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News & Reports shelter medicine
UK charity vets get a US perspective on shelter medicine Shelter medicine is very much a recognised discipline within veterinary medicine in the USA, with increasing numbers of veterinary students receiving specific teaching in the field. Delegates at the second meeting of the Association of Charity Vets, which was held at Nottingham veterinary school in November last year, learned more about the US approach to this evolving field SHELTER medicine is riding ‘the crest of a wave’ at present and a ‘revolution in animal welfare’ is underway. This was the view expressed by Annette Litster, director of the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at Purdue University, who had been invited to the meeting to give the US perspective on shelter medicine. Tracing the history of the development of shelter medicine as a specific field within veterinary medicine, Dr Litster explained that the Association of Shelter Veterinarians in the USA had been formed in 2001 and now had more than 800 members and 22 student chapters worldwide. The association had been a powerful driver of education and support for veterinarians who worked in shelters. More than half of the 28 vet schools in the USA offered shelter medicine courses and 24 of the schools were involved with shelter medicine in some way. Maddie’s Fund, which sponsored the shelter medicine programme at Purdue, was a private initiative, which had been established by Dave and Cheryl Duffield and named after their miniature schnauzer. The fund currently had about US $400 million available, dedicated to helping animal shelters and educating vets, students and the wider community about animal welfare and how to revolutionise the status and wellbeing of companion animals. By about 2015, the USA would essentially be in a position to offer a guarantee of adoption for healthy dogs, said Dr Litster. ‘A big part of that has been the programmes that Maddie’s Fund has put into place.’ The Association of Shelter Veterinarians had drawn up what Dr Litster described as ‘landmark animal welfare documents’ giving guidance on neutering programmes for animals in shelters and on the standards of care in animal shelters. The standards document had taken three years to put together, she said, and was an evidencebased, living document that was regularly updated. Spay-neuter programmes were very much a focus of shelter medicine in the 60 | Veterinary Record | January 18, 2014
USA, she said. It was well known that neutered animals had a much better chance of finding a home. The procedure was high volume, but also high quality, and the complication rate experienced was ‘vanishingly low’. One of Dr Litster’s colleagues had performed 100 spay-neuter procedures (a mixture of dogs and cats, pyometras and other complications) in a nine-hour day. ‘Everyone got up and went to homes afterwards,’ she reported. The shelter medicine programme at Purdue had three main aims. It aimed to educate and train future leaders in shelter medicine; it conducted practical and relevant research; and it wanted to develop leadership in public education, by offering courses in shelter medicine for staff who worked at shelters as well as for veterinarians. ‘We want to be a source of continuing education for everyone who works with shelter animals,’ she said. She described the education and training that the programme delivered to its students
as well as some of the research that was being done. Purdue offered fellowships, residencies and externships in shelter medicine and there were also a number of PhD research projects under way. After Dr Litster’s presentation, Chris Laurence, formerly veterinary director of the Dogs Trust, commented that there appeared to be a high level of collaboration regarding animal shelters in the USA. He explained that a challenge in the UK was getting local government involved with shelters and related issues and he asked how this was achieved in the USA. Dr Litster explained that, in the USA, one or two shelters in a local community would hold a local government contract to take in all stray animals in that area. These shelters would have the local animal control officers. ‘By their very nature there is at least one shelter in the community that is tied to the local government and working side by side as a local government contractor.’ This meant that there was
Improving the lot of shelter animals Dr Litster also discussed the Asilomar Accords, which she described as being ‘at the very heart of shelter medicine’ in the USA. The Asilomar Accords, she explained, were a US scheme for working out locally based, ethical ways of ensuring that animals received fair and equitable resources in a local community. The accords had been drawn up to help move animal welfare forward in the charitable environment. They provided guidelines for classifying shelter animals, as ‘healthy’, ‘treatable-rehabilitatable’, ‘treatable-manageable’ and ‘unhealthy and untreatable’. This allowed shelters to produce annual statistics and track their progress. This provided transparency of information for the media, for donors and for local officials. ‘It’s not about comparing shelters, its about moving forward and doing whatever you need
to do to reduce euthanasia rates in your local community,’ said Dr Litster. Donors would not give money blindly to organisations that hid things, she added. ‘Transparency is really a major growth stimulant for animal welfare organisations and shelters in the United States at least,’ she said. Being able to categorise shelter animals also meant that individual shelters could select a category of animal that they would guarantee not to euthanase on the basis of the resources available to them and what was appropriate for the local community. For some shelters, this might only be healthy animals, but others might be able to guarantee no euthanasia for all four categories.
