Training strategies for laboratory animal veterinarians: challenges and opportunities.
(25/109)
The field of laboratory animal medicine is experiencing a serious shortage of appropriately trained veterinarians for both clinically related and research-oriented positions within academia, industry, and government. Recent outreach efforts sponsored by professional organizations have stimulated increased interest in the field. It is an opportune time to critically review and evaluate postgraduate training opportunities in the United States and Canada, including formal training programs, informal training, publicly accessible training resources and educational opportunities, and newly emerging training resources such as Internet-based learning aids. Challenges related to each of these training opportunities exist and include increasing enrollment in formal programs, securing adequate funding support, ensuring appropriate content between formal programs that may have diverse objectives, and accommodating the training needs of veterinarians who enter the field by the experience route. Current training opportunities and resources that exist for veterinarians who enter and are established within the field of laboratory animal science are examined. Strategies for improving formal laboratory animal medicine training programs and for developing alternative programs more suited to practicing clinical veterinarians are discussed. In addition, the resources for high-quality continuing education of experienced laboratory animal veterinarians are reviewed. (+info)
Evaluating the effectiveness of training strategies: performance goals and testing.
(26/109)
The Public Health Service policy, Animal Welfare Act regulations, and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals all require that institutions provide training for personnel engaged in animal research. Most research facilities have developed training programs to meet these requirements but may not have developed ways of assessing the effectiveness of these programs. Omission of this critical activity often leads to training that is ineffective, inefficient, or unnecessary. Evaluating the effectiveness of biomedical research and animal care training should involve a combination of assessments of performance, competence and knowledge, and appropriate tests for each type of knowledge, used at appropriate time intervals. In this article, the hierarchical relationship between performance, competence, and knowledge is described. The discussion of cognitive and psychomotor knowledge includes the important distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge. Measurement of performance is described and can include a variety of indirect and direct measurement techniques. Each measurement option has its own profile of strengths and weaknesses in terms of measurement validity, reliability, and costs of development and delivery. It is important to understand the tradeoffs associated with each measurement option, and to make appropriate choices of measurement strategy based on these tradeoffs arrayed against considerations of frequency, criticality, difficulty of learning, logistics, and budget. The article concludes with an example of how these measurement strategies can be combined into a cost-effective assessment plan for a biomedical research facility. (+info)
Emerging technologies in education and training: applications for the laboratory animal science community.
(27/109)
This article examines several new and exciting communication technologies. Many of the technologies were developed by the entertainment industry; however, other industries are adopting and modifying them for their own needs. These new technologies allow people to collaborate across distance and time and to learn in simulated work contexts. The article explores the potential utility of these technologies for advancing laboratory animal care and use through better education and training. Descriptions include emerging technologies such as augmented reality and multi-user virtual environments, which offer new approaches with different capabilities. Augmented reality interfaces, characterized by the use of handheld computers to infuse the virtual world into the real one, result in deeply immersive simulations. In these simulations, users can access virtual resources and communicate with real and virtual participants. Multi-user virtual environments enable multiple participants to simultaneously access computer-based three-dimensional virtual spaces, called "worlds," and to interact with digital tools. They allow for authentic experiences that promote collaboration, mentoring, and communication. Because individuals may learn or train differently, it is advantageous to combine the capabilities of these technologies and applications with more traditional methods to increase the number of students who are served by using current methods alone. The use of these technologies in animal care and use programs can create detailed training and education environments that allow students to learn the procedures more effectively, teachers to assess their progress more objectively, and researchers to gain insights into animal care. (+info)
Safety and efficacy of various combinations of injectable anesthetics in BALB/c mice.
