Dr. Necas and I touring the ruins of a deserted castle in the Czech Republic.

I wanted to provide a summary of my recent trip to the Vet School in Brno. It worth mentioning here that Purdue's School of VEterinay Medicine signed, in 1996, a Momrandum of Understanding (MOU) with The University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic. This MOU fosters international and educational cooperation in veterinary medicine. I was appointed to the habilitation committee of Dr. Alois Necas and was in the Czech Republic from June 1 through June 9, 1999. The committee met on June 4, and Dr. Necas did a very nice job of defending his thesis (the thesis evaluated prognostic indicators in a series of 300 surgical cases of intervertebral disc herniation in dogs). Dr Necas is now officially a Docent (our equivalent would be an Associate professor with tenure). The following day, June 5, Dr. Necas and I presented an all day continuing education course on canine hip dysplasia which was attended by approximately 100 veterinarians from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Both Dean Petr Horin and Eva Baranyiova send their best regards. I learned during my trip that I have been appointed to the International Advisory Board of Acta veterinaria Brno (of which Eva is the Editor). I had a very nice dinner with Dean Horin, and we discussed the many improvements that are taking place at the Vet School in Brno. A new large animal hospital is nearing completion. It is a large, beautiful facility. Upon its completion, renovation to modernize some of the samll animal hospital areas will begin.

Once our work was done, Dr. Necas arranged several days of sight-seeing.Places that we visited in the Czech Republic included the Moravsky kras (a magnificent cave system that you explore by boat and on foot) and the beautiful Lednice Chateau in South Moravia. I spent two evenings at Dr. Necas' home in the small town of Letovice and met his family. Both his mother and father are veterinarians.

We also took a trip to see Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, and another to see the new facilities at the veterinary school in Vienna, Austria.

One of the most fun things we did was to drive a new 5 liter S-Klasse Mercedes Benz. Two of the 300 surgical cases disc disease in Dr. Necas thesis belong to a man that is the Director of all of the Mercedes dealerships in Slovakia. Both of his dogs responded very well after surgery and are fully ambulatory today.

Based upon this good relationship between Dr. Necas and the Director, it was arranged to have a driver and the Mercedes pick up Dr. Necas and myself at my hotel in Brno. The driver drove us to the Czech-Slovak border, and once in Slovakia Dr. Necas and I each got to drive this incredible automobile as fast as we desired. The roads are quite good and the car is even better. A computer in the car cuts off the gas at a speed of 260 km/hour (162.3 mph) for safety reasons. We drove the car at this top speed for several brief stretches of road and it was quite exciting.

Dr. Necas, myself, and the car.
Dr. Necas and I touring the ruins of a deserted castle in the Czech Republic.

I feel that my trip strengthened the already good relationship that exists between our school and the one in Brno. Dr Necas and I have plans to collaborate on one or more projects together in the future. Please let me know if you have any questions or require further details about my trip.