At the suggestion of John Janovy, I'd like to start a discussion on
the training or lack of training in traditional parasitology by many
of our current graduate students. It is obvious that in order to
obtain funding from many federal and private sources, current and
future researchers must have knowledge of as well as "how to" skills
in immunoparasitology and molecular biology. But, I wonder, if the
emphasis on these skills is producing future parasitologists who
cannot discover, diagnose or identify parasites (of any sort). Are we
sacrificing these traditional skills in order to increase
grantsmanship? How many of us (major professors) are requiring our
students to learn traditional skills as well as the newer
biotechnology skills. We, for example, will have a major turnover in
faculty in our Department of Parasitology over the next 3 years. We
will need a person to teach Veterinary Parasitology and to interact
with veterinarians in the Teaching Hospital (preferably someone with
a DVM and PhD), we will need a person with fundable research skills,
preferably a person with a background in veterinary parasitology but
who also has skills in immunoparasitology/molecular parasitology, and
thirdly, a person with administrative skills who has similar
attributes. Who is teaching students with these attributes?
Katherine Prestwood
email prestwood.a at calc.vet.uga.edu
