School Promotes Veterinary Medical Center Campaign
In recent months, the transition of the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital to the future Veterinary Medical Center has become more real. Blood donor animals have been moved to the new corrals, construction projects in the hospital have sprung up, and recently, the university held a gala in the new Large Animal Support Facility.
The Veterinary Medical Center campaign is the largest fundraising effort ever by a veterinary school. And as it progresses, the school is celebrating the clients, patients and care teams who are the reason behind the center, and providing new tools where hospital personnel can find the latest construction information.
With that in mind, last week the school launched new communications that use banners, posters, web pages and other means to tell extraordinary patient stories, and the care teams behind their successes. The future Veterinary Medical Center will ensure that UC Davis has the means to treat even more cases like these in the future.
In one featured case, a racehorse named Irish Streetsinger benefited from both the school’s advanced imaging technology and a clinical trial utilizing stem cells. Instead of ending her racing career due to lameness, the treatments brought Irish Streetsinger back to the track to win again.
“Our Veterinary Medical Center is a transformational project,” says Dean Michael Lairmore, “but at the heart of it are the animals we treat, their owners, and the care teams who make us the very best. As we move forward with fundraising and building the center, we want to recognize those who motivate and inspire us to create the best veterinary center in the world.”
Images are visible on banners on Garrod Drive from La Rue Road, and also on posters and banners in the hospital, and slides on the screens dotted about the Veterinary Medicine campus. The full stories are available on the Veterinary Medical Center website. Currently, there are five stories that link back to the major areas of the planned Veterinary Medical Center: the All Species Imaging Center, the Equine Performance Center, the Livestock and Field Services Center, the Equine Surgery and Critical Care Center, and the Small Animal Clinic.
The hospital has also made information about the center projects more visible. In the new VMTH Voice, a monthly internal hospital publication that provides key information about the hospital and celebrates the people who demonstrate its cultural values, there is a special VMC Updates section. In addition, the hospital has launched an information page called “Latest Internal Hospital/VMC Updates,” that is easily accessible from hospital’s website.
To celebrate Vet Tech Week, the school used one of the stories from the campaign to highlight the efforts of veterinary technicians Monica Calder and Megan Loscar. It was estimated that Calder and Loscar safely transported a patient more than a half-mile through the hospital to fulfill all the patient’s imaging needs. The future Veterinary Medical Center will have more centrally located imaging facilities, and Calder and Loscar will be able to use their skills to focus on more patients as a result.
The stories can be seen at https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/giving/vmc/success-stories
The new information page can be found at: https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/hospital/latest-updates