Veterinary Medicine in the context of the Colombian municipality: Conversations with rurality from the professionalizing undergraduate academic practice in Animal Health Administration at the Universidad de Antioquia, 2005-2015

Abstract

Systematization is an investigative, reflexive, critical and purposeful process, which seeks to study, understand, criticize, and question practices, and learn from them. This study systematized the experience of the undergraduate professionalizing academic practice in Animal Health Administration (AHA) at the Universidad de Antioquia, which is developed in municipalities of the department of Antioquia. The methodological route involved three stages: historical construction of the practice from collective memory, critical analysis of the practice, and learning from the practice to improve it. Process flow devices were used, such as semi-structured interview, conversation, storytelling, exit interview with former participants, workshop, document review and interpretation, and field diary. In total, 17 municipalities were visited and 74 people were interviewed. Results included the construction of the contextual framework of AHA, listing and location of municipalities with AHA historical presence, construction of a timeline with a network of agents and events, construction and analysis of the guiding discourse, identification of strengths, limitations, and shortcomings of the practice in university and municipal environments, as well as contributions to transcending shortcomings and strengthening the practice. The AHA practice represents the materialization of the University’s potential to foster dialogue between the University and society by supporting the role of municipalities in animal health and public health, although it requires profound interventions to exploit its transformative and educational potential.