Nowadays learning is vital, particularly experience-based learning, rather than textbook-based learning. That perception has influenced educational organizations in Thailand to create museums that are practical and which promote learning for interested audiences. The CMU Faculty of Veterinary Medicine has embraced this trend and has launched the Veterinary Anatomy and Pathology Museum to offer a learning facility for anatomy, which is a foundation for several biological sciences, including physiology, medical biology, and animal behavior and evolution, as well as to provide this knowledge for the general public.
The Veterinary Anatomy and Pathology Museum used to be a storage room for anatomical specimens that displayed animal skeletons that were donated by the public and private sectors, as well as pet owners. The museum is supervised by staff from the Veterinary Preclinical Sciences Division, Department of Veterinary Bioscience and Veterinary Public Health, which was founded in 2003. At that time, there was a shortage of specimens to be used during teaching, so this room was used as a storage for the collected specimens. As the number of specimens exceeded the storage capacity, causing constant relocations and thus access difficulty, a renovation project was launched in 2017 to set up the Veterinary Anatomy and Pathology Museum – a proper facility for exhibiting anatomical and pathological specimens. The official opening ceremony took place on April 19, 2022, and CMU President, Clinical Prof. Niwes Nanthachit, presided over the ceremony, with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chatchote Thitaram, DVM giving the report speech. The museum, which exhibits organs and skeletons of various animals found in Thailand and overseas, is open to visitors for free, Monday through Friday from 8 am to 4.30 pm, except on public holidays.
Moreover, since 2009 the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine has begun accepting donations of animal cadavers, pets and other animals, for example dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, tigers and pigs, collected from various sources, including Small Animal Hospital, Metta Animal Hospital, Mo Rak Sat Animal Hospital, other veterinary healthcare facilities, and pet owners. During the first year, the faculty received only 50 dog and cat cadavers; however, thanks to kind and cooperative donors, there have now been more than 1,300 donations. This is an immense contribution to academia.
CMU is committed to supporting impactful developments and creating a great learning facility, such as this museum which will allow greater access to education, following CMU’s resolution that says, ‘CMU is a place for knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer in both the arts and the sciences. It is a place for academic excellence, based on academic freedom and guided by moral precepts, in order to benefit the region and the country as a whole.’