregnant was similar for training on BB simulators and live cows. No evaluated factors were significantly associated with specificity of PD. Teaching efforts focusing on specificity of PD and repeated simulator-based training in conjunction with live cow exposure are recommended.

Key words: veterinary education, bovine pregnancy diagnosis, Breed'n Betsy rectal examination simulator, veterinary students, simulation, demographic

(Abstract reprinted courtesy of the JVME)

The INVEST 2018 conference was recently held at Lincoln Memorial University's College of Veterinary Medicine in Tennessee. Dean Jason Johnson and his faculty and staff put on a wonderful experience for clinical skills educators and those interested in veterinary simulation and teaching. The conference featured keynote talks from Dr. Claire Vinten of the Royal Veterinary College regarding developing clinical reasoning; Mr. Jonathan Greene and Dr. Chris Younts of Lincoln Memorial University - DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine regarding effective delivery of simulation; and Dr. Julie Cary of Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine regarding facilitation and debriefing in simulation. The conference featured 1½ days of talks and networking at the Knoxville LMU campus, and a hands-on day at the DeBusk Veterinary Teaching Center in Ewing, Virginia. The model making center and skills lab were a special highlight! Poster presentations from across the globe highlighted the significant advances being made in model making and educational research in many colleges. It is great to see the progress that has been made since the original gathering of educators in 2010. A special thanks to the group at Lincoln Memorial for making this a very memorable and social event! If you are interested in hosting the next INVEST Conference please send your name and a brief description of your proposed event to Dr. Dean Hendrickson at Dean.Hendrickson@ColoState.EDU The advisory board for INVEST will gladly consider all proposals in selecting the next site.

- Written by Emma Read

CIVME core members who met at Utrecht University included, left to right, Dietmar Holm (Africa), Stephen May (back row, UK/Ireland), Harold Bok (continental Europe), Ehab Abu-Basha (back row, Middle East/North Africa), Rafael Mondadori (Central, Latin and South America, Caribbean), Paul Mills (far back, Australia/New Zealand), Nitish Debnath (Asia), Emma Read (USA/Canada), Andy Maccabe (CEO of AAVMC) and Francisco Trigo (Central, Latin and South America, Caribbean).

The core members and some alternate members of the Council on International Veterinary Medical Education (CIVME) met in Utrecht, the Netherlands on 25-26 October 2018, where they were hosted by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University. The group were welcomed by the Deputy Dean for Education Professor Wim Kremer, and Andy Maccabe, the CEO of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC), represented the AAVMC board at the meeting. Core members from 8 international regions participated in the meeting, where the following matters were amongst those on the agenda:

- Written by Dietmar Holm

Annett Annandale was born in Neindorf, Germany, and obtained her MedVet from the University of Leipzig and later her DrMetVet from the VetSuisse Faculty, University of Zurich in Switzerland. She moved to South Africa in 2004 where she entered a residency in Theriogenology in the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital to become a Diplomate of the American College of Theriogenologists (ACT) in 2007 and obtained her MSc from the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, in 2010. Whilst maintaining her clinical skills in her specialist discipline, Annett took the position of Manager of the then brand new Skills Laboratory at the same Faculty in November 2014 from where she very quickly established herself as an educational expert in clinical skills training and particularly in model development and validation. Annett was instrumental in establishing a unique business relationship between Anatomoulds and the University of Pretoria, combined with a community engagement project employing and empowering people from less privileged communities around Pretoria. This relationship allowed her creativity to excel and she has developed numerous novel concepts in veterinary simulator training in collaboration with Anatomoulds. Read more.

- Written by Dietmar Holm

The Council on International Veterinary Medical Education (CIVME) has announced that it is accepting grant proposals for the third annual cycle of the CIVME Research Grant Program, which supports projects that promote international collaboration in veterinary medical education. Total project budgets should not exceed $10,000 and are limited for a maximum period of 24 months. The application deadline is January 30, 2019 at 11 a.m. EST. Detailed information on the program is available here. Preference will be given to applications that represent collaborative efforts between institutions and across regions. Potential applicants interested in collaboration but lacking partners are invited to contact CIVME at CIVME-grant@aavmc.org for assistance. Proposals will be evaluated on criteria that include relevance, impact, fit with CIVME goals, feasibility, risk analysis, and others. Funded proposals will be announced during the AAVMC's March 2019 annual meeting and in other communications. The Council on International Veterinary Medical Education (CIVME) is an AAVMC initiative that seeks to promote and share best practices in veterinary medical education around the world. The council promotes:

• Communication and collaboration that advances international veterinary medical education
• Collaboration among educational researchers
• Dissemination of innovations and other educational advances among international members

Click here to examine an application timeline.