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Columns::October 14, 2002
Always and forever: Annual reunion celebrates good times, homecoming
Celebration of life: Memorial service for Eugene Odum scheduled for Oct. 16
UGA, consortium dedicate beamline at Argonne National Laboratory
President names search committee to identify candidates for provost
Taste of college life
Divergent paths
Retirees
Kudos
Review, revise, revisions
The world’s a classroom
Campus News
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| The first person at the veterinary college to complete an internship, a residency and a Ph.D. at the same time, Scott Brown is an internationally acclaimed renal physiologist. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
Vet med professor endures ‘trying’ times to complete his education
By Dot Sparer
dsparer@vet.uga.edu
“What can you do if you don’t get into veterinary school?” was the title of Scott Brown’s valedictory address at his graduation, summa cum laude, from Allegheny College. The answer, he recalls, was: “Keep trying.”
He spent a year at Penn State taking graduate courses in physiology before applying for admission again--this time successfully--to the University of Pennsylvania. Now he’s an internationally acclaimed renal physiologist.
His interest in veterinary medicine began while he was an undergraduate. “Science and mathematics were two things I really enjoyed and tended to do well,” Brown says. Growing up on a small farm in northwest Pennsylvania, he had always had pets. “We had at least two of everything, so animals were very high on the list of things that interested me.”
After earning his doctorate in veterinary medicine, he came to UGA in 1983 to do an internship and residency in small animal medicine. Thanks to mentors at the University of Pennsylvania and at UGA, he was interested in nephrology--kidney function and disease--and so he also applied for admission to the graduate program. He became, shortly thereafter, the first person at the veterinary college to complete an internship, a residency and a Ph.D. at the same time.
Although clinical practice was Brown’s original goal, the combination of research and clinical training helped him realize “the most exciting thing for me was to try to answer clinically important questions with applied research--questions that have a direct impact on the health of dogs and cats,” he says. “There’s so little known about veterinary nephrology that a concentrated effort can make a big difference. Besides, it’s one of the leading causes of illness of both dogs and cats. Until 15 years ago, we knew very little about what caused these problems or how to treat them, so there was a lot to do.”
There are only 25-30 veterinary investigators worldwide interested in kidney disease, and Brown collaborates with many of them, including six colleagues at the College of Veterinary Medicine, as well as with researchers in human medicine.
To learn the latest techniques in human medicine, Brown spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alabama School of Medicine.
“That was an incredibly valuable experience for me,” he says. “I always recommend that students seek training at the best laboratory, regardless of what species or disease they’re studying. People who study human kidney disease and those who study veterinary renal disease are often looking to each other to learn what parts of their research apply.”
Brown’s research efforts have been rewarded with 26 research grants totaling $3.1 million and six research recognition awards, including UGA’s Creative Research Medal. He has written 38 book chapters, 56 publications in refereed journals, and 55 research abstracts.
In addition, a full teaching load plus two or three graduate students consume half of his time and energy. Last year he was honored with the Nor-Den Distinguished Teacher Award, the college’s highest recognition.
He agrees that research generates new information that can be shared with students, but Brown believes “the intellectual process goes in both directions. Questions from students in the classroom can stimulate thoughts that lead to advances in your research as well. I think it’s really valuable to be involved in both.”
As chairman of the college’s curriculum committee for two years, Brown has worked to adapt veterinary education to changes in the profession. Rapid advances have made it difficult--some say impossible--for anyone to be able to diagnose and treat all diseases in all species. Brown visited other colleges to see how they were addressing this problem and helped to shape a new curriculum.
But clinical research seems to be his ruling passion.
“It’s exciting to be able to identify important questions and try to find answers to them,” he says. “When I began my research, people in the pet food industry thought that protein was bad for your kidneys--bad for dogs and cats and bad for people as well. But we found that other dietary factors, especially phosphorus, are much more damaging than protein. We’ve made some major changes in the way veterinarians treat dogs and cats with kidney disease. That’s something I find very rewarding.”
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