Abstract
Little did I think, when I was in the Scheman Building at Iowa State University in 1978, part of the first set of candidates to sit The American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP) examination in Ames, that 30 plus years later I would be invited to act as historian for a couple of decades of the College's growth. When I became a member, I knew all the other female members of the College. Someone set up an informal gathering of female members at the annual meeting in about 1980. Most attended, and we were able to fit in one small room. There did not seem to be a reason for subsequent meetings, and women plunged into the mainstream. It has been my honor and privilege to serve as Secretary-Treasurer of the College from 1985 to 1989, and as a Council member for three years in connection with being President in 1995.
The Examination
The mission statement of The ACVP includes fostering excellence in veterinary pathology. The first part of fostering excellence in veterinary pathology is to require a degree of competency of members of the group, and therefore I have to talk first about the certifying examination. We know we have a rigorous examination, created and administered by a dedicated standing Examination Committee. When David Dodd was President in 1987, he wanted to be sure we had the best questions, that the scores were statistically reliable and properly applied, and that the exam was as consistent as possible from year to year. The Council had a brief 1987 flirtation with a professional examination service, and, in the following year or so, the conviction was established that the examination had to remain firmly in the hands of College members. In 1988, we decided to conduct the first role delineation study to ensure that passing the examination qualified a pathologist for work in the real world of pathology and to strengthen the examination against legal challenge. The study took place in 1988 and 1989, guided by Oscar Fletcher, and was reported to the Council in 1990. Additional role delineation studies have been conducted since then as needed. The Examination Committee was authorized to use a consultant to construct questions. The consultant is still used today, with an expanded role. The rules about repeating the examination after passing two or three parts were made more compassionate, so that credit was kept for two more attempts in the next four examinations. Also in 1988 was the acknowledgement that 40% of the membership was involved in toxicologic pathology, and the Examination Committee was asked to increase the number of laboratory animal and toxicologic pathology questions in the Veterinary Pathology examination, and to correspondingly decrease the number of peripheral species questions. After passionate debate, the membership voted in 1989 that three years of training in the specialty after graduation from veterinary school were the minimum required to sit the examination.
As a response to low pass rate concerns of members, mentors, and the American Veterinary Medical Association's (AVMA) American Board of Veterinary Specialties, in the early 1990s we began to express the success rate on a five-year scale, and by separating the R-4 candidates (those who failed three or four parts of the examination), from the repeat candidates (those who failed one or two parts). In 1993, an ACVP-Society of Toxicologic Pathology committee investigated whether ACVP programs, including the examination, adequately addressed toxicologic pathology. In 1994, an ad hoc Examination Committee set to work considering whether content or format of the examination needed to be changed. A quality assurance person worked with the Examination Committee from 1995 onwards. In 1997, the 60% passing grade was validated by a review, and an additional validation study was conducted in 1998. A modular format with menu selection was used for the Veterinary Pathology section of the Anatomic Pathology examination starting in 1998. Jim MacLachlan, President in 1998, was a proponent of “exam demystification”. The traditional review of the examination's visual sections conducted at annual meetings was opened to nonmembers, starting 1999. Discussion of credentialing of applicants started in the late 1990s, and from this a Credentialing Committee developed. The membership was enthralled to hear of the heroic measures taken to start the September 2001 examination on time on September 12th, after the airlines were grounded following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After the 2004 examination, candidates who had to retake all four parts of the test for at least the second time were required to take a requalifying examination before being allowed to retake the ACVP exam. In 2005, another role delineation study was performed to confirm the examination was measuring what it should. To relieve stress and fatigue, the examination was expanded to three days, starting in 2007.
The Journal
Publishing the journal Veterinary Pathology is another of the important functions of the ACVP. In the time that I have been a member, the journal has moved from strength to strength under the guidance of Editors David Dodd, John Shadduck, Norman Cheville, Donald McGavin, Jim Zachary, Donna Kusewitt, Eva Sartin, and now Carl Alden. A 1990 survey of members showed a very high value was placed on articles about basic pathological mechanisms and on experimental studies related to natural disease, and most members favored retaining brief communications. The journal's impact in the biomedical community has increased. The covers are works of photographic art. In 2003, the journal went online, and Allen Press' online system of manuscript submission and review was used. The business management of the journal went from the hands of volunteers to professionals.
