The President’s award is intended to recognize an ACVAA Diplomate for outstanding service in advancing the ACVAA through leadership, service, or outreach. This year the ACVAA recognizes Dr. John Ludders and Dr. Pauline Wong for their creation and perpetuation of the ACVAA list serves. Thank you, and Congratulations, Dr. Ludders and Dr. Wong !
In 1993 Dr. Ludders and and Dr. Wong were impressed with the newly created discussion lists in lab animal medicine (COMPMED) and the medical Anesthesiology group where anesthesia cases and topics were discussed. At the time when most ACVAA members were not yet using email, when only telephone was the main source for communication, they recognized how such a discussion list could become an essential resource for veterinary anesthesiologists to pose questions and seek ideas about anesthesia case management and related topics. So, in 1994 the list was created, beginning with 2 list members, John and Pauline, who posted greetings to each other on ACVA-L to try out the novel medium and test the system. They adapted guidelines of the COMPMED and Anesthesiology lists to facilitate civil discourse and prevent spread of computer viruses/worms through messages posted to ACVA-L. Recognizing security risks posed by worms and viruses, John and Pauline instructed future members of ACVA-L list members not to attach files to messages, to send messages in plain text format to ensure legible messages for all recipients free of embedded worms. Since 2007, messages with attached files or encoded text are automatically blocked from being posted on ACVA-L. During the 26 years of ACVA-L’s existence, no computer virus or worm has been disseminated through the list.
The ACVAA list serves hosted on Cornell University’s List processor has become an essential global resource for all those with a serious interest in veterinary anesthesia and analgesia: ACVAA and ECVAA diplomates, residents, practitioners and technicians. Currently, there are over 1000 subscribed list members, now connected together from across this country and the world. Subsequently, Dr. Ludders created a list serve for Diplomates that is used specifically for ACVAA business. At the time of its creation, there were less than 120 diplomates; now over 300 active and emeritus diplomates are subscribed to the ACVA Diplomate list serve.
Dr. John Ludders received his DVM at Washington State University in 1977, and after a lab animal medicine position, completed his anesthesia residency at the University of CA at Davis in 1982. After becoming an ACVA(A) diplomate in 1982, he held a faculty position at University of WI from 1982-89 until he joined the anesthesia faculty at Cornell where he remained until his retirement in 2011.
Besides clinical work and teaching, Dr. Ludders has had an outstanding research career, published innumerable manuscripts and book chapters with many focusing on anesthesia in avian species.
Dr. Wong received her DVM at the University of CA, Davis, in 1975, and after an internship at University of GA, completed a surgery residency at University of MN. She then completed an anesthesia residency at Davis in 1983. She has been a lecturer, consulting anesthesiologist at Davis since her residency and until her retirement in 2019. Dr. Wong has been recognized for her outstanding clinical teaching and her wealth of literature knowledge. Whenever a question was posed to the ACVAA list on any anesthetic related topic, list members could depend on Pauline to provide a scholarly discussion of the topic along with a list of relevant references. Dr. Wong is still very active in subscribing new members to the list serve, and continues to monitor and maintain the ACVAA list serves.