Jacksonville Veterinary Medical Society Business Meeting: Sept 9, 2010
Guests: Dr. Pennington, Dr. Nicoletti, and Patricia Wlasuk
Welcome Dr. Peter Veling
FVMA Report: Dr. Rick Sutliff
The FVMA district meeting was a few weeks ago and this was his first official meeting.
The FVMA has overwhelming respect for the JVMS and JVMS is a particularly large and active veterinary medical association within the state.
Statewide: There is a sales tax issue; the state has mandated veterinary practices charge tax on everything not a legend drug including prescription food and flea products. This was effective the middle of July but the FVMA is working to get the state government to waive that backdate.
One good thing to report is that equine vets and small animal vets are in active discussions to bring Florida equine practitioners in to work more closely with FVMA.
A local issue the FVMA has been involved in is with promoting non-breed specific city ordinances regarding dangerous dog legislation and opposes breed-specific legislation.
If there are any questions contact Rick after the meeting.
University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine: Dr. Nicoletti and Dr. Pennington:
This is one of the most active associations in the state.
Dr. Nicoletti is now the CVM Professor Emeritus.
The College budget leveled this past year, which is an improvement according to dean.
Enrollment is increasing from 88 to 110 students per class. The additional students are all from out of state, due to increased tuition paid by out of state students. Ross will increase from 10 to 30 students due to increased revenue from their tuition ($37,500 per year).
$140,000 is the average debt for graduating students. Some suggestions to decrease this are to shorten pre-veterinary curriculum. Our average graduate age is 29 while the rest of world is 23 with an average of 5 yrs post high school education.
Patricia: The opening of new small animal clinic is coming soon.
Dr. Gibbs has been appointed Assoc Dean for student affairs.
Dr. Harvey is the associate dean to Dean Hoffsis.
The school hired a new dairy extension agent from Ohio.
The current tuition is $25,000 per year for in-state students; non residents pay $50,000. There is a deficiency of food animal veterinarians. Florida allocated four slots for debt forgiveness in food animal medicine.
The current applicants are 83% female, 17%male. There are, on average, 900 applicants of which 650 are out of state and 250 are FL residents. They will take 80 in-state students and 30 out-of-state students.
State residency is required for 4 yrs to establish in state residency requirements for tuition purposes.
Be sure to apply for reaccreditation with USDA. They are still accepting applications but if you have not heard don’t worry they are backlogged with applications. There will be a two tier system with new CE requirements.
Please remember the UF CVM is still open for business
Patricia Wlasuk: Development Office
The newsletters are on the table and on the back is a picture of Dr. Snyder who is a distinguished award recipient. Congratulations, Dr. Snyder!
Dr. Nicoletti is a member of the Dean’s Circle of Excellence, as is Dr. Pennington. The JVMS joined as well. There will be special events for those members: invitations for the ribbon opening ceremony, a special pin ceremony, autographed football from Urban Meyer and two tickets for football next fall.
The College now offers a business course for students to teach both individual finances and practice management.
There is an online career resource center on the website vetmed.ufl.edu.
Oct 16 is homecoming. Purchase tickets online in the vet med block. They are hoping to give a tour of new hospital at that time.
Nov 1 is the hospital opening. The preview is Oct 22 for the Circle of Excellence members.
Oct 23 is the receptionist training day and new small animal hospital preview for DVM’s.
Give your email address to Patricia Wlasuk if you are interested in electronic information. Referral guides are also available.
Thank you for all your support!
We need to approve July minutes….minutes accepted
Auditing and Trust Fund: Dr. Cromer
No news to report.
Peer Review Committee: Dr Acree
No news to report.
Dr. Erne: an update on CE meeting Nov 7 Amara Estrada will discuss cardiac disease/ morning session 8-12:30pm with breakfast and sponsored by Boehringer-Ingelheim.
Dr Walker: NFVS to take over CE, March 2011, email Mitch Crystal for requests for information.
Website Committee: Dr. Miller
Treasurer: Dr. Cindy Miller
There is a motion to accept and second, approved treasurer report.
Website: Dr. Miller suggests we need to add a facebook page for the JVMS.
Email Cindy changes to update the membership list.
The history of JVMS is being compiled by Ann Silverness, Russ Snyder and Mitch Crystal and will be updated on website.
Thank you to Cindy Miller for 5 yrs serving in the treasurer position.
