VIN Foundation Donates Books at SAVMA Symposium

At the Student American Veterinary Medical Association (SAVMA) Symposium 2010 held in Madison, Wis., last March, the VIN Foundation donated 1800 free textbooks to veterinary students.

The VIN Foundation gave away copies of five books: Atlas of Feline Ophthalmology, Canine & Feline Dental Radiography, Diagnostic Ultrasound of Dog & Cat, Food Animal Surgery, and an RMM book of cartoons called "A Mid-stream Collection." After all the available books were taken, some copies were mailed to students after the symposium. The publisher, Veterinary Learning Systems, needed to free up some storage space and the VIN Foundation offered to pay to ship the books to the symposium and give them away.

"I was in awe of the amount of books they handed out," said Megan Wehrwein, a third-year student in Wisconsin who helped organize the symposium. "Hands down, I would say VIN Foundation was the most popular booth at the symposium.  Anytime you walked outside the booth area, people would walk up and ask where it was because they'd heard they were giving away books. It surprised people that they didn't have to sign up for something and they could just walk way with some really great books. It definitely was the way to start your reference library."

"We went to SAVMA to introduce ourselves to those students who will soon be new graduates," said Paul Pion, DVM, DipACVIM, a board member of the VIN Foundation. "We wanted to get out and meet and talk to students, and better understand their needs as they work toward entering the profession.  We also wanted to let them get to know the VIN Foundation." The goal of the VIN Foundation is to ease the transition from student to working veterinarian.

Hosted by SAVMA members at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, the student organizers pitched in and helped unload and prepare the book give-away.

The symposium, which will be held in Davis, Calif., next year, was a useful tool for students. "From what I heard other students say, the number of wet labs and lectures was well worth the time and money to come," said Wehrwein. "We even had ten students from overseas.  Wisconsin always plans spring break to coincide with SAVMA, but some schools don't, and some students missed school for it. I met some really great people and I had fun."