Verdi Township, Lincoln County, Minnesota

Transcription

So I'm here to talk to you about veterinarian profession. And I think it is something that is very near and dear to all of our hearts. I have two dogs. I know that Jim had mentioned earlier today he has a Lab. And Tommy mentioned you have a chocolate Lab. And even over lunch, we were talking about dogs. So this is something pretty important, I think, to all of us. But in the United States, we typically think of veterinary medicine as preventive and emergency care for our dogs, cats and horses. And this is very valuable to us. But just for the next 5 minutes, what I'd like you to do is just forget about that part. What I'd like to do is change your lens, so that you see veterinary medicine from a whole different perspective. When I served for six years in the U.S. Army Medical Service Core and this is when I realized what the veterinary profession was doing to make an impact in human, animal and environmental health. So in this slide, as you can see, the star represent the veterinary profession, and here are some of the ways that veterinarians do make a impact, which we lesser known, we don't usually think about. So according to the Food and Agricultural Organization, part of the UN, they did a study that looks at extreme poverty, they have about 1.4 billion people that fall into the category of extreme poverty. Out of that 1.4 billion, 1 billion are dependent or somehow living around the agricultural profession. And out of that, 0.5 billion are involved with live stock. This is pretty important. When we look at the UN Millennium Goals, which are outlined in this chart on the left hand side, where Ban-Ki Moon has placed some of most important factors that they look at. And come up with some idea that I have, where the veterinary profession can make a big impact in helping reduce the poverty and malnutrition globally. The healthy animal equation here -- obviously veterinarians are involved with healthy animals -- so what this means is you increase the work that each animal can produce. So for some people animals are their tractors, they're what's tearing the land. You increase the amount of product that each animal will make, so the amount of cheese, the amount of milk, the amount of meat. So this is very important in rural areas. And then, looking at the other side of the equation what you're minusing out, the more productive each animal is, the less land usage that you need for getting the same amount of product. As well as looking at transmittable diseases, which a lot of times we think of as big deals for avian influenza, swine flu, tuberculosis. These are just a few of them. So I'd like to quickly talk about some of my experiences, which has help develop my passion for veterinary medicine under this lens. This is a photo of me working in Cambodia, where this animal, this water buffalo, this is the tractor for the family. And simple measure such as deworming allows this animal to put on weight, work longer, live longer. And there is a reason it's called livestock. You think about it: this is their bank account, this is their stock, this is incredibly important to them. So the management of their stock, livestock, veterinary profession has a huge impact on what they have and their wealth. Another example quickly, is in China a School Milk Program I worked with some dairies in China and they have this program for rural children, to provide milk during their school program. So this allows children to get, for some of them, their only meal of the day. It allows them to go to school and learn as well as put on proper physical growth, which is important for them in order to go out, find a job and be productive in economic world. So this ties the idea together in some capacity where we talk about the human, animal and environmental health from a public health prospective. And looking at the educational aspects, allowing children to go to school and have healthy nutrition so that they can learn and learn trades, focusing on economic growth providing jobs in regions and agricultural and livestock development, and then finally leading to political stability which [might not be achieved] without economic growth. This is something we see, which you can see here that looks familiar -- Why does this impact you? So take a look at these headlines and rethink what's currently happening in the world today. And as future business leaders, I challenge you, the next time you bring your pet to the veterinarian, think about the global impact that the veterinarians are having in public health, economic and political stability. Thank you. (Applause)