FROM THE EDITOR

Faculty in US Veterinary SchoolsIn an attempt to expand my editorial list

and to identify individuals who may be in-terested in submitting manuscripts or reviewarticles to the Journal of Equine VeterinaryScience, I examined the faculty profiles foreach of the 25 accredited veterinary schoolsin the United States. I am sure I did not pro-vide adequate time for this review, and mustadmit that I primarily focused on clinical sci-ence departments. It would not be truthfulto say that it was an exciting or exhilaratingexperience, but I have to admit that it was anenlightening process.

Certain impressions were gained by thisendeavor. It became obvious that some vet-erinary schools make it much easier to iden-tify their faculty and learn about the facultymembers’ expertise than other schools. Forthis exercise, it was particularly useful to beable to access a short biographical sketch ofeach faculty member, along with a recentpicture. A listing of the recent publicationsby each faculty member provided a goodimpression as to their areas of interest andexpertise, as well as the journals that theyprefer. In addition, I found that, in manyschools, the faculty tended to be dividedinto two groups, older faculty members whoare nearing the time of retirement and alarge number of young faculty members.Not surprisingly, a high percentage of theyounger faculty are women. This wouldcorrespond with the 80% female popula-tion in each veterinary class in most veteri-nary schools. I found the qualifications ofthe younger faculty members to be ex-tremely impressive. A majority of the fac-ulty held both DVM and PhD degrees,along with board certification. In addition,many of the faculty had been in clinicalpractice for several years before joining theranks of the academicians.

It must be expected that there were alsoregional differences in the number ofequine specialists at any given veterinaryschool. Those schools that are situated inareas with high horse populations ap-peared to have a higher number of special-ists in various areas of equine medicine.More than likely, as the baby-boomer gen-eration begins to retire from their posi-tions, there will be a greater need foryoung, bright, well-trained faculty to jointhese departments of clinical sciences.

Although only 6 months into the editor-ship of JEVS, I am beginning to recognizesome of the players in equine medicine. Ilook forward to personally meeting someof these faculty members at the upcomingveterinary meetings.

Ed Squires, Editor

290 Journal of Equine Veterinary Science July 2006

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