Your Vet Med Alumni News

The University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and its alumni association are pleased to announce the winners of the 2009 Dr. Erwin Small Distinguished Alumni and Special Service Awards.  The awards will be presented on September 10, 2009, during the annual Fall Conference for Veterinarians.
The winners of Dr. Erwin Small Distinguished Alumni Awards are:
•   Dr. Richard DeBowes, professor and associate dean of veterinary development and external relations at Washington State University,
•  Dr. Ronald Gill, owner and founder of Gill Veterinary Clinic,
•  Dr. Walter Hoffmann, interim director, veterinary diagnostic laboratory at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Illinois, and
•   Dr. Edward A. Hoover, professor and department head of microbiology, immunology and pathology at Colorado State University.
This year's Special Service Award will be presented to the Auxiliary to the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association.

Read more about this year's recipients.

Dr. Paul Gibbons (DVM IL '94) was selected by his peers as the recipient of the 2009 Exotic DVM of the Year award. The award was presented at the 30th Annual Association of Avian Veterinarians (AAV) Conference & Expo with the Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians (AEMV) and the 16th Annual Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians (ARAV) Conference held in Milwaukee.

He is a Diplomate of the Avian Practice section of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP) and currently serves as chairperson of the ABVP Organizing Committee for Certification in Reptile and Amphibian Practice. An associate editor for the Journal of Herpetological Medicine and Surgery and an active member of the ARAV, he has also published numerous articles and presented lectures on the husbandry, medicine and surgery of birds, reptiles, amphibians and exotic mammals. Currently he directs the Exotic Species Specialty Service at Animal Emergency Center in Milwaukee.

Dr. Kurt J. Matushek (DVM IL '83), a 16-year member of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s (AVMA) publications team, has been named the new editor-in-chief and director of the Publications Division.

Following his graduation from Illinois, he studied the use of external skeletal fixation in dogs at the Ontario Veterinary College, where he earned a master’s degree. After spending a year in general small animal practice near Chicago, he returned to Ontario and completed an internship in small animal medicine and surgery. He then finished a small animal surgical residency in Madison, Wis., followed by two years as staff surgeon at a small animal practice in Michigan.  A diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, Dr. Matushek began his tenure with the AVMA in 1992 as an assistant editor and became associate editor five years later.

Dr. Karen Marie Becker ( DVM IL '87) received the XII International Veterinary Congress Prize for contributions to international understanding of veterinary medicine at the July 2009 AVMA meeting.

In 1998, Dr. Becker joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemic Intelligence Service, serving in North Carolina. She went to Washington, D.C., through a CDC Preventive Medicine Fellowship to focus on international policy, and she assisted in the control of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom.