Newswise — Tufts University’s new master’s program in Conservation Medicine is accepting applications for its inaugural class to start in the Fall 2011 term.
An outgrowth of the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine (TCCM), the program is designed to prepare students from diverse backgrounds for a career in conservation medicine. The interdisciplinary program, drawing upon faculty from schools across the university, will engage graduate students from a variety of fields to confront the disciplinary gaps that obscure the broad view of “One Health”— essentially, a reframing of the way health research is studied and ultimately applied. The program will select 10-12 students for its first class.
The MCM program incorporates a 12-month curriculum that consists of small seminar-style courses, laboratory and field based courses, journal club and independent team project-based activities culminating in an individual case study. Students must complete a four-week preceptorship in a conservation medicine-related setting. In addition, students will choose two elective courses from the many different schools and disciplines available across Tufts University to augment their educational and professional goals. No thesis is required. Courses will focus on timely topics such as: the continued emergence of new diseases from wild animals, the effects of human activities on endangered species and the impact of climate change on biodiversity. The curriculum will also address research and communication skills, and help students develop project leadership, grant seeking and writing skills necessary for a successful career in Conservation Medicine.
The one-year, non-thesis program was approved by Tufts University trustees in April 2009. Funding for the MCM program has been provided by leadership grants from The Regina Bauer Frankenberg Foundation for Animal Welfare, and H. Jay Sarles and Marilyn Sarles, MD. In addition, funding from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation has supported the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine at the Cummings School since its inception, laying the groundwork to make this degree program possible.
“Our faculty have spent a year developing this cross-disciplinary and forward-thinking program, and we are pleased to enroll the first class,” said Deborah T. Kochevar, Ph.D., DVM, dean of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. “Graduates from this program will be prepared to take the rhetoric of One Health and put it into action.”
To learn more about the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine and for updates on the master's program development, visit the center’s website at www.tufts.edu/vet/ccm or the program website at http://www.tufts.edu/vet/mcm.
About the Cummings School of Veterinary MedicineFounded in 1978 in North Grafton, Mass., the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University is known for academic programs that impact society and the practice of veterinary medicine; five hospitals that treat over 30,00 cases each year; and groundbreaking research that benefits animal, public, and environmental health.
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