SCOTLAND’S top vet schools has moved into a new £42million facility.
The new building at the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies was officially opened by The Princess Royal today (tues).
More than 1,000 staff and students can be accommodated at the new teaching facility, which is based next to the school’s hospitals for small and large animals, enabling students to gain a range of practical experience.
Students will benefit from lecture theatres fitted with multi-media technology, a library, seminar rooms, teaching laboratories and a restaurant.
They will also be able to practise on interactive models at a clinical skills facility and use interactive learning to check the health of farm animals using web cams.
The new building – part of a £100 million development on the University’s Easter Bush campus – will also enable the vet school to increase its first year undergraduate intake from 100 to around 180 students each year.
Expertise
Professor Elaine Watson, Head of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, said: “The educational needs of the 21st century vet are very different those of veterinary students in the past.
“Vets need to be trained for an international market-place. They might find themselves helping improve the livelihoods of a billion poor livestock farmers in developing countries, thus working towards securing food production for a growing global population. Alternatively they could be working in public health to prevent illnesses being transmitted from animals to humans thereby thwarting devastating pandemics such as avian flu.
“Vets working in biomedical research will be able to look for cures for life-threatening diseases affecting both animals and humans or vets could work on the front line of defence against agricultural bioterrorism, such as the use of anthrax.
“Teaching at the new vet school building will equip graduates with a wide range of expertise for a dynamic and growing profession which provides varied opportunities.”
