The Colorado Veterinary Medical Association honored several members of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ faculty and staff at its annual conference in Keystone in September.
Dr. Susan Lana, an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Chief of the Clinical Oncology Service at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital, received the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association’s annual Outstanding Faculty Award during the organization’s annual meeting in September. Dr. Narda Robinson, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Director of the Center for Comparative and Integrative Pain Medicine, received a CVMA President’s Award for championing a balanced approach to animal chiropractic in veterinary medicine. Maura Green, a veterinary technician in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, was honored with the 2009 Veterinary Technician of the Year Award.
Dr. Jed Rogers presented the President’s Award to Dr. Robinson. The award recognizes individuals who contributed to CVMA in some special way and whose contribution caught the attention of the president. Dr. Robinson is both a veterinarian and an osteopathic physician, bringing a unique insight into the worlds of animal and human medicine.
His nomination noted that Dr. Robinson “is a long-time supporter of CVMA in many different efforts... and is the founder and director of the Medical Acupuncture for Veterinarians Program. This wildly successful program is something CVMA is proud to support. She is a national leader in the development of complementary and alternative medicine in our profession. She is ever generous with her time and talents. The insight and perspective she provided this year as CVMA articulated the model for animal chiropractic helped assured that what we created was rigorous, appropriate, credible, focused on the protection of our patients, and based on science and evidence.”
Dr. Lana’s nominators noted that they had “the privilege of both working with her as a student in the Professional Veterinary Medical curriculum, and following her meteoric career rise through internship, residency, postdoctoral fellow, assistant professor, and most recently, associate professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences. She is a role model for faculty, particularly in her clinical and teaching roles. She has helped develop our relationship with the National Cancer Institute’s Clinical Oncology Trials Consortium. In support of our research activities, but linked to clinics, is her oversight of our tumor tissue archiving facility at CSU. Through her efforts, we have established a bank of more than 10,000 samples to be used by collaborators at CSU and nationally.”
Dr. Lana, noted the nomination, “readily shares her knowledge with the outside world and has recently taken on oversight of the Animal Cancer Center Consultation Service, which provides more than 3,000 free consultations to clients and referring veterinarians seeking advice on cancer in pet animals. The Animal Cancer Center is world-renowned in large part due to her ability to run a high-end clinical service with dedicated consultation to Colorado, the Front Range, and North American clients and veterinarians.”
Maura Green came to Colorado State University in 1980 when she was hired as the first and only critical care unit technician. Many of the CCU techniques, protocols, and policies that she created then are still used today. She authored a chapter in Vet Clinics of North America, detailing how to organize a critical care unit, and gave lectures and wet labs nationally to inspire the formation of critical care at other universities.
In 1998 she recognized the need for a blood donor program at CSU and single-handedly created a foster parent program for blood donors in which veterinary students would adopt race track greyhounds and bring them to the hospital every month to donate blood. Years later she created a community-based volunteer donor program with over 100 donor cats and dogs enrolled to donate ever two months, for which she received the Outstanding Achievement Award in Creativity from CSU.
Congratulations to Dr. Lana, Dr. Robinson, and Ms. Green for the recognition of their outstanding accomplishments by the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association.
