Winter/Spring 2012 Aesculapian Magazine - University of Georgia ...

New
scholarship
for FAVIP
honors Gov.
Sonny Perdue
A new scholarship honoring Georgia
Governor Sonny Perdue has been endowed
to support students in the Food Animal
Veterinary Incentive Program (FAVIP).
The Governor Sonny Perdue Scholarship
Endowment Fund was created by friends
of the governor – primarily his former
Agricultural Liaison Donnie Smith – to
help relieve the shortage of food animal
veterinarians in Georgia.
FAVIP students may apply to be a
Perdue Scholar during their junior or
senior year of undergraduate study, or
during any year of their veterinary degree
study.
The FAVIP is a joint effort between
the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences and the UGA
College of Veterinary Medicine. The goal is
to recruit and train future veterinarians in
food animal medicine and rural practice for
underserved communities.
Gov. Perdue was the 81st governor
elected to Georgia’s top post, and held
office from January 2003 through mid-
January 2011. He graduated from the
UGA College of Veterinary Medicine in
1971 and worked as a veterinarian and
agribusinessman prior to his election to the
Georgia State Senate in 1990.
During his tenure, Gov. Perdue was
instrumental in helping the CVM secure
funds to design the Veterinary Medical
Learning Center. The funding, which was
approved by the Georgia General Assembly
in 2010 and made available to the College
that fall, provided money to complete the
construction drawings for the new Teaching
Hospital.
appropriation of funding is anticipated in
the future.
The USDA also runs a veterinary
medicine loan repayment program, which
pays $25,000 per year and comes with a
three-year commitment for veterinarians
who serve in shortage areas.
“Some rural counties don’t have a
veterinarian at all,” said Carmichael. “It’s
not always as feasible for students to
pursue that career path. We wanted to help
meet the need.”
From seniors to first-years
CAES’s Dean Pringle spent four years
teaching and mentoring his students. He
saw them grow from freshmen to “leaders
in our department and our college,” he
said. “The next class is the same way. These
kids are a lot more than food animal
students. They’re leaders, and I think
they’re going to offer a lot and have a very
positive effect on those students who
didn’t have that food animal experience.”
“About 80 percent of veterinarians
view our profession as more than just a
job,” said Carmichael. She’s wanted to be a
veterinarian since she was 8 years old. “It’s
a calling, and we wanted to tap into the
calling we knew was there. You want to tap
into that love before other interests get in
the way.”
Right now, Larsen, Veal, Duvall,
Rosenbalm and Dalton are squinting
to see straight after hours of studying,
necropsy labs and lectures, but thanks to
the undergraduate requirements for FAVIP,
they have a practical advantage over many
of their classmates.
“Undergrad went by really fast, but at
the same time, it got me excited about vet
school,” said Larsen. “It made me even
more sure.”
Squirrels to cattle
Deana Veal can’t remember a time
when she didn’t want to be a veterinarian.
She grew up showing hogs in 4-H and
cows through FFA. And on her family’s
Wrightsville farm in southeast Georgia,
she was “always involved with birthing
calves,” she said. “Now I own a small herd.
They’re my cows, and I make the breeding
decisions.”
Veal’s love for animals started on the
farm—and continued in a veterinarian’s
office in Sandersville, where Dr. Sam Evans
gave her a chance to continue her informal
education.
“The day I turned 16, I started
volunteering,” she said. “I helped with dogs
and cats. One day I may be going on a call
with horses. The next day I would be filing
in the office.”
Evans also gave her a push toward
formal education.
“He introduced me to FAVIP,” said
Veal. “I was a junior in high school. He
got me in touch with the right people. At
the beginning of my freshman year, my
thoughts were ‘eight years, here we go.’”
When she graduates, Veal wants to
end up “somewhere like Wrightsville,” she
said. “I want to be a veterinarian to all
sorts, from squirrels to whole herds of
cattle, where every day is different.”
Editor’s note: Some content in this feature
appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of the
College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences’ magazine Southscapes.
For More
Information
Go to:
www.vet.uga.edu/GO/favip
Photo by Stephanie Schupska
Aesculapian Winter/Spring 2012 11