Photo gallery: The top 10 veterinary schools in America (part 6)

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5. (tie) University of Pennsylvania

In 1884, the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine was established at the urging of the University's School of Medicine. It was recognized that prevention and control of animal diseases had important implications for human health. Human and veterinary medicine were viewed as "one medicine." This principle encouraged close ties between the two schools, and today those ties continue with ground-breaking comparative medical research projects on diseases that occur in animals and humans. In addition, as the only veterinary school in Pennsylvania, Penn Vet is vitally important to the commonwealth's vast agricultural industry.

Penn Vet has two campuses: one in Philadelphia and one in Kennett Square, Penn. The Philadelphia campus houses classrooms, research facilities and administrative offices, as well as the Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for companion animals. The large-animal facility is at New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, about 35 miles from the Philadelphia campus. The George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals, classrooms, diagnostic laboratories and research facilities are located here on 687 rural acres.

A Penn veterinary graduate is easily identified by the VMD behind the name. The School also offers a VMD-PhD program and a VMD/MBA program.

“Since our inception, Penn Vet has been stringently committed to our core missions: teaching veterinary students, healing patients in innovative ways and moving the understanding and practice of medicine forward with fundamental and applied research to provide the best advanced training in the world,” says Joan C. Hendricks, VMC, PhD, Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine. “Being named to the list of the top 10 veterinary schools in the nation only challenges us—to maintain our place at the top and to reach further and to continue on our path of education, research and service.”

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