The Dairy Food Safety Laboratory

The training/instruction that occurs in the mastitis laboratory for high school, undergraduate/graduate students, and visiting professors serves as a pivotal time when they become intimately associated with animal agriculture and public health issues. They learn standard and leading edge diagnostic techniques important to public health and veterinary medicine. Trainees also learn about production animal medicine and how dairy products from the farm to the table are tested and scrutinized throughout the process. The scientific process is employed, technical reports are produced, and applied research is conducted with their participation at every step in the program.

During the first two years, student numbers remained at six followed by a leap to twenty-two in 1994 and a peak of eighty during 1995. In 1995, the Dairy Food Safety Laboratory participated in two food safety training programs with a total of forty-five VMO's (Veterinary Medicine Officers) in attendance. The peak in 1995 was also partially due to laboratory rotations (four to five weeks) of animal science students acquiring hands-on training in herd mastitis surveillance and laboratory testing. In 1996 as like 1994, twenty-two students were present in the laboratory followed by thirty up to the end of August of 1997. The average number of students in the laboratory for the last four years (and not including the workshops or the animal science class rotations of 1995) has been twenty-three.

Many students evolved their affiliation with the laboratory over time or returned for additional training, starting as undergraduate or affirmative action students and returning as lab assistants or graduate and veterinary students. Several other students continued to work in the laboratory after graduation until finding jobs in industry or returning to professional schools, including Pharmacy school. To date, at least seven undergraduate students have been accepted into Veterinary school, choosing food-animal medicine as their career path, six at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and one abroad. Three of five high school students repeated summer job in the laboratory and one high school gradate returned to Ireland after a summer stint in the DFSL to manage the family dairy. Additional students reversed the "normal flow" and returned from industry or veterinary practices to earn graduate degrees within the laboratory. In keeping with the unique character of the Davis campus, physicians, medical students, veterinarians, veterinary medicine students and food scientists were all allowed to interface within the laboratory, forming many mutually beneficial collaborations.