Weekend Rounds - 04.10

Vet school rankings

April 10, 2022

Vet School Rankings 2022

This week, QS released their

, an opportunity for some University administrators to tout the success of their schools.  With Royal Veterinary College, UC Davis and Utrecht leading the way you might be wondering where your alma mater falls on the

. But if you are like us you probably wonder, "how does one rank a vet school anyway?" We dug in so you don't have to, and it's not what you might think.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the best vet schools in the world are the ones that graduate the best veterinarians in the world or offer the highest quality clinical services.  But, just like when your internal medicine professor asked you to repeat back the clotting cascade, you would be wrong.  The rankings are

:  H-index, citations per paper, employer reputation, and academic reputation.

H-index is a method of measuring the "productivity or impact of the published work of an author or group of scientists" (or in this case a school).  It takes into account the number of publications and the number of citations for the author or group of authors.  It's an attempt to quantify research productivity,

. Interestingly the method also takes into account the number of citations per paper.  Which seems to put a major weight on the research impact associated with citations.

The rankings also include employer reputation and academic reputation which are determined by survey.  You can find the survey questions

.  Academic reputation is determined by surveying academics and having them list schools which they believe are best in research.  Employer reputation is based on a survey of administrators and HR personnel who hire university graduates to determine which institutions they would hire from.

To us this means that QS does a great job ranking the research productivity of a school and a bit of a popularity contest for reputation ranking.  But it does an absolutely terrible job ranking anything about the veterinary education.  Sure, the two can sometimes go hand in hand, but more often than not they are entirely unrelated. 

So that leaves us with the question: which do you think is the best veterinary school? 

Artificial Intelligence 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making its way into veterinary practices. Whether your practice has already started using AI or this is the first you are hearing about it, in the next 5-10 years AI will reshape the way we practice veterinary medicine.

It is impossible for veterinarians to make ethical and informed decisions on using AI in their practice without understanding a little bit about the terminology, potential and limitations of the technology. That is why Obi co-founder Ryan Appleby is passionate about educating veterinary professionals about AI. Obi's AI course will launch this spring, but for now, dip a toe in the AI waters with articles from JAVMA and AJVR.

, available now online from JAVMA, is a basic overview written for anyone who has no background in AI. 

published in AJVR, provides a more in depth look at some of the technology as well as the potential applications of AI in veterinary medicine.  We hope you enjoy!

Quick hits:

Here are the stories that caught our eyes this week and are worth a read: Magnetic slime robots: The Future of Foreign Body Extraction? [BBC]AAVMC welcomes two British schools as provisional members [DVM 360]AMC has record breaking year [DVM 360]Dog born with 6 legs and an extra penis survives surgery to remove additional anatomy [Indy Star]Rabid fox terrorizes Capitol Hill [Smithsonian Magazine]

Trivia

What is the radiographic hallmark of a persistent right aortic arch?

Your weekly dopamine 

I think I'm pretty good at this game...

Golden retrievers are just the best.

Trivia Answer

Leftward displacement of the trachea in the ventrodorsal projection.  There are many possible causes of regurgitation in young dogs, but only the PRAA will cause leftward displacement of the trachea.To level up your radiology practice take our free Foundations of Radiology Course.

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