How Can Veterinary Colleges Integrate Business Skills into the Curriculum?

Mike Chaddock, DVM, EML, associate dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University, discusses what colleges can do to incorporate essential business skills into the curriculum so that students can get out of debt after graduation.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“Many of our schools today do have people, veterinarians with advanced degrees in business and finance, on staff, that are coming in and helping in teaching some of these business skills. The other opportunities that we have, which I think we need to take more advantage of on our campuses, is how can we collaborate and partner with professors that are in the business school? How can the college of veterinary medicine and the college of business come together and provide these students with this knowledge that they need?

The other thing is, is that we need to integrate; we need to integrate these types of business skills, knowledge, assessment, integrate it into the four years of the veterinary profession. I’m not a fan of saying, ‘Okay, I’m going to take a business course that’s going to be 2 credits;’ you’re done with your business course, but if a student, through all four years has to think about business principles, expenses, income, for every case in which they are involved in, and show that they understand that, that’s how it’s going to be imprinted upon them.

So, I think there’s ways in which we can be creative, so that we can do it so that we are not adding more courses to the curriculum, but we’re doing some collaboration with different disciplines in order to be able to provide the students with this knowledge that they need.”