Chapter 09: The Importance of Departmental Accreditation and a Snapshot of Veterinary Medicine at MD Anderson
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Description
In this chapter, Dr. Tinkey talks about the importance of accreditation in keeping MD Anderson research abreast of advances in the field of animal medicine. She draws a comparison with hospital accreditation and sketches the origin of the peer review system with AAALAC [Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care], founded in 1965. She notes that MD Anderson was the 183rd institution to be accredited, indication of early adoption of care methods.
Next Dr. Tinkey explains what is involved in the extensive review process, providing a snapshot of the issues of concern to her, as Chair of the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. She notes that accreditation is part of department culture now and keeps the department constantly changing and improving.
Identifier
TinkeyPT_02_20160607_C09
Publication Date
6-7-2016
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - An Institutional Unit; MD Anderson History; MD Anderson Culture; Building/Transforming the Institution; Growth and/or Change; Institutional Processes; Overview; Definitions, Explanations, Translations; Understanding Cancer, the History of Science, Cancer Research
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Absolutely. Yeah. But since we’re talking and sketching the history of the department, obviously once you took over, we left it last time that there were a bunch of new areas of concern and research that you were starting to bring into the department. Pain management. All of those different areas. So obviously the department is very, very caught up not only in the history of MD Anderson and the growth of research, but the history of the field of laboratory animal medicine. So let’s continue that story. Tell me more about the situation on the ground when you came in, some of the concerns you had, the ways in which you began to push the development of the department, either alone or in concert with others, into becoming a more modern management facility for animals here.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
A lot of this are themes that I just inherited from my mentors and then continued. I think one of the most powerful ways that MD Anderson as an institution, and the animal care program at MD Anderson, stays connected and in tune with the global standards is that we are an accredited animal care program. So one of the things I’m proud of is that much like there’s a hospital accreditation organization, JCAHO, and they come into hospitals and really do very extensive review on gosh, everything you can think of from patient safety and patient care and medical records processes and even fire safety and disaster planning and things like that for hospitals, there’s a similar international accrediting organization called AAALAC, it’s three As L-A-C, that accredits animal care and use programs in research. AAALAC was first formed in 1965. Its basis was there was a group of animal researchers and veterinarians who ascribed to the notion that folks working in the field themselves could set standards for themselves because they knew the field and they were experts in the field, far better than an outside regulatory agency could do. And their accrediting process was really based on a system of peer review. We will get our peers that are doing animal research at other institutions across the country at first and then the world later to come in and review animal care programs and basically set standards, and then advise how well are we meeting those standards. So AAALAC was first started in 1965 and MD Anderson got its AAALAC accreditation in 1969. So clearly my predecessors were extremely early adopters. I work with the AAALAC organization now and so I know through the years they originally were an American-only organization that then became a global organization. And we’re still accrediting animal care and use programs for the very first time like this year. So there are new programs all the time that are getting accredited. And I think they simply started. Whenever they accredited the first program, it was number one. Well, we’re number 183. And the programs they’re accrediting now are 1,700 and something. So you can see we were very early on.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me what are the areas that the accrediting team looks at in order to give that particular ranking.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
It’s a very extensive review because they look at things that go all the way from -- they will look at the bricks and mortar, the structure itself. So they certainly come in and just look at your animal facility itself. Looking at structural integrity, are you using caging and wiring systems that are a sufficient size. Are they warm and comfortable for the animals? Can the animals be visualized in the cages? Can the cages be sanitized appropriately? Can the watering system be sanitized appropriately? Do you have environmental controls, so can you control the light cycle? Can you control the temperature? Can you control the ventilation. They look at all those things. They look at record keeping. Do you have some sort of identification system so you’re not mixing animals up? Can you make sure that you track are the animals on an approved IACUC protocol? So they look at physical infrastructure. They look at things like the animal procurement process. Are you using high quality vendors? Is there some sort of system for ensuring genetic purity of animals, you’re really getting what you think you’re getting? Do you have a system of veterinary medical care? I think we talked last time about herd health for mice. Do you have a system of health surveillance so you can assess whether there’s a subclinical disease that might be affecting research results and you don’t even know it? They also look at institutional programs that are so important for animal research. So not only do they come in and look, do you have a physical facility that’s appropriate for housing animals, and do you have veterinarians who are keeping records and appropriately trained and qualified and know what they’re doing with these animals. But they look at does the institution provide the infrastructure. So is there an animal care and use committee? Is it appropriately appointed with the right scientists and experts who can actually evaluate proposals to use animals? Do you have some sort of biological safety committee or safety committee that can evaluate if a hazard is being used in animals can we make it a safe environment for the people who are using those hazards? They look to see is there an employee health program, because the use of animals inherently comes along with some occupational hazards, like laboratory animal allergies, so is there an employee health program. So they look at everything. And part of the standards that we go by, there’s a text called Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals that is the standard that’s used by the Public Health Service and the NIH. So we get NIH funding. If you get NIH funding you have to go by this. And that’s really the standard that AAALAC applies when they come in and evaluate an animal care and use program. And that book, you could just almost break it down into chapters, like institutional policies and programs, animal environment, husbandry, and management, veterinary care, and physical facilities. So they look at the whole enchilada. But because we’re an accredited facility and because one of the conditions of accreditation is having an extensive site visit once every three years, that was a really powerful way of keeping us connected with the global community. What’s going on out there? Because one of the requirements is that your veterinarians have continuing education, a way of keeping current with the expectations and standards and refinements that are happening. So I speculate that probably our veterinarians are highly motivated and would have done that anyway. But that’s just so imbued in our culture that we’re an accredited program and part of an accredited program is to constantly seek replacement, reduction, refinement for the use of animals in research. So I think that’s really the underpinning of why the program and the institution is constantly changing and I would say improving through the years in things like surgical standards for even our smallest animals like rodents, and the provision of postoperative pain relief, and enrichment. Even our little mice now, if you look in their cages, their cages are what we would call environmentally enriched. They have bedding and they have nesting material and they have chew toys and they have other things that make the environment not sterile so that they can express species-normative behaviors. So it’s really night and day from even 20 years ago when there was maybe a stainless steel cage with a little bit of shredded paper towel on the bottom and some rodent food, that was it. And now like I said we think every day about hey, is this environment enriched for the animal, is it psychologically stimulating, does it allow them to be a mouse or a rat or a dog or a pig.
Recommended Citation
Tinkey, Peggy T. DVM and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 09: The Importance of Departmental Accreditation and a Snapshot of Veterinary Medicine at MD Anderson" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1229.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1229
Conditions Governing Access
Open
