As we approach the holiday season, our College has wrapped up two of the big annual milestones – first, Dr. Nancy Fagan and the Internal Affairs Committee recently completed the ACVPM’s annual report to the American Board of Veterinary Specialties, with Dr. Bruce Burnham, Epidemiology Specialty President, preparing the annual report on behalf of the Epidemiology Specialty. Dr. Candace McCall, our Executive Vice President, provided input and both reports were edited by the Executive Board (especially Drs. Beth Karp and Scott Brooks). The report passed the final editing hurdles and we are thankful for these well-written reports. Dr McCall recently completed the second big task – accepting applications from this year’s crop of ACVPM Candidates. We have 41 packets moving to the Credentials Committee for review (83 total applicants).

It’s time to consider next spring’s election for replacements on our Executive Board. Nominations are needed by January 2012. We will have three vacancies – President-elect, Secretary-Treasurer, and Councilor. At this point, our incumbents in the Secretary-Treasurer and Councilor offices have not mentioned a desire to run for their own or another office, but they are welcome to do so. You may volunteer, make your wishes known to us, or nominate those who are willing to serve on our Executive Board. We prefer that nominees have previously served on at least one of the College’s committees. If you are interested or know of someone who is, please pass the name to Dr. Peggy Carter, Past President, ACVPM, (Peggycarterdvm@aol.com), who chairs the Nomination Committee.

Our new committee chairs are in place and all committees have a full roster of members.  One person who is not a “new” appointee is Dr. Tom Doker, who was Chair of the Communications Committee last year. After serving only two years on the Communications Committee, he volunteered to rotate back onto the committee to continue the excellent work of that committee.

Recertification is a hot item for us. With the American Board of Veterinary Specialties (ABVS) moving toward requiring This past summer, a “Partnership for Preventive Pet Healthcare” was announced at the AVMA convention. Pet visits to veterinarians have decreased and possibly led to the decline in pet health due to an increase in prevalence of preventable health conditions such as diabetes and internal parasites in dogs and cats. The goal of the Partnership is to provide guidance and ensure veterinary visits lead to early detection and prevention of disease. A link is provided here so you may view the entire Partnership initiative: http://pethealthpartnership.org/. The Partnership is seeking Associate Members to collaborate with and support the Partnership, and some of our membership suggested that our College might become an Associate Member. The Executive Board considered this idea, but found that Associate Members are largely pharmaceutical and vaccine companies with a few veterinary practice affiliated groups. No other specialty board, such as the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine or the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners, has come forward to be an Associate Member. Although prevention is our mantra, the Executive Board decided Associate Member status would not be in our best interest. If Diplomates are interested, they may contact the Partnership for individual participation., it is in our best interest to lay out our preferred method for recertification. Recertification is expected to be a requirement for Diplomates certified after our recertification is put in place or possibly after a certain date. We aren’t certain the ABVS guidance will continue along those lines, but we are working from that premise. Drs. Peggy Carter and John Sanders will be part of our ad hoc committee for recertification discussion. We need 3-5 additional members for the committee, and are especially looking for recent Diplomates, so if you are new to the College and interested in volunteering, please contact me or Dr. Carter.

The American Board of Veterinary Specialties has asked each College to provide a plan for periodically recertifying Diplomates. I appointed an ad hoc committee to work on options to meet the ABVS requirement, led by Dr. Peggy Carter and including Drs. Gary Gackstetter, Sherry Burrer, Marcy Souza, John Sanders and David Goolsby. The committee is considering options for recertification (attending continuing education, presenting at meetings, publishing articles/reviews, and other pathways), how often to recertify, different member statuses/levels, level of difficulty for recertification, and what year groups will be required to recertify. We understand from the ABVS that we can expect recertification requirements to begin within the next two years. If you have some ideas to contribute, please contact Dr. Carter; otherwise, you’ll have a chance to express your preferences in either a survey or a bylaws vote within the next 18 months.

The Examination Committee recently embarked on a new initiative to store the question database in a secure location on the web. Only Exam Committee members will have access to it. The new database, when operational, will enable editing/writing questions without constantly sending edits to other Exam Committee members. The new database should be much more efficient for Exam Committee work.

This will be the last newsletter before Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Best wishes to all!