TAMU, WTAMU's VERO partnership connecting students, researchers of both schools

CANYON, Texas (KVII) — A groundbreaking partnership between Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM) and West Texas A&M University’s (WT) Paul Engler College of Agriculture & Natural Sciences (PECANS) has created an infrastructure that connects students and researchers from the two Texas A&M University System entities to the citizens of West Texas, including producers of a significant portion of the nation’s food livestock industry as well as with rural veterinarians.

This partnership, known as the Veterinary Education, Research, & Outreach (VERO) program, is an outgrowth of CVM’s Serving Every Texan Every Day initiative that was launched in 2009. VERO was created through the combined vision of Dr. Eleanor Green, the Carl B. King Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M, and Dr. Dean Hawkins, then-dean of PECANS.

The partnership places senior CVM faculty members, including VERO program director Dr. Dee Griffin, VERO academic coordinator Dr. Dan Posey, and VERO research director Dr. Paul Morley, on WT’s campus in Canyon, where they work collaboratively with WT’s Department of Agricultural Sciences to support the citizens, students, and stakeholders of West Texas.

“VERO was designed to address the shortage of large animal veterinarians in the rural communities and to meet the needs of the food animal industry located in the Texas Panhandle and surrounding service areas,” said Dr. Lance Kieth, department head of WT’s Department of Agricultural Sciences. “The premise of the VERO program is to attract students from rural communities to university pre-veterinary training programs, help prepare them for admission to veterinary schools of medicine, and then have them return to the rural communities to live and practice their profession.”

VERO taps into WT’s prime location in Canyon, which is at the heart of the U.S. food livestock industry.

About 30% of the nation’s beef cattle are fed or finished in the region, which includes the Texas Panhandle and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. The area is home to 2.5 million beef cattle at any given time, as well as a large number of dairy cattle and swine.

“One of the reasons this initiative is so unique is that while many veterinary schools in the country were set up in strong agriculture areas—particularly those in universities with land grant status such as Texas A&M—that is no longer the case,” Morley said. “When these veterinary schools were established 100-125 years ago, cattle and horses were everywhere. Now, while many of those schools work to maintain ties to agriculture, they are not located where the animals are concentrated.”

The VERO program also encourages both WT and CVM students to learn more about the unique opportunities that are available for veterinarians serving rural communities.

“One of the really neat things about being a veterinarian in a rural community is that you're part of the community. You work with the school board, fair board, church board, with the 4-H Club, the FFA, the Boy Scouts; you have science projects cooking in your clinic. You own that community and they own you, and they love it,” Griffin said.

That introduction to the importance of rural veterinary medicine starts early for WT students, who are taught by the CVM’s VERO faculty.

For example, Posey teaches a foundational “Agriculture Leadership” course for WT freshmen who are interested in becoming veterinarians. He uses these courses to help students transition from high school to college and to set them on a path to be ready for veterinary school.

In addition, the VERO faculty also serve as advisers and mentors to pre-veterinary medicine students at WT, as well as for those at eight other higher education institutions in the Texas Panhandle.