Annual Meetings
Annual scientific meetings have changed since the late 1980s, for the better. Exhibitors were first invited to participate in annual meetings in 1986, and for the first couple of years it was rocky. Members did not accept the idea well, preferring to use break times to catch up with old friends, and not wanting even to make eye contact with exhibitors. Fortunately, things have changed, to the advantage of all parties and to the College coffers. Starting in the mid 1980s, the President of the AVMA was invited each year to The ACVP annual meeting, and met with the Council to discuss items of mutual interest. The meeting of 1989 was the last one at which the Secretary-Treasurer ran the registration. The non-scientific arrangements for annual meetings used to be made by dedicated and well meaning member volunteers. The President's reception was the place where cost cutting could be exercised if needed, and in some years the menu was cheese and crackers. The College has benefitted greatly from having its management company heavily involved with site selection and negotiation with hotels and professionally taking care of registration and a myriad of details. The annual business meeting has changed from an event at which issues were argued, to a more ceremonial gathering. Nevertheless, a great deal of information is supplied in the business meeting agenda booklet. Now non-members are admitted to the annual business meeting.
In 1989, it was quite a new idea to have a separate short course attached to an annual scientific meeting, and since then there have been many. There were joint annual meetings with the American College of Veterinary Dermatology in 1991, and the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists in 1992. In 1994, a committee to evaluate the educational programs of the College recommended that annual meetings should change from a single topic focus for plenary sessions, to a matrix of plenary sessions to address similar or diverse topics. There should be increased time for specialty group sessions, and the meeting should be at a consistent time of year, such as the second week in November. Education Committees would be constructed the same way as Examination Committees, with staggered terms, and not created de novo for each event. Since 1992, annual meeting abstracts have been published in the September issue of Veterinary Pathology. From the early 1990s, a Town Hall meeting has occurred at annual meetings to give members an opportunity to air their views, and for the Council to listen. Subjects of meetings included recertification, the importance of toxicologic pathology and the possibility of subspecialty certification, credentialing, shortage of veterinary pathologists, a qualifying examination, the status of training programs, and improving the examination. It is still possible to indulge in a mystery slide session at an annual meeting, but now one can download Imagescope viewing software to examine the tissue sections on a computer screen. Because I qualify by virtue of having been an AVCP member for more than 25 years, I was very glad to learn of the Very Important Pathologists program at annual meetings, which allows emeritus and senior members to take in some relaxed socializing as well as the science.
Communication: The Newsletter, the Membership Directory, the Website
The newsletter has been online since 2002. The newsletter seems much more fun to read than it was twenty years ago. It is colorful, glossy, and has plenty of pictures. What used to be dry, sometimes cryptic lists of the Council activities (I am allowed to say that because I wrote some of them) are now translated into articles written by the Secretary-Treasurer on the history of particular issues and the significance of related decisions. With newsletters, there came information on those standing for office, and election ballots. The several salary surveys conducted over the years were advertised and reported in the newsletter. The need for closeness with the AVMA was explained, along with the authority of its American Board of Veterinary Specialties. Today, the newsletter is used as a bully pulpit, asking members over and over to give their time and their money to the College, publishing lists of donors, and encouraging members to contact the Council. Sadly, there are increasing numbers of obituaries of colleagues and of the giants of veterinary pathology one was privileged to know. The newsletter has become important enough to have its own Editor. Our management company and the World Wide Web Committee and the World Wide Web Editor have produced an attractive website, useful for members, aspiring members, and the public. The membership directory has increased in thickness, changed its binding, added the constitution, by-laws and mission statement, and acquired attractive artwork on the cover. A major change came in 1988, when there was one alphabetical list of members, not separate lists for veterinary pathologists and veterinary clinical pathologists. This overcame the artificial separation of colleagues, and the irritation of having to remember to which group an individual belonged in order to obtain contact information. Today, you can update your contact information online.
General College Business
What holds the College together? When it was a much smaller organization, the glue was a small number of volunteers. But when we passed the 1,000 member level, it became necessary to enlist professional management. Talley Management came on board in 1988, and was well integrated into College functions by 1990. In 2001, the College employed a new management company, Thomas Miller Associates, and later in 2001 that company was sold to The Rees Group. In 2002, Executive Director Mary Schumacher became full time, and in January 2005 the position was transferred to Wendy Coe. The management companies employed by the College have performed their missions well and freed College members for those activities for which expertise in veterinary pathology or veterinary clinical pathology is needed. The College now has 1,550 members. The committee structure is complex, requiring a diagram that can be found on the membership directory and the web page. In the March 2002 newsletter, Secretary-Treasurer Paul Stromberg explained the proposed new relationships within the College. Standing committees would be given more responsibility and authority; the Council would lead and not manage.
