AVMA names Congressional Science Fellows

Schaumburg, Ill.

-- Terry Ryan Kane and Kathryn A. Simmons are the 2010-2011 Congressional Science Fellows for the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

Congressional Science Fellows provide guidance on public policies to lawmakers and spend a year in Washington D.C. as part of the fellowship.

Kane is the founder of The Cat Practice, Michigan’s first feline-only veterinary practice, and a member of the AVMA Veterinary Medical Assistance Team. She spent a month in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and participated in numerous other deployments, AVMA reports. She sold The Cat Practice in 2002 and has since been active in voluntary veterinary work abroad. Kane is a 1980 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Simmons spent the bulk of her career -- 25 years -- in companion-animal medicine. She founded a companion-animal practice, Herndon-Reston Animal Hospital, now owned by VCA, in Herndon, Va. Simmons belongs to the American Animal Hospital Association, the D.C. Academy of Veterinary Medicine and a number of other veterinary associations. She spends her “spare time” managing her family’s beef cattle farm.