Dr. Dana Zimmel
Greetings,
I hope everyone is staying warm, on the heels of one of the coldest winters in recent memories here in Florida. While we didn’t get snow here in Gainesville, many of us are ready for a bit more sun and warmer temperatures!
Speaking of warmth, the compassion of our oncology team and the owner of a special French bulldog named George meets groundbreaking precision medicine in our cover story. George’s complicated battle with a rare and aggressive cancer proved invaluable as a learning experience for our clinicians, who ultimately determined that George suffered from a peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumor, or pPNET, originating from the chest cavity.
His case marks the first documented instance of a living dog treated for this type of tumor. The journey toward that diagnosis, and George’s treatment, were enhanced through a collaboration with the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, which used a precision medicine technique to help our team validate its original drug choice and illustrated the value of the chemotherapy panel in guiding early treatment regimens. While we were ultimately unable to save George’s life, we were able to extend it, and lessons learned from his case will hopefully lead to better cancer care for dogs and humans.
Another heartwarming story in this issue illustrates the student experience here at UF in a unique way, highlighting the role of UF’s Putting Families First program and the way our student went beyond her normal class project to help a visually impaired program volunteer and local author publish a children’s book — something the volunteer valued as more important to her well-being than any other health-related services that were offered to her.
Our student, Kaitlyn Lystad, and her team, including three students from other UF Health colleges, worked for two semesters to help the volunteer achieve her goal. They scanned the original manuscript, formatted it for publication and navigated the complexities of self-publishing.
When the course officially ended with the end of the academic year, the book wasn’t yet published, but Kaitlyn felt compelled to see the project through. This story, as well as the George the bulldog story, are both great examples of the perseverance and never-give-up philosophy I see in our faculty, staff and students on a daily basis.
It’s always rewarding to see members of our faculty contribute to the veterinary profession on a national level. In a great example of this, through the Reassessment Campaign on Veterinary Resuscitation Initiative, Dr. Jake Wolf helped to update new, potentially lifesaving guidelines for performing CPR on dogs and cats. We have that story for you in this issue as well.
In September, we welcomed Dr. Clayton Mathews to our leadership team as the new chair of our Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology. He hit the ground running, and I’m grateful to have him on board. I would also like to thank Dr. Julie Moore, who chaired the IDI department for six years, for her dedication and service, as well as for her help with the transition. Dr. Moore has returned to her research, and I know will continue to make great contributions to the college.
Finally, it is always difficult when long-serving faculty or staff leave the college for new horizons. Dr. Dan Lewis, an eminent scholar and professor of orthopaedic surgery here at UF, retired in December after over three decades on the faculty. Dr. Lewis was instrumental in building the small animal surgery service, which is nationally renowned. His wealth of experience and expertise will live on in the students, now alumni, and in residents he trained, whose success he has championed every step of his long career.
This will be the last issue of Florida Veterinarian magazine edited by Sarah Carey, who will retire in May after nearly 35 years here at the college. Sarah became the college’s first public relations director when she was hired in 1990. She built relationships across the spectrum, with alumni, donors, members of the media and our own internal college family. She developed the external newsletter that would later become this magazine and has written nearly all the content for it in the decades that followed. I wish her all the best as she transitions to the next phase of her life.
Thanks to all of you for your ongoing support of the college, our people and our programs. We couldn’t do what we do without you!
With gratitude,
Dana
Dana N. Zimmel, DVM
Professor and Dean
