Reforms in Veterinary Education

Abstract

In recent years, veterinary schools have undergone diverse educational reforms. The profession of veterinary medicine is diverse, and its needs have expanded rapidly to include advanced veterinary medicine, human and animal medicine (drug) development, infectious disease research and countermeasures, food safety, conservation medicine and One Health, which is health medicine that integrates the environment, society, humans, and animals, and animal welfare. In 2010, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) published a draft Minimum Competencies for Veterinary Education, which requires a response from each country. In Japan, the "Standard Curriculum for Veterinary Specialty Education Programs" agreed upon by the National Council of University Representatives for Veterinary Medicine in 2004 continued to be debated; in 2008, the "Research Collaborators Conference on the Improvement and Enhancement of Veterinary Education" was established to discuss educational reform, including core curricula. When the Model Core Curriculum for Veterinary Education (Veterinary Core Curriculum) was created in 2011, so-called Core Curriculum textbooks were published accordingly, and CBT (computer-based testing) and OSCE (objective clinical competence examination) were launched along with the introduction of polycriteria. The Core Curriculum continued to be debated and updated, and in 2019 a new integrated Core Curriculum was created. The Model Core Curriculum for Toxicology states, "To clarify the harmful effects of chemical substances on humans, animals, and the environment, and to understand the role of veterinarians in preventing such effects.” Here we would like to present an overview of the reforms in veterinary education to date.