Dr. Andy Allen, professor of anatomic pathology at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, will be spending six months at the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine while on sabbatical leave from the University of Saskatchewan. He will be collaborating with Dr. Beth Valentine on a couple of projects and interacting with the OSU diagnostic pathologists and students.
Dr. Allen and his family have spent previous sabbatical leaves at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center in Lexington, Kentucky. His work in Colorado focused on veterinary oncology and his time in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky allowed him to see horses, “a lot of horses.” He wanted to spend time in Oregon because it was a different region of the country with a different climate and a different range of animal diseases. “I’ve only been here about a month, but it appears that, compared to western Canada, animals in Oregon have heavier parasites burdens, more fungal diseases, and a little bit different range of bacterial infections. Today when I woke up it was 25 below zero in Saskatoon compared to 40° here in Corvallis. It makes a difference,” explained Allen.
“The other benefits of these sabbatical leaves are to network with scholarly veterinarians, see how other veterinary schools and diagnostic laboratories operate, and just to change things up a little bit and allow me to spend more time with my wife and three kids,” Allen added. “Each move has been progressively more difficult as my children got older, but I think we’re all better for it in the long run.”
