Steven Marks, BVSc, MS, MRCVS, DACVIM (SAIM), dean of the Harvey S. Peeler Jr. College of Veterinary Medicine at Clemson University, discusses why the future school is important to South Carolina and the veterinary profession.
The Harvey S. Peeler Jr. College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at Clemson University is poised to become the first veterinary school in South Carolina. The university is currently building a CVM campus in Pendleton, South Carolina, near its main campus that includes classrooms, research facilities and hands-on laboratories. In a dvm360 interview, Steven Marks, BVSc, MS, MRCVS, DACVIM (SAIM), founding dean of the CVM, discussed why the new school is important to the State of South Carolina, the local agricultural community, potential students and the veterinary profession across the region and the US.
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The following is a transcript of the video:
dvm360: What is the significance of South Carolina’s first veterinary college to animal health care?
Steven Marks, BVSc, MS, MRCVS, DACVIM: To South Carolina. It's very important, because there is [currently] no college of veterinary medicine in South Carolina. We are the first. So it's important to produce veterinarians for a state that has a lack of veterinary care. It's also a priority to produce some agricultural veterinarians, and what I mean by that is large animal veterinarians, so [those caring for] equine, bovine, poultry. And we hope to do that.
We hope to attract students from underserved areas of the state to return to underserved areas of the state. And then most people are aware that there's a national lack of veterinarians. So not all our veterinarians will be from South Carolina. We'll have some students come from out of state. So the hope is not only improving veterinary care within the state and improving the agricultural animal population, but also across the United States.