After completing the first online certificate in shelter medicine in the world, UF graduates are ready to unleash their newfound skills on homeless pets.
About 30 veterinarians and veterinary students recently graduated from UF Maddie’s Online Graduate Certificate Shelter Medicine Program.
Terry Spencer, Maddie’s clinical assistant professor of shelter medicine and distance learning director, said the program started in 2012 to provide students with the skills needed to assist shelters with the health and welfare of homeless animals.
“When I graduated in 1995, no one even mentioned shelter medicine,” Spencer said. “Now it’s really burgeoning.”
Classes provided by the program cover topics such as diagnosing infectious diseases common in shelters, recognizing animal cruelty and identifying problematic animal behavior.
Students are not required to be enrolled at UF.
Degrees cost about $5,000 and take about a year to complete if a student took one class a semester, she said.
“They can’t get this training anywhere else,” Spencer said. “What they learned in these courses has changed how they handle animals.”
Past students range from veterinarians with private practices assisting shelters in their area to students being employed by shelters in different countries, Spencer said.
Ken Sieranski, a 26-year-old UF Maddie’s Shelter Medicine intern, was a part of the first group of students to graduate in December with the online program.
“I would love to see this program spread across the country,” he said. “Students can get a foundation that is not offered anywhere else.”
The online graduate program was started with the help of Maddie’s Fund, which provided more than $5 million for the UF’s Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program in 2008.
Amie Burling, Maddie’s Shelter Medicine resident, said more veterinarians need to be educated on shelter medicine.
“So many new advances have been made in ways to raise the level of care and welfare of animals,” Burling said. “It’s a matter of getting information out to the people on the field.”
Spencer said she expects many students to proceed with their studies for a master’s degree concentration in shelter medicine, which UF will launch this summer.
She said the information students retain from the online graduate certificate program will help animals receive a positive outcome from shelters.
“If you were to think of the No. 1 cause of mortality for animals, it’s having lived in animal shelters and homelessness,” she said. “We can do something about this.”
A version of this story ran on page 5 on 1/14/2014 under the headline "Class graduates from UF online animal shelter medicine program"
