thePULSEPart of what makes Central MA so unique is its abundance of colleges and universities. And at each institution, there are professors, instructors, and coaches who go above and beyond simply dispensing academic fact inside the classroom; this special breed of educator becomes mentor, role model, and inspiration. It is these individuals whom we honor in Focus on Faculty. If you know a professor who should be featured in this section, please contact the Editor at ldean@pagioinc.com.
R. John Berg
Professor and Department Chair of Clinical Sciences at Tufts Veterinary
By Jennie Fitzgerald
Veterinarian, professor, and department chair at Tufts University, John Berg attributes pursuing veterinary science to, not surprisingly, his love of animals. But considering that his mother didn’t allow him to have dogs (or very many other pets, for that matter) as a child, I’d say it was more an act of ultimately productive teenage rebellion. Whatever the reason, John switched majors from economics to veterinary medicine during college when he got his first German Shepherd. He hasn’t looked back since.
John recognizes the mountain-sized amount of material his students have to learn in four short years, and the mind-boggling number of lectures they have to attend, so to cut down on this brainful (or, as the students call it, this 4-year long “thinking headache”), he keeps his lectures clear and concise, with an occasional digression to give the kids some comic ~ or at least amusing ~ relief. He also concentrates on instilling confidence in his students, a characteristic he considers a huge part of being a successful vet. “As is true in many walks of life, people perform best if they are confident, as long as the foundation for that confidence is some real capability!. They will do [their job] a lot better, and enjoy it more, if they can stay confident and unstressed.”
Giving lectures is just one part of John’s job; he also teaches in a clinical environment with only 2-3 students. Picture the series House, John as one with the marker and easel (minus the Vicodin dependency and hurtful wit) and his students filtering through the possibilities of diseases, a patient’s progress, and a host of possible treatments. The students are tested on their knowledge while dealing with real life cases, but John knows some things are learned simply through years of experience. “A much harder thing to teach is ‘clinical thinking,’ in other words, how to think and make decisions like a doctor. All of us spend our entire careers slowly improving at this, as it is a very complex, integrative process…we try hard to give students a head start on this lifelong process during their 4 brief years in veterinary school…I think we are successful.”
The variety of his responsibilities is a reward for John ~ performing surgery on animals, lecturing, clinical teaching, and being department chair ~ but seeing the success of others is the true prize: “Seeing young faculty members succeed in their careers, which requires a variety of talents…not necessarily taught in any formal way in our education and training system, is very rewarding.”
When he isn’t using surgical tools to save an animal’s life, you can find him using a tennis racket on the campus courts, enjoying his two young daughters and wife, reading books that most people would find “mind-numbingly boring,” skiing, biking, gardening, or traveling.
I guess his teenage rebellion turned into matured success ~ good thing for a lot of canines, felines, and humans that he didn’t ever look back!
