Resources & Archives Reaching the Next Generation (Summer 2000) — To help reach the next generation of animal caregivers, NEAVS sponsored Lara Rasmussen, DVM, who discussed her "new breed" of humane veterinary education. Animal caregivers and aspiring veterinary students gained insight into what we all know will be the future of veterinary education everywhere. Rasmussen, no stranger to the heartbreaking ethical dilemmas facing veterinary students, abstained from terminal surgery labs in school and is currently working to establish one of the new breed of veterinary curricula that commits to students learning without ever harming or killing animals as part of their training. "I have successfully completed vet school, board certification in small animal surgery... and secured a faculty position in vet surgery all without having participated in terminal surgical instruction during veterinary school," Rasmussen said. She is on the faculty at Western University College of Veterinary Medicine in California. The pioneering vet school is currently in the final stages of the accreditation process. It will integrate techniques and technologies for training students that do not compromise animals' lives or students' ethics. This school will potentially save thousands of animals who would otherwise have been vivisected and sacrificed as mere "teaching tools" by more traditional veterinary schools. NEAVS is enthusiastically tracking the progress of the new curriculum as an important step in ending the senseless use and death of animals in the "name of science and education." Back to UPDATE 2000 Series, Vol. 1, No. 2 Summer mainpage.