Registration is now open for the 2017 AAVMC Annual Conference & Iverson Bell Symposium. This year's meeting will be held March 10-12, 2017, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Themed "Building a Diverse Workforce to Serve Global Needs," the conference provides the ultimate forum for veterinary medical educators to share ideas, explore best practices, build professional networks and leverage their talents and perspectives. Register now to join thought leaders and colleagues for this one-of-a-kind event in academic veterinary medicine. Learn more.

Ever stop to think about all the document development, management and circulation involved as a board of directors,12 standing committees, 13 staff-members and various working groups conduct the business of the organized academic veterinary medical community? To streamline those processes, the AAVMC has introduced "AAVMC Engage," a dynamic new information management tool designed to help AAVMC leaders, volunteers and staff more efficiently accomplish their work. Users can locate and share both archived and active documents, access calendars and schedules, and collaborate freely with colleagues. Learn more.

A quick glance at the cover of the winter edition of the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education (JVME) says something significant about the international orientation of modern academic veterinary medicine. The issue includes eight manuscripts from countries with AAVMC member institutions and 11 manuscripts from contributors in other countries. But that didn't occur as the result of a deliberate act. Instead, it occurred as the natural outcome of standard editorial board processes. JVME Editor Dr. Daryl Buss views the growing international orientation as the result of the journal's continued evolution and progress. Learn more.

	CIVME leadership

AAVMC staff responsibility for supporting the new Council on International Veterinary Medical Education (CIVME) rests upon Director of Admissions and Recruitment Affairs Tony Wynne, who also coordinates international activities associated with admissions. Wynne recently spent 12 days in Great Britain and Ireland, where he facilitated CIVME's second major meeting and met with officials at the Royal Veterinary College in London, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and University College of Dublin in Ireland. Learn more.

The AAVMC's 2016 Annual Report has been published in both print and digital formats. The publication has been posted on the website and is available by clicking on the promotional home page rotator graphic or searching within the publications menu. Sufficient copies of the print edition will be mailed to member institution heads in mid-December so they can share it with members of their leadership teams and other university officials. The AAVMC also mails the print edition to a number of allied organizations and friends. Unfortunately a graph included on page 14 of the publication contains an error, which has been corrected on the digital edition. Learn more.

When a mysterious pathogen emerges from a tropical rain forest in some distant region of the world, medical investigators and emergency response personnel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are often the first on the scene. And given the zoonotic nature of most of these disease threats, veterinarians are usually a key part of the team. To encourage student interest and build awareness about public practice careers, the CDC in Atlanta began presenting Veterinary Students Day at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2006. The 2017 program will be held January 22-23 on CDC's Atlanta campus, and this year, as it has several times in the past, the AAVMC is sponsoring the program. Learn more.

In June 2016, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) launched a national registry of veterinary clinical trials that's making it easier for schools and colleges of veterinary medicine to connect with potential candidates. Innovative and ground-breaking research occurs every day at schools and colleges of veterinary medicine but, until recently, finding out about animal clinical trials--or finding those who are candidates for clinical trials--could be a hit or miss process. With the launch of the AVMA Animal Health Studies Database, veterinarians or people with pets who have medical conditions can now be efficiently matched with medical researchers conducting clinical trials on those conditions. Learn more.

Organizations ranging from the AAVMC and the AVMA to corporations have recently focused efforts to address the wellness and mental health issues affecting the veterinary medical profession. Recently, Zoetis Inc. announced the addition of seven new Personal Wellness Modules to VETVANCE, its web-based learning resource for the veterinary community. Introduced in 2014 and endorsed by the AAVMC, VETVANCE includes 11,000 registered users and offers multi-media learning modules on a variety of topics. The new modules add Personal Wellness to the catalog of course offerings and provide information and suggested techniques for enhancing personal mental health and wellbeing. Learn more.

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