Ambulatory Services
The ambulatory veterinary service is one of the key elements in the development of the veterinary medicine related studies. The ambulatory veterinary service was established in the department in late 2018 under the direction and supervision of Professor Dirk Pfeiffer and Professor Sophie St-Hilaire. This service aims to provide on-going professional assistance to the agriculture/aquaculture food industries and training opportunities to further the career development of the veterinary profession. The service has beneficial societal impacts in addressing concerns for control and prevention of zoonotic diseases and enhancing standards for food safety.
The operation has been kick-started with external funding of HK$35 million obtained from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) to help with setting up the service for fish, poultry and pig farmers. The ambulatory service team supporting the three species specific AFCD grants provides mobile veterinary services to farmers/business operators whose farms are located in various parts of Hong Kong, including the New Territories. Through this service, we strengthen our collaboration with the farmers and operators so that we can provide our students with hands-on training on production animals.
This ambulatory veterinary service team also delivers a range of short courses, seminars and workshops that target industry needs and are designed for animal health professionals, practitioners, farmers and business operators in the agriculture/ aquaculture industries.
At present, the department has three species-specific teams supporting the ambulatory service. They are the Aquatic Animal team, the Poultry team and the Swine Team.
