NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN PROGRAMS FOR DAY-1 AND ADVANCED TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN AQUATIC VETERINARY MEDICINE

With increasing impacts of diseases on aquaculture production in all countries, the need for a well-trained aquatic veterinary workforce (including veterinarians and para-veterinarians - veterinary technicians or nurses, and non-veterinary "aquatic animal health professionals") has become a global imperative. While a number of International and National veterinary organizations have, or are developing processes to determine, evaluate, harmonize and accredit veterinary education throughout the world, two organizations are focusing on the educational needs of aquatic veterinarians and veterinary curricular and continuing CEPD programs throughout the world - the World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association (WAVMA), and the International Partnership on Aquatic Veterinary Education (i-PAVE).

While preliminary surveys of veterinary schools throughout N. America and Europe suggested that there many have a number of aquatic veterinary courses, no veterinary school includes all subject-matter identified in WAVMA's Aquatic Veterinary Certification Program (CertAqV). This Program identified 9 core (or Day-1) general areas of competency (GAC) that are needed to practice aquatic veterinary medicine (equivalent to the knowledge, skills and experience required of individuals receiving a veterinary degree). These cover clinical and non-clinical subjects specifically focused on aquatic species and industries, and include: 1) Aquatic Environment and Life Support Systems;  2) Taxonomy, Anatomy & Physiology; 3) Husbandry and Industries; 4) Pathobiology & Epidemiology of Aquatic Animal Diseases; 5) Diagnostics and Treatment of Aquatic Animal Diseases; 6) Clinical Veterinary Experience and Client Communications; 7) Public Health, Zoonotics & Seafood Safety; 8) Legislation, Regulations, and Policies; and, 9) Principles of Aquatic Animal Welfare. Since 2010, >110 individuals from >27 countries have been certified to be competent in all 9 GACs, and ~70 more are currently being evaluated.

To build on these efforts, i-PAVE embarked on a multi-year project to verify and validate that all GACs in the WAVMA CertAqV Program equally apply to any country, using a "DACUM" Process (Developing A CurriculUM; Fig 1), which has been used elsewhere for analyzing many occupations and validating that curricula meet the needs of a profession. Preliminary results of DACUM workshops in N. and S. America, Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific, using veterinarians actively engaged in aquatic veterinary medicine for a number of years, indicate that ~215 specific tasks will fulfill all the GACs identified in the WAVMA CertAqV Program. Importantly, all of these GACs and related tasks can be covered in a single 6-week course, should a veterinary school desire. Furthermore, fulfilling the WAVMA CertAqV requirements prepare individuals for Board Certification in aquatic veterinary medicine.