AVMA history

In 1887, AVMA leaders unanimously approved a resolution seeking uniform requirements for veterinary schooling and a standard graduation exam by a common examining board.

Doctor August Nathaniel Lushington believed to be the first Black person to earn a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in the United States upon his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1897.

Under his direction, New York became the unofficial headquarters of the USVMA, and the organization founded the American Veterinary Review – renamed the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) in 1915.

R.V. Cannon and J.G. Slade became the first Black members of the AVMA in 1920.

The minimum educational standards first adopted by the association in 1921 – Essentials of an Approved Veterinary College – have evolved into the Council on Education's Standards of Accreditation.

Around the time of the USVMA’s founding, veterinary medicine in the United States was largely the domain of uneducated or self-educated practitioners who “decided to call themselves farriers or veterinary surgeons, often assuming that title overnight, according to a 1934 JAVMA article.

The American Journal of Veterinary Research joined JAVMA in 1940 and has become the primary forum for veterinarians to publish basic and clinical research studies.

AVMA members represented a clear majority of the profession for the first time in 1941, when membership reached nearly 6,650.

While president of Tuskegee University, Doctor Patterson was the founding Dean of the Tuskegee School of Veterinary Medicine in 1944, the same year he also founded the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).

Doctor Webb, upon her graduation from the Tuskegee School of Veterinary Medicine in 1949, became the first Black woman to graduate from veterinary school and then licensed to practice veterinary medicine in the United States.

The AVMA American Board of Veterinary Specialties got its formal start in 1950 as the Advisory Board on Veterinary Specialties when the Executive Board received applications for recognition from the first two veterinary specialty organizations.

In 1954, about 10 percent of veterinarians in the AVMA Directory & Resource Manual were listed as small animal practitioners.

The concept of a national association of student chapters was first proposed to students who attended the 1966 AVMA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

Meet the veterinary leaders who have served on the AVMA Board of Directors since 1969.

Doctor Johnson Webb then served as a professor of biology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T). Doctor Webb was a member of the planning committee that founded the School of Veterinary Medicine of North Carolina State University that opened in 1981.

Doctor Mary Beth Leininger became the AVMA’s first female president in 1996.

Doctor Wojcinski had initiated the process of reviewing the society’s bylaws, which had not been comprehensively reviewed since 1999, and had reviewed them with the help of Doctor John de Jong, an AVMHS board member, and Susanne Whitaker, AVMHS secretary-treasurer.

AVMA NewsRead the latest news about the AVMA and the veterinary profession, and search archives dating back to 2000.

The association in 2004 adopted an official policy on diversity, which has evolved into our policy on diversity and inclusion.