Vet Gazette

Congratulations to Rebecca Camden, who recently received the OSU Joan Austin Honorary Alumni Award!

Ms. Camden is a CVM advisory board member, and an invaluable volunteer, supporter, and friend of the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Ms. Camden frequently attends college events, where she pretty much knows everyone, and is genuinely interested in visiting with veterinary students and hearing about their education.

Ms. Camden recently endowed the Maude Camden Memorial Scholarship, in honor of her rescue dog Maude. It provides support for veterinary medicine students with interest in shelter medicine and rescue animals.

“People don’t go into veterinary medicine because they want to make money; it’s because they love animals. And that’s all the more true for students with a heart for shelter medicine. It’s even more important to support their education,” Rebecca says. “For many of us, companion animals are our family. We want to be sure they have outstanding health care.”

For Rebecca, the concept of family has grown even larger. “When people ask me if I have children, I say I have 224 – the college’s whole student body,” she says.

Treven Tryon helps a visiting family learn to do canine CPR.

The College of Veterinary Medicine joined the rest of campus in providing hands-on activities to families visiting for Juntos ( “together” in Spanish) Family Day last weekend.

The fun-filled day is part of a larger program at OSU that works to empower families through knowledge, skills, and resources, with a goal of encouraging their kids to attend college.

Moms, Dads, big and little kids, had opportunities to try CPR on a dog dummy, stitch up a split banana with surgery tools, and take a tour of the anatomy lab where they tried to identify skeletons. Student and faculty volunteers were on hand to help.

The large animal hospital is evaluating the efficacy of vitamin E and selenium supplementation (or lack thereof) on blood concentrations of these substances in horses in the Pacific Northwest, while concurrently accumulating information about supplementation practices from owners and veterinarians by means of a survey tool. Both horse owners and veterinarians are encouraged to participate. Costs of testing will be covered in the trial with results provided to participants.

Contact: Dr. Erica McKenzie at 541 737 4809 or erica.mckenzie@oregonstate.edu

Dr. Jean Hall, professor of physiology, has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM). “It is a huge surprise, and a humbling experience,” says Dr. Hall.

Dr. Hall has been at OSU for 27 years. In 1997, she volunteered for the ACVIM Forum Program committee, and ended up chairing that committee for many years. She later served a 5-year term on the executive board of ACVIM, starting as Vice-President, and ascending to Chairman of the Board of Regents. “During this time transformational leadership was needed to elevate our central organization to a new plateau of management,” she says. “We relocated our servers from Canada to the US, settled some lawsuits, and replaced the entire management team in the central office at the recommendation of an outside consulting agency.”

Dr. Hall has also been involved in veterinary leadership at the state level, serving on the OVMA Board of Directors for eight years, before being elected President in 2015. She is currently serving as Immediate Past President of the OVMA, with goals of diversifying the revenue stream, forming a mentoring group of volunteers for veterinarians and students, and starting college-funded, summer externships for students to connect with practices in the more rural regions of Oregon.

Dr. Brian Dolan, assistant professor of immunology, recently received a five-year. $1.8 million grant from the NIH to explore the cellular biology of antigen presentation.

“It is the process by which the cells of the body alert the adaptive immune system to the presence of viral infections or oncogenic transformations,” says Dolan.  “By discovering the fundamental details governing antigen presentation, we hope to enhance immunotherapies that rely on T-cells to eliminate infected or transformed cells.”