One Health, One World Symposium

Oregon State's International Veterinary Student Association (IVSA) is holding their first symposium April 8th-10th. Entitled "One Health, One World", the symposium will explore international opportunities for health professionals and students in veterinary medicine.

IVSA members Julia Mulvaney and Kate Schoenhals discuss how the symposium came about, some of the topics from their world-renowned speakers, and how people can get involved in this global endeavor. EVT presents their web-exclusive interview.

1. What challenges came with starting the annual Oregon IVSA “One Health, One World Service” Symposium? As we can see, this year is the first, which is very exciting. 

Julia Mulvaney
• I think our biggest challenge this year was deciding what to focus on – the One Health One World idea is very broad, and we only have a few days address the important issues. The idea was to provide a relevant curriculum for our students who will be working in Nicaragua in this summer, but that would also appeal to the greater health professional community, as we are looking to expand our collaboration with the medical and public health fields.

Kate Schoenhals
• I’d really like to see more excitement and involvement of students outside the veterinary realm. We received amazing support and response when we went looking for speakers for the event and I was hoping to get similar interest from the students whether veterinary, pharmacy or public health. I am not sure if it is a lack of appropriate advertising venues on our part or something else – I just want more people with which we can brainstorm and collaborate!

2. Are there particular reasons why the IVSA created the symposium at this time?

Kate Schoenhals
• The more students become actively involved in the trip, the more capable we are of creating and accomplishing new tasks. I believe it was Sonja Lapinski (outgoing IVSA co-president) who suggested the idea and the rest of the group decided we were game for the task. I think we were also encouraged to do something like this because we’ve outgrown our capacity to provide a service opportunity for the level of interest in the trip. You can only take so many students to Ometepe at one time and thus, we need to gather information and resources about other opportunities for students to contribute and also share what insight we have to other veterinary students wanting to create their own trip.

3. How many nations do you expect to be represented in this international gathering?

Julia Mulvaney
• We hope several! If not, we certainly hope to gain knowledge from our speakers who have had much experience in the practice of veterinary medicine abroad.

4. You have impressive speakers lined up for April 2011. Dr. Graham from Zoonotic Disease Control in Liberia, Dr. Hodgson from Kabul University, Drs. Ward and Morais in Emerging Zoonoses, among others. Can you offer some thoughts on what were the criteria for inviting speakers to the 1st Annual IVSA Symposium?

Kate Schoenhals
• We have always hosted a series of seminars in order to prepare students for the Nicaragua trip. This year, we used some of those contacts to instigate this symposium. As a result, we uncovered some untapped resources. For instance, the anesthesiologist at Oregon State went to veterinary school with Dr. Hodgson and we came in contact with Christi Camblor, CEO of Compassion without Borders, via one of the vets that came to Nicaragua with us. It was very much a word of mouth, friend of mine – type networking that linked us to some pretty impressive individuals. It’s actually pretty amazing how connected the veterinary community is once you start asking around.

5. To bring things a little closer to home, which speakers have local ties here to OSU?

Julia Mulvaney
• Dr. Bree Beechler is one of the founding members of OSU IVSA and currently is working in South Africa on her phD in wildlife disease and ecology. We are very excited to welcome Bree back to Oregon and hear about how her work is progressing.
• Drs. De Morais and Bermudez are both faculty members here at OSU.
• Dr. Bachman has joined us on the last two trips to Ometepe, although he lives in California when he is not engaged in his numerous international travels.
• Bruce Mueller is an OSU alumnus from class of 1986.

6. What might be some ideas for service work in the international setting, for the students and professionals?

Julia Mulvaney
• For students, there are certainly many established groups such as Veterinarians without Borders, World Vets, or Christian Veterinary Missions that organize service trips that students can participate in, which is a great way to expose yourself to the work. Although our group is pretty unique currently, we are hoping to encourage other veterinary schools to set up similar programs to our so that veterinarians can become involved early in their careers. As several of our speakers will attest to, practicing medicine abroad through the armed services or through the Peace Corps is another option for veterinarians.

Kate Schoenhals
• We are hoping to uncover (and maybe even create?) more at the symposium! One of our main goals at this symposium is to facilitate conversation and communication amongst like-minded individuals such that no one has to re-invent the wheel and information about opportunities in need of volunteers can be spread!

7. How has new social media helped in gathering together people and resources for the IVSA symposium? Can you give us a few examples?

Julia Mulvaney
• We are just getting going in fully utilizing the social media to our advantage in advertising and promoting OSU IVSA. We definitely have used Facebook to promote fundraising events we hold locally here in Corvallis, as well as to connect with veterinary students from other schools to encourage their participation in our symposium.

 Kate Schoenhals
• We utilize google applications like google docs, google wave, gmail, etc. to an intense degree. Of course Facebook, etc. is helpful for advertising, communicating and networking. Google, however, has been instrumental in our ability to communicate as an executive board as well as create web forms, surveys and other organizational tools to facilitate Nicaragua trip planning as well as the Symposium.

8. Outside of the invited guests and participants, can anyone with an interest in zoonotic diseases and international veterinary medicine attend?

Julia Mulvaney
• Absolutely! We welcome anyone who is interested to attend.

Kate Schoenhals
• I feel like I am not alone in stating that we really want participants outside the veterinary realm to attend. While the talks will be veterinary focused, I think having the perspective from people outside the field would be tremendously helpful and informative!

9. What parting thoughts would you like to leave us with for today regarding this One Health, One World Service Symposium for 2011?

Kate Schoenhals
• Thanks for showing interest in the event and our club!

10. Any famous quotations coming to mind to sum everything up?

Julia Mulvaney
• "Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. They are, in fact, the only ones who ever have..." —Margaret Mead

Coming soon...the Oregon IVSA's clinical work on Ometepe Island, Nicaragua!