UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

The UC affiliates The current school is the University of California's second attempt at a veterinary school. It was also the first professional school to open at the Davis campus. One of the early UC affiliates was a College of Veterinary Medicine, which operated in San Francisco from 1894 to 1899. Of the ten veterinary schools in North America at that time, only one was west of the Rocky Mountains—Washington State—while four were concentrated in the Northeastern United States. This distribution made no sense since veterinarians were needed for the large livestock and poultry populations of the western states. On May 26, 1944, the Board of Regents voted in favor of Davis and to also transfer there Berkeley's existing veterinary science research. He also led the school's move into its new building upon completion. Haring Hall was more richly appointed than other buildings at the Davis campus at the time. Faculty in other Davis units enviously called it the "marble palace" or the "horse pentagon". William R. Pritchard served as dean from 1962 to 1982. The school's main challenge during the 1960s was to develop a larger school building in a new health sciences complex in the southwest corner of the Davis campus, where it would be located near the new medical school and would share some facilities with that school. The effort to develop a bigger building was further complicated by ongoing efforts in the 1960s by various Southern California politicians to establish a second public veterinary school at either the UC campuses at Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, or San Diego, or in the alternative, Cal Poly Pomona. Meanwhile, Pritchard supervised the founding of several programs which were the first of their kind at a veterinary school anywhere in the world: epidemiology, preventive medicine, zoological medicine, neurology, ophthalmology, reproduction, and cardiology. The concept of One Medicine later evolved into One Health, which the school continues to support through its One Health Institute (founded in 2009). In October 1970, the VMTH opened and began admitting patients. It was the only tertiary veterinary hospital in California and also "the nation's first primary, secondary, and tertiary animal care center at a veterinary school". Bond issues for the development of UC facilities were repeatedly defeated at the polls. and it seemed as if the veterinary school would receive the $23 million promised for a Vet Med Unit II building in the campus's health sciences complex. As this promise was not fulfilled, in 1998 the AVMA awarded only two years of limited reaccreditation on the basis of a single issue: the poor quality of the school's physical facilities. U.S. News and World Report, which had routinely ranked the school as the no. 1 veterinary school in the nation for decades, dropped the school from its rankings pending reacquisition of full accreditation. This controversy forced the campus administration to prioritize the construction of a set of modern buildings to provide a suitable home for the school next to its teaching hospital. The school completed the last of these new buildings on March 28, 2017: a new Student Services and Administrative Center. This marked the completion of the school's long-planned separation from Haring Hall and adjacent buildings in the central campus area to the health sciences district in the southwest corner of campus. ==Departments==

The school has six academic departments: • Anatomy, Physiology & Cell Biology • Molecular Biosciences • Medicine and Epidemiology • Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology • Population Health and Reproduction • Surgical and Radiological Sciences The school switched to a new DVM curriculum starting with the class of 2015. This curriculum had been in development for 5 years. In the new curriculum, 75% of the material is didactic curriculum core material and 25% is elective material. In the first year, students gain a solid understanding of the normal structure, function and homeostasis of animals. Year two is focused on pathophysiology and mechanisms of disease of animals. The third year is aimed at teaching the manifestations of animal diseases including history, diagnosis, therapeutic and prevention strategies. The fourth year is clinical work, which is broken up into nine different tracks from which a student may choose. The tracks are Equine Track, Equine/Small Animal Track, Food Animal Track, Food/Small Animal Track, Large Animal Track, Mixed Animal Track, Small Animal Track, Zoological Track and Individual Track. ==Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital==

