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Online shelter medicine course receives UF award

Dr. Terry Spencer

A graduate online course offered by the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program has been selected to receive an Online Education Excellence award from the University of Florida’s “UF Online” program.

The award was given in the graduate courses category. The course, titled “Integrating Veterinary Medicine with Shelter Systems” was created and is taught by Dr. Terry Spencer, a clinical assistant professor and director of distance learning for the Maddie’s program, with assistance from Michael Crandall, a media and instructional designer also with the Maddie’s program.

“This course is a required online course for both our professional (UF DVM) students and our off-campus graduate students who are pursuing the certificate in shelter medicine, both the graduate and the professional versions of the certificate offered by the college,” Spencer said. “It was designed to be the foundational course for the other courses in the series, as an overview of the role played by veterinarians in animal shelters to save lives and improve welfare of homeless dogs and cats.”

The 3-credit, semester long course actively involves students with exploring cases of infectious disease management, veterinary forensic medical examinations, behavioral problem management, stress reduction, calculating population capacity, standards for high quality high-volume spay/neuter service and career opportunities in shelter medicine, Spencer said.

Course content is presented as an interactive digital textbook that also incorporates asynchronous discussions with classmates from around the world, synchronous discussions with content experts both from UF and from other organizations and authentic assessments to help students apply their knowledge and skills.

The Online Education Excellence awards will be presented at the UF Interface Faculty Seminar, which will be held April 24 at the Austin Cary Learning Center.