n More information about the Asilomar Accords can be found at www. asilomaraccords.org
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News & Reports already a partnership between local government and the shelters. Other speakers at the meeting, which attracted more than 80 delegates, included Jill Maddison, from the Royal Veterinary College, who discussed a problem-based approach to clinical decision making, and Steve Howard, from the PDSA, who considered the problems posed by diarrhoea in the charitable environment. Jenny Stavisky, who has recently been appointed
as the UK’s first lecturer in shelter medicine at Nottingham veterinary school, discussed the specific problem of canine diarrhoea in shelters, and Allison German, of Liverpool veterinary school considered ‘Problems with poo’ in cats. Responding to suggestions made at the first Association of Charity Vets meeting in February 2013, the organisers included a series of discussion workshops in the afternoon to allow delegates to consider a
number of issues in more detail. Subjects covered were the law relating to strays; approaches to euthanasia; the pragmatic use of tests; and early neutering. The meeting concluded with a discussion of how the association could be taken forward, how many meetings a year should be held and their format, the development of its website and also fees for membership. doi: 10.1136/vr.g244
January 18, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 61
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 17, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
UK charity vets get a US perspective on shelter medicine Veterinary Record 2014 174: 60-61
doi: 10.1136/vr.g244 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/174/3/60
These include:
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Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
News & Reports shelter medicine
UK charity vets get a US perspective on shelter medicine Shelter medicine is very much a recognised discipline within veterinary medicine in the USA, with increasing numbers of veterinary students receiving specific teaching in the field. Delegates at the second meeting of the Association of Charity Vets, which was held at Nottingham veterinary school in November last year, learned more about the US approach to this evolving field SHELTER medicine is riding ‘the crest of a wave’ at present and a ‘revolution in animal welfare’ is underway. This was the view expressed by Annette Litster, director of the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at Purdue University, who had been invited to the meeting to give the US perspective on shelter medicine. Tracing the history of the development of shelter medicine as a specific field within veterinary medicine, Dr Litster explained that the Association of Shelter Veterinarians in the USA had been formed in 2001 and now had more than 800 members and 22 student chapters worldwide. The association had been a powerful driver of education and support for veterinarians who worked in shelters. More than half of the 28 vet schools in the USA offered shelter medicine courses and 24 of the schools were involved with shelter medicine in some way. Maddie’s Fund, which sponsored the shelter medicine programme at Purdue, was a private initiative, which had been established by Dave and Cheryl Duffield and named after their miniature schnauzer. The fund currently had about US $400 million available, dedicated to helping animal shelters and educating vets, students and the wider community about animal welfare and how to revolutionise the status and wellbeing of companion animals. By about 2015, the USA would essentially be in a position to offer a guarantee of adoption for healthy dogs, said Dr Litster. ‘A big part of that has been the programmes that Maddie’s Fund has put into place.’ The Association of Shelter Veterinarians had drawn up what Dr Litster described as ‘landmark animal welfare documents’ giving guidance on neutering programmes for animals in shelters and on the standards of care in animal shelters. The standards document had taken three years to put together, she said, and was an evidencebased, living document that was regularly updated. Spay-neuter programmes were very much a focus of shelter medicine in the 60 | Veterinary Record | January 18, 2014
USA, she said. It was well known that neutered animals had a much better chance of finding a home. The procedure was high volume, but also high quality, and the complication rate experienced was ‘vanishingly low’. One of Dr Litster’s colleagues had performed 100 spay-neuter procedures (a mixture of dogs and cats, pyometras and other complications) in a nine-hour day. ‘Everyone got up and went to homes afterwards,’ she reported. The shelter medicine programme at Purdue had three main aims. It aimed to educate and train future leaders in shelter medicine; it conducted practical and relevant research; and it wanted to develop leadership in public education, by offering courses in shelter medicine for staff who worked at shelters as well as for veterinarians. ‘We want to be a source of continuing education for everyone who works with shelter animals,’ she said. She described the education and training that the programme delivered to its students
