Dr. Alan Weldon
Alan Weldon, D.V.M. (‘86), a native Gator, grew up in East Gainesville, selling cold drinks during football games and dashing to the beach whenever the surf was up. He never thought about becoming a doctor of veterinary medicine.
His family didn’t have a lot of money and his high school was “not the best”, but his first mentor was his dad, who motivated his brother and him by allowing them to skip school whenever the surf was up so long as they maintained their National Honor Society status, Weldon said.
After graduating high school, Weldon found part-time work with local veterinarians to put himself through college. The instruction and mentorship he received gave him the encouragement and confidence to study animal science as an undergraduate student. As he continued to learn more about large animals, Weldon knew he wanted to study veterinary medicine at the University of Florida. There, he met his wife, Beth Van Cleve-Weldon, D.V.M. (’86), who was from Jacksonville and had graduated from Princeton University. She soon changed his small-town perspective.
“I never thought of the world outside of Gainesville,” said Weldon. “My vision of how big the world was, got a lot bigger after meeting Beth.”
His first job after graduation set the pace for what he still considers to be the world’s best profession. Along the way, he learned even more – including the importance of giving back.
Weldon still says he had the greatest job opportunity of anyone ever graduating from the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. He took a position working for Larry Shaffer, D.V.M., who owned an equine practice in Ocala that focused primarily on broodmares and foals. Weldon spent the first half of every year learning everything he could in that practice, then traveled to the other side of the globe for the equine breeding season in Western Australia, where he worked as the resident veterinarian on the farm of one of the country’s wealthiest residents. Beth visited him in Australia, where he proposed during the Americas Cup, and they were married back in the U.S. at Cumberland Island. In the years to follow, the couple forged a love of family and veterinary medicine with extreme adventures around the world.
Alan’s lifelong interest in sports and athletics began in high school and that first led him to working with horses. His attention began to turn to the athletic aspects of sports injuries and medicine for horses, which closely paralleled human sports medicine. With Beth’s support, Alan decided on a two-year residency in equine internal medicine at Cornell University, where they relocated. Beth took a position at a small animal practice and Alan immersed himself in internal medicine.
“I found that my greatest interest was in helping sick patients. I enjoyed working on those really difficult cases,” Weldon said.
After his residency, Weldon became board certified as an equine internal medicine specialist. Moving back to Florida, the couple settled in Jacksonville, where Alan opened his practice, Jacksonville Equine Associates, while Beth began working for a local small-animal practice. They also started their family and have raised five children who know just how big the world is, sharing the family travels.
As members of the Dean’s Circle of Excellence, Alan and Beth joined Dean James W. Lloyd, D.V.M., Ph.D., last year on a tour of the college’s new Clinical Skills Lab, part of a recent three-story addition to the main academic building.
“The technology available to veterinary students today is staggering compared to what we had as students,” Weldon said. “I would recommend that every graduate go back to the college to see these amazing changes.”
The dean’s tour showcased emerging technologies, such as the SynDaver, a synthetic model of a dog cadaver that realistically matches the bones, organs and tissues of a real dog. They also visited an exam room that models an actual animal hospital and uses cameras to record students as they practice communication skills with clients. The upper floors of the building are filled by research scientists in veterinary medicine. Each year in April, the college hosts a community-wide open house, where the public can visit its facilities, including the small and large animal hospitals.
Weldon also gives back to the college as an early leader for a practice-based program that prepares students who will soon find themselves practicing veterinary medicine, offering one-on-one experience in a variety of areas of veterinary practice. Several times a year, in his Practice Based Equine Clerkship, Weldon mentors a junior or senior veterinary medical student during a two-week rotation. Just as he once learned from practicing veterinarians, students learn by reading assigned materials, practicing skills and accompanying him to horse farms as he makes patient rounds.
UF veterinary medical students graduate from the college with far more knowledge than when he was a student, said Weldon. His focus is to prepare students for practice by teaching them to apply the patient exam information in a thought process called differential diagnosis.
“I want them to see it in their mind as an exploded diagram of possibilities, and come up with three or four options based on the symptoms they see,” said Weldon. “Once they do that, it will lead them to thinking about which diagnostic tests would be needed for each scenario.”
Although Alan and Beth have academic ties to Cornell and Princeton universities, they feel a strong commitment to the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and the Gator Nation.
“My heart is with the University of Florida,” Weldon said. “If Florida is going to be the tip of the spear, among the best universities in the United States — and I think it is — we need to support the education and advancements happening here.”
While the state of Florida supports the university and the teaching hospital, it is the donations from alumni and others that provide the extra funds and unique teaching tools that make the UF College of Veterinary Medicine something special, Weldon said.
“I’d encourage all of our alumni to get more involved,” he said. “It makes your old diploma look that much better.”