The College has deliberated some big issues over the past two decades. Overshadowing anything else, there always was and always will be the examination. Other well-debated issues have been continuing professional competence and subspecialization in toxicologic pathology. The professional competence discussions started around 1991. A Committee chaired by Chuck Capen conducted a detailed study that recommended no recertification because members did not want it, but it did recommend setting up a system for members to record their continuing education. There was a two-year pilot project, and then a two-year extension, and the project was abandoned in 1998 because of lack of efficiency and cost effectiveness.
Discussion on toxicologic pathology was brought to the foreground when College members who were also members of the Society of Toxicologic Pathology visited the Council in 1992, and suggested that the College may not adequately address the needs of toxicologic pathologists. In 1994, President Talmage Brown summarized the results of two open forums concerning toxicologic pathology in the previous year, saying that there was little support by ACVP members for altering the current exam to provide for subspecialty certification in toxicologic pathology. Things moved on, however, and in 1998 there was a constitutional amendment defining veterinary pathology and veterinary clinical pathology as specialties, and defining a subspecialty as something entered by an examination beyond the specialty examination. In 1999, the Council approved a petition for subspecialty status for toxicologic pathology, and petitioners began a three-year probationary period as a subspecialty. An organizational meeting was held at the annual meeting. In 2004, the American Board of Veterinary Specialties approved Toxicologic Pathology as a subspecialty under Veterinary Pathology. The first examination was planned for the time of the annual meeting in 2005, but, earlier in the year the membership voted against having the subspecialty. It is very fortunate for The ACVP that toxicologic pathologists continue to be engaged with and supportive of the College, and embrace the annual meetings.
The College developed 2000, 2003–2006, and 2007–2012 strategic plans. The themes of increasing the number of diplomates of the College, increasing the supply of veterinary pathologists, and developing veterinary pathologists for the future run through all three plans. Of course, there was support for training more veterinary pathologists well before the strategic planning, but the formal plan increased the pace and determination. There had long been a gathering each year at the annual meeting of the heads of training programs, but today we have a formal committee within the ACVP structure. The Young Investigator Awards for poster presentations by veterinary pathology trainees were first given in 1989. From the early 1990s, there were pathology externships for veterinary students. After the death in 1993 of immediate past President Harold Casey, a fund was set up in his name for trainees in veterinary pathology. In 1999, Talmage Brown, as Chair of the Board of Directors, ACVP Research and Education Endowment, stressed the shortage of veterinary pathologists, and encouraged member contributions to the endowment as a means of supporting post-graduate education in veterinary pathology and promoting veterinary student interest in the career. ACVP Student Chapters were initiated in 2002, and now there is one in every veterinary school in North America. A Recruitment Committee, chaired by Ricardo Ochoa, was set up in 2002. A Veterinary College Deans' Advisory Council was assembled in 2003. In 2004, under the leadership of Gary Cockerell, the ACVP formed a coalition with the Society of Toxicologic Pathology to raise significant funding from industry to support the training of additional veterinary pathologists. Also in that year, ACVP funding started for pathology clubs at academic institutions, and a student poster contest was started. A Veterinary Pathology Careers website was activated in 2005. In 2006, travel awards for graduate students and residents were approved to defray costs of attending the annual meeting.
Increasing the visibility and image of the College was another goal in the strategic plans. The Public Relations Committee, headed by Gary Cockerell, was active in 2003, creating a brochure to promote the College to the media, policymakers, and the public. They created a press kit, and brought the media to the annual meeting. The committee hired a public relations company to help the ACVP market itself and raise its visibility.
External funding of the College existed before there were strategic plans, but the plans strengthened the efforts. An External Finance Committee was in operation when I became Secretary-Treasurer in 1985. The Committee's charge was to raise money from industry, and the money was used for the annual meeting in early years, and later for the annual meeting and ACVP programs. An endowment fund for the College was approved in 1992. Initial thoughts behind the fund were that contributions could be made to honor retired or deceased diplomates, and ageing College members would appreciate a named fund to mention in their wills. The fund was taken to heart by members in general, and increasing the endowment became a focal point in strategic plans. In 2003, a Development Committee, chaired by Reid Patterson, was created to provide a cohesive framework for all ACVP fundraising activities, and the Endowment Subcommittee and a Corporate Partners Subcommittee were folded into the structure.
I have not been able to mention in this summary all those individuals or groups who have contributed to the advancement of the College over the past two decades. For example, I know a large number of people have been involved in the Oncology Committee. For these omissions, I hope I will be forgiven. It has been a fascinating and rewarding experience to be part of the large collection of energetic and resourceful friends and colleagues dedicated to the advancement of our professional scientific discipline.