Disaster response: The role of veterinarians
Discover the various roles veterinarians can play in organizational and community response plans during a disaster or animal health emergency. Understand how veterinary first responders can be involved within the incident management hierarchy and chain of command established in a disaster or animal health emergency. Learn why it’s so important for veterinary first responders to maintain an ongoing professional relationship with local emergency managers, local/state veterinary response organizations, local/state public health offices, and others.
This session satisfies core competency 2 of AVMA’s Veterinary First Responder Certificate Program. It originally was presented at AVMA Convention 2022.
Participants can expect to learn about:
- Need for formally trained veterinary responders at the local, state, and national levels
- Roles veterinarians can play within the incident management hierarchy and chain of command established in a disaster or animal health emergency
- Mechanisms for reporting actual and potential health threats through the established chain of command
- Why an ongoing professional relationship with each of the following is important for a One Health interdisciplinary collaboration: local emergency manager, local/state veterinary response organization, local/state public health office, state public health veterinarian, state chief animal health official/state veterinarian, federal area veterinarian-in-charge (AVIC), state extension services
- Role of Community Animal Response Teams (CARTs) and State Animal/Agricultural Response Teams (SARTs)
Since 2016, Dr. Dee Ellis has been involved in various research, capacity-building, and veterinary training initiatives at Texas A&M AgriLife. Previously, he spent over 30 years with the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), leading the agency's emergency management planning and response activities for animals, and helping develop the state’s first animal in disaster response plans. His last six years at TAHC were as the Texas state veterinarian.
Dr. Ellis has responded to various large-scale animal disease outbreaks including highly pathogenic avian influenza, cattle fever ticks, and Virulent Newcastle disease. In 2001, following an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom, he helped the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Veterinary Services develop national catastrophic disease response plans.
As the lead for Texas' animal response efforts, Dr. Ellis responded directly to—and led agency efforts in—disaster responses after hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. He worked directly with veterinarians statewide to include them in response plans for livestock and companion animals. He was instrumental in helping formalize companion animal issues into Texas’ disaster response plans after Hurricane Katrina.
Dr. Ellis has worked extensively in Mexico and Africa, and participated in efforts by the OIE and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to develop global templates for animal emergency response plans. He was the founding chairman of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association (TVMA) Disaster Preparedness Committee, and the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA)’s Animal Health Emergency Management Council. He has served on the board of directors of the TVMA representing large-animal practitioners, and as the vice-chair of the AVMA Committee on Disaster and Emergency Issues.
He was the first veterinarian to receive the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) Career Excellence Award, in 2014.