AVMA presidential candidate: Sandra Faeh Butler, DVM

dvm360^®'s Chief Veterinary Officer Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, had the privilege to sit down and discuss with the 3 American Veterinary Medical Associaton (AVMA) presidential candidates for an exclusive interview. Through these interviews, Christman and each candidate dive into their careers in veterinary medicine, their platform if elected, and more. To learn more about Sandra Faeh Butler, DVM, check out the video above and the partial transcript below.

The following is a partial transcript of the video.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Hey everyone, thank you for joining us. My name is Dr Adam Christman, chief veterinary officer here at dvm360. And I have both the privilege and honor in getting to meet and interview the 3 candidates running for the AVMA president in 2024. One of the candidates joining me today is Dr Sandra Faeh Butler. How are you, my friend?

Sandra Faeh Butler, DVM: Great, how are you? Thanks for interviewing me.

Dr Christman: Thanks for being here. I mean, this is quite an adventure for you or 2023 to do all the candidacy and kind of going around the world, what is that like?

Dr Butler: So a lot of travel and a lot of Zoom, but a lot of great interactions with AVMA members and hearing and listening to their concerns and figuring out what we need.

Dr Christman: So, a couple of questions I want to aske you. So, you were elected 2020-2022 AVMA vice president, and to be connected with veterinary colleges and deans and faculty and work closely with the student AVMA. What was that experience like?

Dr Butler: It was amazing. Definitely COVID-19 hampered it. So, I started summer 2020, in the midst of it. Typically, the AVMA vice president was a liaison to the schools. But in 2018, they change that to--well, they added a liaison for the faculty as well. So, my first year was more of a fact finding mission trying to figure out what we could do for the faculty how we can help. So lots of Zoom meetings at that point.

Dr Christman: Do you find that like the 2020 graduates from COVID-19 and on is it been a little bit of a different vibe with them?

Dr Butler: Yes, I think the confidence is lacking. Having hired several new grads I don't feel like their competencies lacking but I do feel that they are lacking in confidence, unfortunately.

Dr Christman: Yeah. I think mentorship is a big thing too, that we can help them out with this. So tell me also about the creation of the AVMA online educator community, and kind of how that is coming to force?

Dr Butler: Yeah, so like I said, the first year I'd be vice president was fact finding. So it's met with lots of deans and faculty trying to figure out what they wanted and what they needed. So there's a lot of resources for deans, a lot of resources for students, and not as much for faculty. So we created this community where they could talk about different things, some anonymous posts, a safe space, and then created opportunities have different types of speakers. We did add DEI discussion, it was competency based vetinary training, discussions, just a space for them to communicate. Especially during COVID-19, there was a lot of "what works for you, this works for me" and just having that connection. So it's been a great, great program.