LSU–SVM Shelter Medicine Program

We read with interest the recent article, ‘‘Training Veterinary Students in Shelter Medicine: A Service-Learning Community-Classroom Technique.’’1 The authors are to be commended for developing a strong program that introduces students to the discipline of shelter medicine while focusing on primary care skills in a service-learning paradigm. However, the authors state, ‘‘We believe this program to be unique in the field of shelter-medicine clinical rotations. To our knowledge, it is the only program that treats shelter medicine as a true field service rotation with the focus on primary care skills including behavioral evaluation.’’1(p.88) While the program they describe meets the needs of local shelters and education of veterinary students in primary care, it is certainly not the first nor only program to do this. In a partnership with the Humane Society of the United States, the Louisiana State University (LSU) School of Veterinary Medicine started a shelter medicine program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that was formalized in May of 2007. The shelter program has continually provided field service to over 30 shelters and rescue organizations in Louisiana with 10 of those 30 shelters visited every 2 weeks. The rotation is a 2-week field service, servicelearning rotation offered 46 weeks of the year for fourthyear students. It provides medical exams and primary care medicine and surgery as well as spay/neuter surgeries for shelter animals; it offers management and welfare consulting for the shelters enrolled in the program; and it serves as a resource to the State of Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals while providing a solid learning experience for students about the unique issues that affect shelter animals and the communities that the shelters serve. Our program also addresses management, legal, and welfare issues; works with community elected officials; teaches humane euthanasia; and provides educational seminars for shelter workers and volunteers on behavior testing, topics in nutrition, and recognizing infectious and zoonotic diseases in shelter pets. The students are integral to these educational efforts, and in the process of working with the shelters they see how much a veterinarian can do for their communities through working with the local shelters. The program at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is outstanding, but it is hardly the only one to have such a broad mission. In fact, the Dean of NCSU spent time at LSU exploring our program in developing the vision of what the program at NCSU should look like. Shelters are ideal venues for teaching students more than just surgical skills, and we are pleased that NCSU has developed a program that takes advantage of the many opportunities that shelters offer. We trust that veterinary students at NCSU are benefiting greatly just as students at LSU have benefited from a similar program for the past 8 years.