Welcome to our veterinary medicine and literature discussion

Over the last seven years, we've had many discussions about veterinary medicine and literature -- in the yearly electives (at NC State University College of Veterinary Medicine from 2002 through 2005 and at Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, Canada in 2007 and 2008), in college-wide reading groups bringing together students, faculty, and staff, in conferences like the 2004 Duke Poetry and Medicine Conference and the 2005 International Conference on Communication in Veterinary Medicine, in informal conversations with kindred spirits, and through emails with people responding to our website (Society for Veterinary Medicine and Literature). We realized some time ago that a broader discussion could be taking place online and are launching this blog as a place for that to happen. Our Society website lists the readings we've used in our classes and groups, provides our discussion questions, and reprints with author permission some of the wonderful poems, but doesn't provide for two-way conversation about those readings, or about the whole enterprise of bringing the discussion of literature into the veterinary medicine curriculum. We're going to kick off the discussion with an entry on one of our favorite poems, which we hope you'll comment on, and will add new posts on poems, fiction, and other topics a few times a month. Please suggest new topics! Elizabeth Stone and Hilde Weisert