The Swine Medicine Education Center (SMEC) is accepting enrollment into 4 available swine courses:
- SMEC 478A: Swine Production Management and Consultation
- SMEC 478B: Swine Clinical Pharmacology and Treatment Management
- SMEC 478C: Swine Emerging Diseases Diagnosis and Management
- SMEC 480: Swine Production Medicine Clinical Rotation.
There are a limited number of spaces available and a limited number of stipends available to reduce costs for each course. The course dates are listed on the SMEC website at http://www.smec.iastate.edu. To enroll in a SMEC course please contact Kristin Skoland at kjhammen@iastate.edu or 515-294-7692. SMEC encourages you to register today!
SMEC 478A: Swine Production Management and Consultation, 2-week rotation, based out of Audubon, Iowa in conjunction with Audubon-Manning Veterinary Clinic (AMVC) provides participants the opportunity to learn swine production management and consulting skills within a progressive swine production and management system. Participants will discuss topics of finance and business of the swine industry and have on-farm learning opportunities to visit a breeding farm, nursery, wean-to-finish facility, gilt developer unit, and a truck wash. At the conclusion of this course, participants have substantial knowledge of swine production phases, have developed skills in business and financial management in regard to the pork industry, understand swine management and genetics, and understand the economic structure of agribusiness and management.
- March 27, 2017 – April 9, 2017
- October 9, 2017 – October 22, 2017
- March 26, 2018 – April 8, 2018
SMEC 478B: Swine Clinical Pharmacology and Treatment Management, 2-week rotation, is becoming ever popular amongst participants due to the upcoming changes and heightened consumer concerns in regard to antibiotic use in food animals. This course provides participants with basic and applied information on swine treatment options, strategies to maximize efficacy, and skills to pursue judicious use of antimicrobials, reproductive interventions, and the entire spectrum of drug therapies. During the course, participants prepare a thorough evaluation of the pharmacologic interventions that may occur on farms and then implement this evaluation in active production facilities to maximize efficacy, compliance, and animal welfare as part of a comprehensive judicious use objective. At the completion of this course participants will have gained a thorough understanding of basic drug classes, drug regulations, AMDUCA guidelines, compounding regulations, dose regimens and calculations, and how concurrent disease impacts pharmacokinetic parameters.
- May 22, 2017 – June 4, 2017
- January 16, 2018 – January 28, 2018
SMEC 478C: Swine Emerging Diseases Diagnosis and Management, 2-week rotation, allows participants to develop the best practices and methodologies to detect disease and the presence of infection within herds and methods to eliminate or manage the disease for infected herds. Students become competent in diagnostic tests and methodologies, diagnostic approaches, selecting animals for testing, and numbers needed to sample. Students gain knowledge of disease elimination techniques and other evidence-based methods to manage and minimize losses of an affected herd, as well as the principles commonly applied to commercial production systems to minimize economic losses due to disease.
- October 24, 2016 – November 6, 2016
- April 10, 2017 – April 23, 2017
- October 23, 2017 – November 5, 2017
- April 9, 2018 – April 22, 2018
SMEC 480: Swine Production Medicine Clinical, 2-week rotation, allows participants to take the lead in investigating field based client cases with supervision of the SMEC instructors while developing critical thinking skills that allow participants to apply concepts of herd management, production analysis, economic analysis, and disease prevention and treatment in addressing client cases and diagnostic submissions. After participation in SMEC 480, participants are able to efficiently review and analyze hands-on practice of clinical swine veterinary techniques and have developed the basic competencies of animal handling and restraint, antemortem and post-mortem diagnostic sample collection, humane euthanasia, and critical thinking and analysis.
- January 30, 2017 – February 12, 2017
- March 13, 2017 – March 26, 2017
- May 8, 2017 – May 21, 2017
- July 3, 2017 – July 16, 2017
- August 28, 2017 – September 10, 2017
- September 25, 2017 – October 8, 2017
- January 29, 2018 – February 11, 2018
- March 12, 2018 – March 25, 2018