(28/109)
Four combinations of drugs--ketamine-xylazine, ketamine-xylazine-acepromazine (KXA), ketamine-xylazine-buprenorphine, and ketamine-xylazine-carprofen--were compared for their ability to produce anesthesia in BALB/c mice. Induction time, anesthetic duration, blood pressure, pulse rate, and time to recovery were recorded. The anesthesia induced by each anesthetic combination was assessed by using reflex responses to standardized stimuli. The KXA combination produced stable physiologic parameters and was associated with the longest duration of anesthesia (40 +/- 8 min); immobility was produced in all other groups (38 +/- 5 min), but a surgical plane of anesthesia could not be confirmed. All anesthetic protocols produced significant hypotension. No deaths occurred. We recommend KXA as a safe and reliable anesthetic for mice requiring a surgical plane of anesthesia. (+info)
Comparison of technicians' ability to detect clinical signs in rats housed in wire-bottom versus solid-bottom cages with bedding.
(29/109)
Rodent toxicology studies have historically been performed in wire-bottom cages, but the 1996 Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals recommends solid-bottom caging with bedding. Some investigators have expressed concern that changing to solid-bottom cages would interfere with technicians' ability to detect clinical signs. To test this hypothesis, rats were housed in both types of caging and given compounds to induce a variety of subtle clinical signs common to toxicology studies including chromodacryorrhea, soft stool, stereotypic behaviors, mild hypoactivity, abnormal postures, and discolored urine. For one comparison, fecal pellets were removed to simulate decreased production of feces. Technicians, blinded from knowing which animals had been treated, observed the rats and recorded the clinical signs they detected. The technicians who administered the treatments verified that clinical signs were present before and after the blinded technicians made their observations. The number of animals observed with clinical signs divided by the number of animals verified with signs was calculated for each compound and compared between the cage types by using the Fisher Exact Test. The only statistically significant difference observed was a diminished ability to detect discolored, dark urine from rats in wire-bottom cages. These results suggest that concerns about technical staff's inability to detect clinical signs in toxicity tests should not prevent investigators from using solid-bottom cages with bedding. (+info)
Improving animal research facility operations through the application of lean principles.
(30/109)
Animal research is a vital component of US research and well-functioning animal research facilities are critical both to the research itself and to the housing and feeding of the animals. The Office of Animal Care (OAC) at Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute realized it had to improve the efficiency and safety of its animal research facility (ARF) to prepare for expansion and to advance the Institute's mission. The main areas for improvement concerned excessive turnaround time to process animal housing and feeding equipment; the movement and flow of equipment and inventory; and personnel safety. To address these problems, management held two process improvement workshops to educate employees about lean principles. In this article we discuss the application of these principles and corresponding methods to advance Children's Research Institute's mission of preventing, treating, and eliminating childhood diseases. (+info)
Centennial paper: Proteomics in animal science.
(31/109)
Effects of indomethacin and buprenorphine analgesia on the postoperative recovery of mice.
(32/109)
Buprenorphine (Bup) is the most commonly used analgesic in mice, yet few objective assessments address its superiority for postsurgical recovery. In mice, IP implantation of a radiotelemetry device induces decreases in body weight (BW), food and water intake (FI, WI), core temperature (Tc), and activity levels that persist approximately 14 d in the absence of analgesia. To compare the efficacy of Bup with that of the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug indomethacin (Indo) for postsurgical recovery, male C57BL/6J mice were treated on the day of radiotelemetry implantation with Bup (0.3 mg/kg s.c.) or Indo (1 mg/kg s.c.) followed by treatment with Indo (1 mg/kg p.o.) on the next day (Bup-Indo versus Indo-Indo). Responses were compared between treatments in mice implanted with a radiotelemetry device and those that did not undergo surgery. Changes in BW, FI, WI, Tc, and activity were examined throughout 14 d of recovery. Indo-Indo was more efficacious in inhibiting postsurgical BW, FI, and WI reductions, compared with Bup-Indo. Bup also reduced BW and FI in the absence of surgery, indicating a nonspecific effect of this drug on these variables. Indo-Indo treatment was associated with higher activity levels during lights-on-to-lights-off transition periods compared with that observed with Bup-Indo. According to 5 objective measures of surgical recovery, our data suggest that Indo-Indo treatment is more efficacious than is Bup-Indo for postsurgical recovery of radiotelemetry-implanted mice. (+info)