Hereford Veterinary Clinic finds way to train Texas Tech veterinary students
Hereford Veterinary Clinic along with representatives from the Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine in Amarillo broke ground on a new instructional center of excellence in Hereford on Nov. 28.
This groundbreaking celebrates an incredible commitment from Hereford Veterinary Clinic to construct a purpose-built facility that will serve as an educational device for School of Veterinary Medicine students in their final year at Texas Tech.
“We are so fortunate to partner with Hereford Veterinary Clinic,” said Guy Loneragan, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine. “It takes extraordinary people who have a vision of what can be, and then the commitment to turn that vision into a plan of what will be. Hereford Veterinary Clinic has that vision and commitment.
“Today marks a great milestone in establishing a second-to-none instructional center of excellence for food-animal medicine and surgery. Hereford in particular, and the Panhandle more broadly, are the center of livestock production in the U.S. Now they will also be the center of world-class food-animal veterinary education.”
The instructional site is an 18,000-square-foot facility located west of Hereford. Its focus is on providing resources and veterinary services in food-animal and production-animal medicine and will be the major clinical outlet for food-animal instruction to Texas Tech veterinary students.
“Students will spend four-week blocks in Hereford and will utilize a novel model of animal resources developed by the practice and its feedyard partners,” said Britt Conklin, associate dean for clinical programs. “This model will be the only one of its kind and will fulfill an educational deficit we see at many schools across the nation.”
In the Texas Panhandle, Deaf Smith, Parmer and Castro are three leading counties for agriculture market value. The rural town of Hereford, in Deaf Smith County, is uniquely located in a resource-rich area for beef and dairy cattle.
This prime location allows Texas Tech the opportunity to educate veterinary students in multiple areas of the livestock industry, including animal health, food safety, animal nutrition and regulatory veterinary medicine.
“We’ve always had a difficult time attracting veterinarians to rural areas because there’s not a lot of veterinarians who graduate from vet school anymore that are actually from rural areas like Hereford or Dalhart or wherever,” said Kynan Sturgess, co-owner of Hereford Veterinary Clinic. “Our hope is that this facility will allow Texas Tech students to get a hands-on experience that most schools have a problem providing.”
The facility will be an outlet for faculty and researchers at the School of Veterinary Medicine to pursue clinical activities that will further the mission of the school.
“We are excited to have this partnership with Hereford Veterinary Clinic,” said Jennifer Koziol, associate professor of food animal medicine and surgery. “Drs. Kynan Sturgess and Mike Mimms at Hereford Veterinary Clinic have stepped up in a big way to support the future of the veterinary profession.”
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Hereford Veterinary Clinic finds way to train Texas Tech veterinary students
