Dr Ron Brodersen was installed as the president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians at the association’s 46th annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. He succeeds Dr Michelle Sprague, who is now immediate Past President. Dr George Charbonneau has ascended to President-elect. The newly elected Vice President is Dr Alejandro “Alex” Ramirez.

Photo courtesy of Tina Smith

AASV President

Dr Ron Brodersen (ISU ’79) grew up on a livestock farm near Coleridge, Nebraska. He attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Iowa State University where he received a DVM degree, and also attended the University of Illinois EVP program. Dr Brodersen has been providing swine veterinary services in Hartington, Nebraska, since 1990. His veterinary practice recently became a part of Suidae Health & Production. He also owns Whole Hog Genetics. He was active on the Nebraska Pseudorabies Eradication Task Force in the 1990s. Dr Brodersen has been active in the AASV, serving on the board of directors as well as the pharmaceutical and boar stud committees. He has also served as chairman of the AASV Foundation. The AASV recognized him as the Swine Practitioner of the Year in 2003.

When asked to comment on his thoughts about the future of AASV and his tenure as president, Dr Brodersen said, “I am anxiously looking forward to serving as president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. I plan to continue promoting our members as professional specialists of swine health and equal specialists of swine welfare. Also, our newly updated mission statement expands our role beyond educating veterinarians to include advocacy of swine industry issues. I expect this will be an interesting and exciting year!”

AASV President-elect

Dr George Charbonneau (ON ’81) grew up in Arnprior, Ontario. He obtained his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the Ontario Veterinary College and established a veterinary practice serving southwestern Ontario. George is currently a partner in South West Ontario Veterinary Services and is based in Stratford, Ontario. Dr Charbonneau has been very active in the Canadian swine industry. He has served as the president of the Canadian Association of Swine Veterinarians, Ontario Association of Swine Veterinarians, and the Ontario Pork Congress. He was involved in the formation of, and served as the initial chairman of, the Ontario Pork Industry Council. He also represented Canadian swine veterinarians as a district representative on the board of directors of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. He was the 2012 recipient of the AASV Swine Practitioner of the Year award.

AASV Vice President

Dr Alejandro “Alex” Ramirez (ISU ’93) grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico. He obtained his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the Iowa State University (ISU) College of Veterinary Medicine and joined Valley Veterinary Center, a mixed-animal practice, in Cherokee, Iowa. In 2004, Alex left practice and returned to ISU to pursue a teaching career. He obtained a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Iowa and concluded a PhD at ISU in 2011.

Dr Ramirez joined AASV in 2002. He first served as a substitute judge for the student presentations at the AASV Annual Meeting. Shortly thereafter he was asked to co-chair the student oral competitions. He has also co-chaired the Collegiate Activities Committee for the past few years and has served on the Journal of Swine Health and Production Editorial Board since 2010. He has represented District 6 on the AASV Board of Directors since 2013.

“It is an honor and a privilege to be able to serve our great association as vice president. I am hopeful that I can continue providing the great leadership that has already been provided by all those officers whom I follow,” he noted following his election.

AASV Past President 

Dr Michelle Sprague (ISU ’05) grew up on a small farrow-to-finish and row-crop farm in Glenwood, Iowa. Following graduation from the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 2005, she joined the Audubon Manning Veterinary Clinic (AMVC) in Audubon, Iowa. She is currently a partner and director of sow health at AMVC. Her responsibilities include overseeing animal health, biosecurity, food safety, and animal welfare on all the clinic’s managed sow farms.

Operation Main Street Training

Co-sponsored by AASV and the National Pork Board

Members of AASV like Drs Rick Tubbs, Craig Rowles, Amy Woods, Jeff Harker, Peggy Anne Hawkins, and Gene Nemechek – to name just a few of the 86 veterinarians participating in Operation Main Street – are making a difference by sharing the facts about pig care and pork production with veterinary students, dieticians, and civic groups across the United States.

You can join your colleagues in the effort to counter misunderstanding and misinformation about the swine industry by becoming a trained Operation Main Street (OMS) speaker. Two OMS speaker-training opportunities will be held during World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa: June 2-3, June 4-5.

In 2011, AASV and the National Pork Board partnered to train veterinarians as OMS speakers with a goal to schedule a speaker in all 30 schools of veterinary medicine. To date, trained veterinarians have presented at 26 of 30 schools, reaching more than 5000 students through this program.

