Year-round training
The Oquendo Center in Las Vegas provides a site for the CPE as well as year-round continuing education … not to mention a home for Western’s labs
It was years in the making. But officials at the Western Veterinary Conference believe that its newly opened Oquendo Center for Clinical Education was well worth the wait.
The 70,000-square-foot education center, which opened during Western’s 81st annual conference in February, will accommodate the hands-on/bioskill labs during each Annual Conference and offer instructional courses year-round. It will also serve as an examination site for the AVMA/ECFVG Clinical Proficiency Exam (CPE).
“It’s a very-well-thought-out and well-planned educational facility,” says Oquendo Center Director David Little, who is also assistant CEO of the Western Veterinary Conference. “We have surgery suites, a surgery prep area, dental suite, a radiology area, kennels, a large-animal facility with equine stalls and bovine chutes, and a paddock that is encircled with a wall and 12-foot doors, so animals can be housed in and around the building in a safe and humane environment.” The Center also houses a 180-seat auditorium with surround-sound digital projection.
In the genes
Little is a self-described “long-termer” in the veterinary world. His father, Bruce Little, DVM, was a mixed-animal practitioner in central Illinois for 20 years and after that, executive vice president of the American Veterinary Medical Association outside Chicago. His brother Tom is currently an equine veterinarian practicing at the Thoroughbred race tracks in the Chicago area.
“I grew up on the farm, so to speak, helping out in my dad’s practice,” says Little. “A lot of my childhood was spent cleaning cages and waking up at 3 [a.m.] to deliver calves with my dad in some pasture in the rain,” he recalls. “There were no emergency clinics, no relief veterinarians. It was a 24/7, 365-day-a-year job.”
Little attended Indiana University, where he played football, after which he and his wife moved to his wife’s home state, Hawaii. The couple spent 11 years in Hawaii, where they started raising their family, and then moved to Chicago. In 2001, Little was named continuing education coordinator for AVMA, and then director of its Convention and Meeting Planning division. He was named director of the Oquendo Center in February 2009.
Continuing Proficiency Exam
Western had two primary reasons for creating the Oquendo Center, says Little. The first was to provide a place for administering the CPE. The second was to provide a facility where veterinarians and veterinary professionals could gather for training year-round.
For years the profession has fought an uphill battle trying to stay on top of the demand for administering the CPE, which is given to graduates of non-AVMA-accredited veterinary schools. The three-day exam calls for candidates to rotate through multiple stations involving equine medicine, bovine medicine, small ruminants and small animals. Through role-plays, they are tested on diagnostic and therapeutic skills. “It’s a multi-faceted test to evaluate their clinical proficiency,” says Little. “It’s very intense, and [it is taken] very, very seriously.”
Needless to say, it is also time-consuming and space-consuming. And therein lies the rub. Historically, several veterinary schools have administered the CPE. “But it’s difficult to schedule the exam around their calendars and that of their faculty,” says Little. “And it’s not their primary mission.” Yet, with more veterinary schools being built outside the United States, the demand for the CPE continued to climb. Not surprisingly, so did the backlog of candidates waiting to take the exam. “One of the main reasons to build the Oquendo Center was to offer a facility to decrease that backlog,” says Little. Indeed, the Center already offers the CPE exam and is capable of evaluating as many as 24 candidates each month.
Year-round training
The second rationale for building the Oquendo Center was simple. “There aren’t facilities available to provide hands-on clinical education and training to veterinarians and veterinary professionals outside of universities,” says Little. “There’s nothing specifically tailored to address the need for increased knowledge, instruction and technique in veterinary medicine. Our goal is to provide a facility where we can increase the knowledge and training of veterinarians for the benefit of animals and their owners. The more training we can provide, the better off clients and their pets will be.”
Naturally, the Oquendo Center will host the hands-on, interactive labs associated with Western Veterinary Conference. But it will also provide training year round. Indeed, at press time, upcoming courses included “Veterinary Management Toolbox for Tough Times,” “Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care Medicine,” “Clinical Techniques in Exotic Medicine and Surgery,” “Surgery for the Eyelids and Orbit,” and “Mare and Stallion Theriogenology.” All courses are approved for continuing education credit through the American Association of Veterinary State Boards Registry of Approved Continuing Education (AAVSB RACE).
Little expects that the Oquendo Center will also be used by veterinary device and pharmaceutical makers for company-provided training. “We’ve also created a relationship with a human medical company providing education in that arena,” he says.
“It’s a multipurpose, multidimensional space that works well for any medical profession to come in to meet their clinical education needs.”
Editor’s Note: For a current listing of courses, visit http://oquendocenter.org.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:43 am
I have visited this facility. It is as good a facility as any veterinary teaching hospital in the country. It is a great addition to the educational and research facilities supporting the veterinary profession. It will also serve a huge purpose for human clinical training and research. I commend Dr. Jack Walther who conceived the idea and the Board of Directors of the Western Veterinary Conference for following through on a very important mission. The Oquendo Center will serve a great purpose for the people and their animals as it does well for the Conference.