Preparing veterinarians for work in resource-poor settings

Abstract

F ood and nutrition security is achieved when food is adequate (in terms of quantity, quality, safety, and sociocultural acceptability) to live a healthy and active life and is available for, accessible to, and satisfactorily used by all individuals at all times. 1 Globally, animal health professionals have a key role in promoting food security and enhancing human well-being by keeping food-producing animals healthy. The importance of this task was highlighted recently in a commentary 2 published in the JAVMA in which the authors clearly articulated global needs to ensure food security and the importance of including animal health specialists in policy decisions. As opportunities for the profession to contribute in this arena increase, it is incumbent on veterinarians to ensure they are well prepared. However, much of the education and experiences veterinarians receive in the developed world may be less useful in resource-poor settings, and veterinarians who intend to work in these settings need to ensure they are prepared to contribute. The purpose of this paper is to clarify key issues that must be understood for veterinarians to work successfully in resource-poor settings.Three concepts are key to successful project development and delivery in resource-poor settings, regardless of the institution or nation where participating veterinarians were trained. First, it must be understood that in these settings, food animals are the focus at the household level because they are part of the microeconomy and central to food security-livestock are lifestock. Second, the role of the host country' s NAHS must be recognized because all animal health care takes place within this framework and failure to recognize this framework could easily result in inefficient efforts or negative outcomes. Third, intercultural awareness and attention to cross-cultural communication must be made a priority because doing so is absolutely central to ensuring that efforts are worthwhile, positive, and sustainable.

Assisting differential clinical diagnosis of cattle diseases using smartphone-based technology in low resource settings: a pilot study

“…In remote areas of Ethiopia, where most animal health assistants and community animal health workers practice, there is little access to continued professional development or to quality reference materials to which such practitioners can refer in cases of multiple tentative diagnoses [ 10 ]. Furthermore, under field conditions clinical diagnosis of cattle diseases can be complicated by similarity of clinical presentation [ 11 ].…”

Veterinary medicine's increasing role in global health

“…Together with the livestock sector in general, 4 these services have been marginalised and underfunded for decades throughout much of the developing world to the point that they do not have the capacity to meet the challenges of an increasingly commercialised livestock industry, poverty relief, sustainable food security, and food safety. [4][5][6] For example, in 2013, hundreds of pigs that had died from unknown causes were dumped into a tributary of the Shanghai river, the source of much of Shanghai's drinking water. 7 This incident was symptomatic of larger problems with animal health care in China and prompted Jia Youling, head of the Chinese Veterinary Medical Association and former head of the Ministry of Agriculture's Bureau of Veterinary Medicine, to observe that the Chinese veterinary medical system is nowhere near adequate.…”

Expanding access to veterinary clinical decision support in resource-limited settings: a scoping review of clinical decision support tools in medicine and antimicrobial stewardship

“…Properly designed CDS tools have been shown to be able to be used by other animal health professionals, such as paravet or directly by producers. Thus, CDS tools would appear to be valuable for managing disease in livestock populations in remote areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with limited access to animal healthcare institutions or veterinary professionals ( 37 , 38 ).…”