The training updates participants on what activists are saying about agriculture today and provides attendees with the needed tools and presentations to address those concerns in a science-based, proactive manner. The objective is to equip veterinarians to speak to veterinary students and professional groups, including dieticians. Any AASV member interested in becoming a trained OMS speaker and helping in this endeavor is invited to participate.

For more information, contact MaryWonders at the National Pork Board (Tel: 515-223-3535; E-mail: Mwonders@pork.org).

Call for abstracts – AASV 2016 Student Seminar

Veterinary Student Scholarships

The American Association of Swine Veterinarians announces an opportunity for veterinary students to make a scientific presentation during the Student Seminar at the AASV Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Sunday, February 28, 2016. Interested students are invited to submit a 1-page abstract of a research paper, clinical case study, or literature review for consideration. The submitting student must be a current (2015-2016) student member of the AASV at the time of submission, and must not have graduated from veterinary school prior to February 28, 2016. Submissions are limited to one (1) abstract per student.

Abstracts and supplementary materials must be received by Dr Alex Ramirez (alex@aasv.org) by 11:59 pm Central Daylight Time on Monday, September 21, 2015 (firm deadline). All material must be submitted electronically. Late abstracts will not be considered. You should receive an e-mail confirming the receipt of your submission. If you do not receive this confirmation e-mail, you must contact Dr Alex Ramirez (alex@aasv.org) by Wednesday September 23, 2015, with supporting evidence that the submission was made in time, otherwise your submission will not be considered for judging. The abstracts will be reviewed by an unbiased professional panel consisting of a private practitioner, an academician, and an industry veterinarian. Fifteen abstracts will be selected for oral presentation in the Student Seminar at the AASV Annual Meeting. Students whose papers are selected will be notified by October 15, 2015, and will be expected to provide the complete paper or abstract, reformatted for publication, by November 16, 2015.

As sponsor of the Student Seminar, Zoetis provides a total of $20,000 in support to fund travel stipends and the top student presenter scholarship. The student presenter of each paper selected for oral presentation receives a $750 stipend to help defray the costs of attending the AASV meeting.

Each veterinary student whose paper is selected for oral presentation competes for one of several veterinary student scholarships awarded through the AASV Foundation. The oral presentations will be judged to determine the amount of the scholarship awarded. Zoetis funds the $5000 scholarship for the student whose paper, oral presentation, and supporting information are judged best overall. Elanco Animal Health provides $20,000 in additional funding, enabling the AASV Foundation to award $2500 each for 2nd through 5th place, $1500 each for 6th through 10th place, and $500 each for 11th through 15th place.

Abstracts that are not selected for oral presentation in the Student Seminar will be considered for participation in a poster session at the annual meeting. Zoetis and the AASV fund a stipend of $250 for each student who is selected and participates in the poster presentation. In addition, the presenters of the top 15 poster abstracts compete for awards ranging from $200 to $500 in the Veterinary Student Poster Competition sponsored by Newport Laboratories.

Complete information for preparing and submitting abstracts is available on the AASV Web site at www.aasv.org/annmtg/2016/studentseminar.htm. Please note: the rules for submission should be followed carefully. For more information, contact the AASV office (Tel: 515-465-5255; Fax: 515-465-3832; E-mail: aasv@aasv.org).

AASV Proceedings Archive online

With the successful transition to electronic-only proceedings for the 2015 AASV Annual Meeting, AASV members won’t be receiving the conference proceedings in the mail this year. Instead, members will find the familiar “big book” available as a single PDF – as well as PDF files for each of the pre-conference seminar booklets – in the newly created online AASV Proceedings Archive. To download the files, visit https://www.aasv.org/library/proceedings/ or look under the “Resources” menu tab on the AASV Web site for “AASV Meeting Proceedings.”

You’ll want to make sure your AASV membership has been renewed for 2015, and you’ll need your AASV member username and password: If they’re not handy, contact the AASV office or use the “Reset Password” link in the upper right of the AASV web site (https://www.aasv.org) to have them e-mailed to you.

As in the past, PDFs for each of the individual proceedings papers will continue to be available as part of the AASV Swine Information Library, https://www.aasv.org/library/swineinfo/. This fully-searchable, online library of more than 12,000 proceedings papers and journal articles is just one of the many benefits enjoyed by AASV members.