The William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH) at the University of California, Davis — a unit of the School of Veterinary Medicine — is open to the public. Faculty and resident clinicians along with supervised students treat more than 50,000 animals a year, ranging from cats and dogs to horses, livestock, and exotic species. The hospital provides 24/7 emergency services for those first four categories. The current hospital, along with five support buildings, opened in 1970. The VMTH provides training opportunities and clinical experiences for DVM students and postgraduate veterinarian residents. These residents are trained under the faculty's tutelage to be board-certified specialists in one of 34 specialty areas. In August 2016, news coverage of several pet owners' complaints about expensive and ineffective care at the VMTH drew public attention to the fact that veterinarians working there were exempt from licensing by the California Department of Consumer Affairs. Thus, DCA's Veterinary Medical Board had no jurisdiction over VMTH vets, in contrast with vets in private practice who had been regulated by DCA and its predecessors for many years. The hospital operates UC Veterinary Medical Center — San Diego at satellite facilities which opened in 2000 and 2008 to provide hemodialysis and cardiology services to Southern California pets (i.e., specialized services which the vast majority of veterinarians cannot provide). In March 2024, UC Davis bought a San Diego office building and began renovating the building into a veterinary hospital which opened in the fall of 2025. Like Davis, the new satellite hospital in San Diego offers 24/7 emergency services. ==Notable programs==

The School of Veterinary Medicine was on the forefront of research into the 2007 pet food recalls. Other areas of research include chronic progressive lymphedema in horses and H1N1 influenza. Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding with the California Department of Fish and Game, the school's Wildlife Health Center administers the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) on behalf of the government of California. OWCN directly operates facilities for the cleaning and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife at Cordelia and San Pedro, and in emergencies can also draw upon the resources of 23 participating organizations. The SeaDoc Society is an affiliated nonprofit with the veterinary school and the schools Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center. ==Discoveries and distinctions==

• Leads the nation's 30 accredited veterinary schools and colleges with more than $70 million in annual research funding. • Faculty members that have been honored as members of the National Academy of Sciences or National Academy of Medicine include: Roy Doi, Bruce Hammock, Harris Lewin, Jonna Mazet, Stephen Barthold, Patricia Conrad, Tilahun Yilma, Michael Lairmore and Christine Kreuder Johnson. • Five faculty members (Terrell Holliday [1998]; Gary P Carlson [2004]; Richard W Nelson [2012]; Bradford Smith [2019]; and Mark D Kittleson [2022]) have received the Robert W. Kirk Award for Professional Excellence from the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in recognition of outstanding achievements and dedicated service to the veterinary profession. • The PREDICT initiative, led by the school's One Health Institute, was awarded $175 million by USAID to help detect and respond to emerging infectious diseases in more than 30 countries worldwide. Infectious disease scientists developed SpillOver open-source web application developed, launched in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic as a virus and host risk assessment tool • Pioneered animal DNA Testing, including the discovery of a mutation in gene NKX2-8, that causes spinal dysraphism in dogs and could show clues about neural tube defects in humans, including spina bifida and anencephaly. • Pioneered a new mandibular reconstruction procedure. Whiskey, a Munsterlander dog, received mandibular reconstruction after losing his jaw due to a cancerous growth. This new procedure uses a titanium plate in the form of a jawbone which contains a bone growth protein. Over time, the cells proliferate and give rise to an artificial jaw made of material that resembles natural bone. • Identified mutations in the genes DLX5, DLX6 and ADAMTS20 that are associated with cleft palate and cleft lips in dogs and humans. • Researchers first described simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV) in monkeys and feline immunodeficiency viruses (FIV) in cats, which became the earliest animal models for AIDS research. • In 1989, the International Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Tropical Disease and virologist Tilahun Yilma developed a genetically engineered vaccine for rinderpest and an inexpensive diagnostic kit designed to be stable under field conditions. In areas of Africa that depend on cattle for meat, milk products, and work, the rinderpest virus has caused famine and economic damage -$500 million in one outbreak of the 1980s. • Much of the school's research focuses on identifying, treating, and preventing various diseases in animals. The J-5 vaccine against the E. coli infections that lead to bovine mastitis was formulated as a result of research conducted at UC Davis. • Notable discoveries by faculty of the school include feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), taurine deficiency as the cause of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in domestic cats, and the first genetic cause of a heart disease in domestic cats (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)). == References ==