A Western Canada veterinarian will be awarded the prestigious 2021 Allen D. Leman Science in Practice Award in September during the annual Allen D. Leman Swine Conference held Sept. 18-21 in St. Paul, Minn.
Egan Brockhoff, DVM, president and managing partner of Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer, Alberta, will join a growing and illustrious list of veterinarians who have received the award.
“I was very humbled to get the call,” Brockhoff says. “What a great feeling to be recognized by such a world-renowned group. When you pour yourself into your profession, clients, team and industry every day, year after year, sometimes you forget to raise your head and appreciate the value and positive contributions you are making out there.”
For more than 20 years this award has honored veterinarians like Egan who are accomplished leaders of our swine industry, says Montse Torremorell, DVM, PhD, and professor in the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine at the University of Minnesota.
Science-Based Savvy
Brockhoff is a staunch believer that evidence-based medicine is a “must” for pork production.
“Your prior experience and gut instincts are great starting points,” Brockhoff says, “but we need to test them.”
He also advocates for an inclusive, team-based approach to applying science.
“We need to include producers in our questions, and work with universities to assure that our study design and methods will produce usable findings,” he says.
The most important thing is to keep projects simple—don’t expect to answer all of your questions in one study. When hiring or mentoring new practitioners, Brockhoff has prioritized helping them complete a science project within their first 90 days. Examples include a health-oriented trial or something related to behavior or labor utilization. He says the main point of the project is to learn the value of continual testing and refinement early in one’s career.
Outstanding Ambassador
“Dr. Brockhoff is an outstanding ambassador for integrating science into the practice of veterinary medicine,” says Lucina Galina, DVM, PhD and director of pork technical services at Zoetis. Zoetis supports this award. “We salute his long record of innovation and tireless pursuit of solutions that improve swine health.”
Zoetis is sponsoring the reception at this year’s Leman Swine Conference in St. Paul, where he will be honored.
Brockhoff completed his DVM in 2006 at the University of Saskatchewan, Western College of Veterinary Medicine. He began providing swine consulting services in Southeast Asia in 2010 focusing on veterinary training, disease management and control as well as enhancing biosecurity capacity. Since 2008 Egan has taught Swine Medicine at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. His passion for agriculture and supporting farmers and agribusiness brought him to the Canadian Pork Council in 2014 where he continues to serve as the organization’s veterinary counselor.
“To be included in such a remarkable list of professionals and dedicated leaders is truly a wonderful moment for me. Some greatly appreciated fuel to keep up the hard work and a good reminder that the scientific process must never stop and that knowledge translation and transfer will always bring value to our profession and sector,” Brockhoff says.
Learn more about the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference at lemanconference.umn.edu.
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