Guelph, Lakehead to partner on new veterinary medicine program | 24CA News
A pair of Ontario universities are establishing a brand new program to handle a scarcity of educated veterinarians within the province.
Ontario finance minister Peter Bethlanfalvy introduced that the province is investing $14.7 Million in direction of a brand new Collaborative Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program on the University of Guelph and Lakehead University. The funding was made accessible within the spring finances.
The program will see each establishments enrolling 20 college students per yr with the deal with recruiting college students from northern Ontario and Indigenous communities the place veterinary companies for big animals is underserved.
“We are reaching retirement age for some people,” stated Lisa Thompson, Ontario’s minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. “We need to build that succession. I know how important the dairy industry is in Wellington County and we are going to make sure that, through this program, the dairy farmers will have the veterinarians when they need them.”
Thompson and Bethlanfalvy have been joined by minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop, University of Guelph president Charlotte Yates, and Lakehead University vice-president of External Relations Michael den Haan for the announcement on the University of Guelph on Thursday.
“I was having a conversation with Moira (McPherson, Lakehead University president) and Charlotte,” stated Dunlop. “The main concern at the time was we needed more vets not only on southwestern Ontario but in rural and northern communities as well.”
Yates stated the announcement of the brand new program on the two universities “is a demonstration of excellence but also deep and profound commitment to animals.”
The program will leverage Guelph’s present Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program.
“Lots of conversations, lots of planning,” stated Yates on partnering with Lakehead on the brand new program. “Then bringing in the ministries and talk with them about what we are doing, how we are proposing to do it, and whether they felt we were meeting the need for the province.”
No timetable has been set to roll out this system. Yates says the 2 establishments have to satisfy a sequence of steps with the veterinary neighborhood however are working very arduous to get it off the bottom as quickly as doable.
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