Evaluation of student abilities to respond to a "real-world" question about an emerging infectious disease

Veterinarians play an important role in educating the public about emerging animal and zoonotic diseases. This article investigates the ability of third-year veterinary students (N=31), from a veterinary school in the USA, to respond to an actual client's question about an emerging disease. In an open-book, take-home examination, students were asked to respond to a nurse's concern that she could bring home influenza from work and infect her macaw. While 75% of the students answered the question correctly, only 51% demonstrated that they understood that this question came from the ongoing publicity about the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Additional information that would have decreased the client's concern and provided the client with a better understanding of this disease outbreak was lacking in many of the answers. The results of this study suggest that greater emphasis should be applied to exercises requiring veterinary students to research, carefully study, and formulate answers to applied topics that are novel to them.