Vet School future looks bright at Gatton

Architects are drawing up concept designs for a new home for UQ’s Veterinary School at Gatton — a multimillion-dollar teaching and research base which will open in three years.

Most of UQ’s current Veterinary School staff and infrastructure at St Lucia and Pinjarra Hills will be moved to Gatton in stages.

The remaining space at St Lucia will be dedicated to keeping UQ’s St Lucia Small Animal Clinic open and maintained and supportive services on campus.

A new Veterinary School will be built at UQ’s Gatton campus in a location that allows easy public access.

The new buildings to be built will include a small animal clinic, equine hospital, administration block and research and teaching laboratories.

The Head of the Veterinary School, Professor Lloyd Reeve-Johnson, said the school had to move so that it could improve its teaching and research and integrate its buildings to become a world-class school.

“It is a rare opportunity to build a set of integrated veterinary facilities from scratch, while already having excellent research and teaching staff in place” Professor Reeve-Johnson said.

“The best staff come to the best facilities and the best students come to those facilities.

“We’re competing now for international students and international students are paying 30 plus thousand dollars a year for the privilege of coming to that school so they need to get good value.”

Professor Reeve-Johnson said the size of the school was not decided yet but it was based on American and European schools to take UQ’s school into the next century.

He said the Gatton horse hospital would become a valuable contributor to Queensland’s equine industry for surgery, medicine, reproduction and performance.

As well as dealing with a wide range of companion animals the new school will also focus on tropical diseases of livestock and is working on expanding remote telemedicine and data sharing with the University of Sydney.

It will also mean teaching students more than just veterinary medicine skills.

“The approach now has to be focused upon what the market needs. Some of those needs are business skills and in areas which aren’t traditionally seen as veterinary medicine.”

Professor Reeve-Johnson has been briefing veterinary industry leaders and staff on the Gatton move.

The school will be near the Centre for Advanced Animal Studies, a project for UQ and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, which will also be built at UQ Gatton.

In other Veterinary School news, Dr Peter Rolls, formerly based at UQ’s Goondiwindi base, has taken over as the new Head of UQ`s Small Animal Clinic and Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Media: Professor Reeve-Johnson (07 3365 2784, hosvetsci@uq.edu.au), Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (3365 2619)