SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The field of vet­eri­nary med­i­cine got a cadre of new doc­tors on June 3, when 19 young and en­er­getic Doc­tors of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine (DMVs) took the oath at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

Speak­ing at the func­tion was Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who is al­so a DMV. He said the field was a mis­un­der­stood and of­ten un­der­rat­ed one. "I have lost count of how many times I've been asked how my vet­eri­nary back­ground qual­i­fies me to be a Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment. But these lessons, which de­mand us to cul­ti­vate a strong work eth­ic, ver­sa­til­i­ty, com­pas­sion, em­pa­thy, con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, com­mit­ment and team work are tru­ly uni­ver­sal. They de­fine us as in­di­vid­u­als and qual­i­fy us to serve in so many fields."

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said he was not the on­ly vet in pol­i­tics. He said Dr Neil Parsan cur­rent­ly serves as am­bas­sador ex­tra­or­di­naire and plenipo­ten­tiary to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, as well as Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Mex­i­can States. Parsan is al­so the per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T to the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States. In ad­di­tion, he said, Dr Anil Ram­nanan, a DMV, was the con­sulate gen­er­al for T&T in Mi­a­mi. Ra­mad­hars­ingh re­mind­ed the new doc­tors of the im­por­tant role they played in food se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic health. "As you know, oth­er as­pects of the field in­clude work­ing in pub­lic health as well as food pro­duc­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, the lat­ter-food se­cu­ri­ty-is rapid­ly grow­ing in im­por­tance, not on­ly lo­cal­ly but al­so re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly."

He al­so ad­vised the grad­u­ates to ex­er­cise com­pas­sion, since they would be ex­pect­ed to deal with two clients, the an­i­mal and its own­er. "As a vet­eri­nar­i­an, you are ex­pect­ed to demon­strate ex­treme ver­sa­til­i­ty. We do not have the com­fort of be­ing able to ask our pa­tients their his­to­ry, nor can we find out where it hurts from the prover­bial horse's mouth. "The clients and sit­u­a­tions we treat re­quire us to de­liv­er the ser­vices of pae­di­a­tri­cians, den­tists, ra­di­ol­o­gists, sur­geons and even psy­chol­o­gists to a range of species," he said. "As the branch of med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers which treat with an­i­mals, com­pas­sion is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary. Our pa­tients are voice­less, and too of­ten we find that lack of aware­ness on the part of own­ers leads to their abuse. Every one of you is now an ac­tivist for an­i­mal wel­fare. Yours will be the voice for the voice­less and I hope that you nev­er for­get this," he said.