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Students at The University of Nottingham are now benefiting from a state of the art online veterinary anatomy, histology and pathology elearning museum thanks to the generosity of past students.
Despite the School of Veterinary Science and Medicine having only been open for the last five years, staff have managed to collect over 200 biological exhibits along with hundreds of x-ray, MRI, pathological and histological specimens.
Now, with the help of a £9,000 grant from the University’s Cascade Fund, the specimens have been fully labelled and added to an online museum to provide students with an invaluable learning and revision resource.
Enhancing the student experience
The museum is the latest in a long line of projects to have benefited from the Fund, with over £1million given to ventures that have a significant impact on both the student experience and communities, locally and internationally, since 2007.
Dr Catrin Rutland, Lecturer in anatomy and developmental genetics and Dr Rob Atterbury Lecturer in veterinary microbiology and public health, have overseen the project and explained that students have not only been kept in mind when designing the resource, but also added to the exhibits on offer.
Dr Rutland said: “Veterinary anatomy, histology and pathology are essential subjects for a young veterinary surgeon to learn as without this core knowledge, a diagnosis on most clinical cases is impossible. The ‘e-museum’ combines both learning and revision for these subjects, providing information which is not otherwise freely available.
“The motivation for this project was student demand coupled with the enthusiasm of academics to develop a tool which would meet the student’s needs. Our cohort has demonstrated a strong and sustained enthusiasm for the project by sending in over 400 photographs from their practical sessions, which now take pride of place in the collection.”
She continued: “The more access our students get to the information, the more confident they will be in their studies and as Veterinary Surgeons. The website will also provide an additional support tool when the students are undertaking their placements, thus providing a significant benefit throughout both their education and careers.”
International impact
While helping students at Nottingham, around 25 per cent of the museum’s specimens will also be available to veterinary students across the globe via an open access online museum, www.onlineveterinaryanatomy.net
Dr Rutland said: “The international online museum is available to every veterinary student, nurse, teacher and practitioner in the world. We all benefit by seeing specimens and using these resources, which is why is it so important for us all to share our collection.
“All of us at the Vet School are really quite proud of the development which the museum has undergone. To be able to offer not only our students, but trainee vets across the globe, access to our unique collection is very pleasing.
“It is incredibly difficult to source some of these specimens and has taken many years of dedication to put the collection together. Some of the greatest veterinary museums around the world are over 200 years old, so with the museum still in its infancy, we are delighted with the selection put together so far.”
For more information about veterinary studies at The University of Nottingham, please visit: www.nottingham.ac.uk/vet
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 42,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It was ‘one of the first to embrace a truly international approach to higher education’, according to the Sunday Times University Guide 2013. It is also one of the most popular universities among graduate employers, one of the world’s greenest universities, and winner of the Times Higher Education Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development’. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong and the QS World Rankings.
More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University aims to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education for its research into global food security.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest ever fundraising campaign, will deliver the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. More news…