Holiday Party: Dr. LaDue
The Holiday party is Dec 18 at Club Continental from 7-11pm.
Billy Bowers’s band will be the entertainment. The invitations are designed thanks to the website committee.
The vendors have sponsored seven tables for the party.
Shelter medicine: Dr. McKnight
Most are aware of the local animal ordinances being changed.
There was a JVMS Board meeting in August and a proposal/position statement was submitted to Animal Care and Protective Services and the City Council. There was a discussion about feral cats and pet relinquishment fees with Scott Trebatoski.
Once the city bill is passed, veterinarians will be required to collect rabies licenses fees for the city. This will be mandatory and practices will no longer be allowed to retain a portion of the fee. In other words, the $3 per license fee that veterinarians used to get will no longer apply. However, individual practices may choose to charge clients an administrative fee of up to $2.00 as a separate line item.
There will be a penalty for not collecting license fees and the city can revoke a veterinarian’s occupational license for failure to comply. There will be a form for clients to sign if they refuse to purchase the rabies license which we will be required to submit to the city.
The FVMA looked into the legality of this proposed ordinance and it is legal.
Weekend vaccine clinics will also be required to collect rabies license fees.
The proposed ordinance changes will be voted on by city council next week and over 65 changes will be made.
Breeders will be required to have a permit and veterinarians will be performing inspections for breeders.
Update as of 11-3-2010: City bill 2010-527 is still pending and has not been approved yet.
Old Business: Dr. Kapustin
Remember pet amnesty day is September 25 9am-2pm and 2-5pm. Veterinarian and technician volunteers are needed.
Dr. Page and Dr. Silverness have researched TNR programs. The AVMA has a collection of material on the subject and it can be posted on the JVMS website for all to read. Regarding the TNR programs we are considering a panel of experts to address this controversial issue further and would include epidemiologists, wildlife biologists, etc.
Hilton Manuel did not have database for fax and email data for members for rabies updates. Dr. Miller has been forwarding them to JVMS members.
There have been 4 rabies notices so check to see if your info is updated.
New Business:
There is a new sales tax to include over the counter non – prescriptions.
The JVMS is considering a PR firm quote to represent the organization.
There was a motion to add a PR committee, motion and second, approved.
What is the goal? Ann Silverness believes our organization needs a voice in community that is lacking, which is what happened with the JVMS not being aware of the proposed city ordinances.
Dr. Snyder stressed caution with dealing with PR firms since costs can escalate quickly.
A proposal from a PR firm was presented. The costs of this particular proposal were high enough that we would need to cash in CD to support this financially according to Dr. Cindy Miller (treasurer).
A PR Committee seems to be necessary to see what the possibilities are.
It has been a difficult year with the sales taxes and vaccine clinics on corners. There is now a CVT program that started this year. The history of JVMS will be on the website and we have corrected the lines of communication with the city. The shelter medicine chair should always be invited to participate in city/humane society issues.
From Dr. Ann Silverness: thank you to everyone for being involved.
Remarks from Dr Jay Erne, our new president: If there are suggestions for betterment of our society, please bring them up. Attendance needs to be promoted in between annual meetings. Younger DVM’s can benefit from membership. The cost of the business dinners has been a little expensive for some and we will try to address that this year.
Dr. Erne presented plaque to Dr. Ann Silverness to thank her for serving as president for the past year.
A motion was made and seconded to elect the slate of officers, Dr. Jay Erne, President; Dr. Grant McMillan, President –elect; Dr. Heidi Chupp, Treasurer and Dr. Laura Kelsey, Secretary. It was passed unanimously.
The following are our committee chairpersons:
CE committee – Dr. Mitch Crystal
Holiday party – Dr. Nicole Hardy and Dr. Steve Hart
Website Committee: Dr. Cindy Miller and Dr. Ann Silverness
Awards Committee: Dr. Rick Sutliff
Ethics Committee: Dr. Howard Acree
PR committee: Dr. Ann Silverness
We recognize the veterinarians from FCNMHP and welcome them to our society.
Thanks were expressed to the JVMS on behalf of Dr. Plant for the plant arrangement that we sent to him. He had quadruple bypass surgery and hopes that he will be back to work around the first of the year.
Meeting adjourned
There was a brief Executive Board meeting after the business meeting with the past 4 presidents and current officers.
Dr. Natalie Hashey