Monthly Archives: June 2009

First veterinarian astronaut

June 29, 2009 | Editor | Comments Off
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Dr. Martin Fettman was the first veterinarian to paticipate in an outer space mission onboard the space shuttle Columbia. He studied what happened to people and animals while they are in space with zero gravity. This research helped the improve the health and safety of other astronauts on later space missions.

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First female veterinary surgeon

June 26, 2009 | Editor | Comments Off
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Aleen Cust, the first female veterinary surgeon, graduated with honors from the New Veterinary College of Edinburgh in 1897. But graduating from vet school was the easy part; she had to fight a lot of opposition to her role. The legal advisor for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) insisted that they could not recognize her because only “persons” were eligible and therefore women did not “qualify”!
The British parliament passed a law in 1919 which required the veterinary profession (among others, including medicine) to allow the registration of women. Dr. Cust was one of the first persons to take the RCVS exam after the law was passed.

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Nobel prize winning veterinarian

June 12, 2009 | Editor | Comments Off
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In 1996, Dr. Peter Doherty, a veterinary researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, was awarded a Nobel Prize for his discovery about how the body’s immune system protects us from infections.  This discovery led to further research in the prevention and treatment of infections in both animals and people.

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