The Canadian Swine Health Board reports a program under which Post Doctoral Fellows were placed within swine health research institutions across Canada to help address a shortage of swine health researchers has been highly successful.
Approximately three years ago, to bolster the renewal of manpower within the swine health industry, the Canadian Swine Health Board funded the placement of Post Doctoral Fellows, young scientists who have recently completed their Ph.D. programs, into three year positions at the Universities of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Guelph, Montreal, and Prince Edward Island and the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization.
Canadian Swine Health Board research coordinator Dr. Al Theede says the work has been diverse and has included tissue culture models for Porcine Circovirus and PRRS, work on PRRS virus transmission and how it spreads, work on emerging diseases such as Brachyspira and work on the genetic impact of disease resistance.
We recognized early on in meeting with these people that this program attracted people from other disciplines.
These were people doing a variety of research in other areas that came in to work on swine health and now we’re recognizing that at least a few of them are really going to stay in this area.
At least a couple of people I know for sure are moving on to other research programs or even faculty positions in veterinary colleges to continue to work on swine health things so that’s quite exciting.
I think the other thing we’ve seen is several research or academic papers being published by these folks and now some of their work is starting to get out into the literature and I think that’s going to help recognize those people for the work they’ve done and I think that’ll be a plus for the whole swine health industry across the country.
Dr. Theede notes the veterinary industry faces the same challenge as other industries in that people who will be retiring in the next few years will need to be replaced.
