Bare Bones Feature - SAVMA's International Exchange Officer

 Introducing our new mini newsletter, The Bare Bones. It is a feature highlighting what your national SAVMA team, executive board and delegates, are doing for you. Each edition will showcase a SAVMA officer and what their job entails. Our first featured officer is our SAVMA Executive Board, International Exchange Officer (IEO), Kayla Caturay, from Ross University.  

Anthony Pizzelanti from the University of Pennsylvania was the designer behind the Bare Bones logo. 

Kayla first began her SAVMA involvement as a Delegate for Ross University SVM and now represents SAVMA as the Exchange Officer within the International Veterinary Students’ Association (IVSA). On the global scale, SAVMA encompasses all of the AVMA-accredited schools to embody IVSA SAVMA – (the member organization (MO) recognized by IVSA). As IEO, Kayla travels to four events annually representing SAVMA; both the national conferences, SAVMA Symposium and AVMA Convention, and both the IVSA global events, IVSA Symposium and IVSA Congress. 

Just to name a few of Kayla's duties as IEO:

• When stateside, Kayla serves as one of the SAVMA Executive Board members, working hard to voice and address student concerns, such as representation of island schools in the House of Delegates;
• implementing constructive solutions and student initiatives, such as “Reasons to Go G10bal with IVSA” and the cultural sensitivity project (coming soon);
• overseeing and aiding the local IVSA SAVMA chapters at each university;
• acting as an advisor to the SAVMA International Veterinary Experience Committee (IVEC), and;
• facilitating exchanges between international students seeking veterinary experiences within SAVMA and SAVMA students pursuing international excursions.
• similar duties when representing SAVMA abroad

There are many parallels between SAVMA and IVSA, and the IEO ensures continuity within her member organization (MO) as well as between the MO and IVSA global. So early on as students, the unique opportunity to build international relations and shape the profession presents itself.

*As a friendly reminder, all SAVMA members are automatically members of IVSA