as well as some of the research that was being done. Purdue offered fellowships, residencies and externships in shelter medicine and there were also a number of PhD research projects under way. After Dr Litster’s presentation, Chris Laurence, formerly veterinary director of the Dogs Trust, commented that there appeared to be a high level of collaboration regarding animal shelters in the USA. He explained that a challenge in the UK was getting local government involved with shelters and related issues and he asked how this was achieved in the USA. Dr Litster explained that, in the USA, one or two shelters in a local community would hold a local government contract to take in all stray animals in that area. These shelters would have the local animal control officers. ‘By their very nature there is at least one shelter in the community that is tied to the local government and working side by side as a local government contractor.’ This meant that there was
Improving the lot of shelter animals Dr Litster also discussed the Asilomar Accords, which she described as being ‘at the very heart of shelter medicine’ in the USA. The Asilomar Accords, she explained, were a US scheme for working out locally based, ethical ways of ensuring that animals received fair and equitable resources in a local community. The accords had been drawn up to help move animal welfare forward in the charitable environment. They provided guidelines for classifying shelter animals, as ‘healthy’, ‘treatable-rehabilitatable’, ‘treatable-manageable’ and ‘unhealthy and untreatable’. This allowed shelters to produce annual statistics and track their progress. This provided transparency of information for the media, for donors and for local officials. ‘It’s not about comparing shelters, its about moving forward and doing whatever you need
to do to reduce euthanasia rates in your local community,’ said Dr Litster. Donors would not give money blindly to organisations that hid things, she added. ‘Transparency is really a major growth stimulant for animal welfare organisations and shelters in the United States at least,’ she said. Being able to categorise shelter animals also meant that individual shelters could select a category of animal that they would guarantee not to euthanase on the basis of the resources available to them and what was appropriate for the local community. For some shelters, this might only be healthy animals, but others might be able to guarantee no euthanasia for all four categories.
n More information about the Asilomar Accords can be found at www. asilomaraccords.org
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 17, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
News & Reports already a partnership between local government and the shelters. Other speakers at the meeting, which attracted more than 80 delegates, included Jill Maddison, from the Royal Veterinary College, who discussed a problem-based approach to clinical decision making, and Steve Howard, from the PDSA, who considered the problems posed by diarrhoea in the charitable environment. Jenny Stavisky, who has recently been appointed
as the UK’s first lecturer in shelter medicine at Nottingham veterinary school, discussed the specific problem of canine diarrhoea in shelters, and Allison German, of Liverpool veterinary school considered ‘Problems with poo’ in cats. Responding to suggestions made at the first Association of Charity Vets meeting in February 2013, the organisers included a series of discussion workshops in the afternoon to allow delegates to consider a
number of issues in more detail. Subjects covered were the law relating to strays; approaches to euthanasia; the pragmatic use of tests; and early neutering. The meeting concluded with a discussion of how the association could be taken forward, how many meetings a year should be held and their format, the development of its website and also fees for membership. doi: 10.1136/vr.g244
January 18, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 61
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 17, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
UK charity vets get a US perspective on shelter medicine Veterinary Record 2014 174: 60-61
doi: 10.1136/vr.g244 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/174/3/60
These include:
Email alerting service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
