A large hole was torn in the fabric of the veterinary profession on Thursday, September 8, 1994, the night of the airplane crash of USAir Flight 427 in Pittsburgh, when 132 people lost their lives. Tragically, one of them was Dr. Richard Talbot of Blacksburg, Virginia.
Richard's life touched countless people over the years, including mine. You may have not known him personally, but directly or indirectly, he has affected your life, too. I had the honor and privilege of working with him the past five years in a number of capacities. I looked up to him in all respects, as a leader, an intellectual, an educator, an entrepreneur, a statesman, a friend. He was among the finest and most influential veterinarians who have ever lived.
Richard graduated from veterinary school in 1958, the year I was born, and had achieved many things in his life long before our paths crossed. Widely respected in pharmacology, deans of both the University of Georgia and Virginia Tech veterinary colleges, a leading educator and editor of the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, representative of the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC), liaison to our government's institutions, particularly the FDA, and a highly valued individual at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), where he served our profession in several capacities on the Council on Education and more recently, on the Standard Nomenclature and Informatics Committees. That only scratches the surface of what the man accomplished. I do not know them, but he raised a family and I do know he cared for his wife, Jane, dearly.
For those of us who rally around the banner of the fledgling field of veterinary informatics, an incalculable loss has been sustained. Dr. Talbot for all practical purposes, defined and embodied the term. I do not know exactly when, but he was among the earliest adopters of computer technology in veterinary medicine. He was a charter fellow in the American Academy of Veterinary Informatics (AAVI) and at times, president and secretary/treasurer of the American Veterinary Computer Society (AVCS). He was very active in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) as one of its few veterinary members. He created one of only two Veterinary Informatics training programs in the country at Virginia Tech/Maryland's College of Veterinary Medicine.
Although his name was familiar to me earlier, I first met Richard when I joined the AVMA Committee on Veterinary Medical Informatics in 1990. This committee had evolved from its predecessor, the Standard Nomenclature Committee, because AVMA understood that computer technology was impacting the profession in several new and exciting ways. Richard served on both. He recognized the importance of a standardized nomenclature for veterinary medicine and had led the way for the profession towards its adaptation in the form of SNOMED International. Few people know about the enormous political struggles of the veterinary profession's involvement with creating SNOMED, but we owe Richard an immense debt for his professionalism and determination in championing this cause. At the time of his passing, he was in the midst of establishing the office of the AVMA Director on SNOMED International and was to be instrumental in coordinating and establishing the micro-glossaries of terms needed among the various veterinary specialties to make the use of this nomenclature ultimately usable. If anyone could realize this goal, it was Richard. He was simply the best person for the task.
At the time I joined the Informatics Committee, Richard was Chairman. He and the rest of the committee and AVMA staff patiently listened to what must have seemed pretty radical concepts of a veterinary computer network. AVMA had been considering this idea as much as two years earlier. Richard truly grasped and understood what the potential for networking veterinarians meant. He fully supported these concepts and made it possible for recommendations to be passed along the necessary channels toward fulfilling that goal, ultimately resulting in what is today AVMA's Network of Animal Health or NOAH. In its five short months of existence, NOAH has become an electronic community for almost 1000 veterinarians.
NOAH's purposes and functions have only just begun. Even this past week, as we met in Chicago, Richard supported motions that will tie NOAH even closer to the variety of veterinary efforts on the Internet, including the miscellany of veterinary mailing lists, and gopher and World Wide Web servers. Always on the cutting edge, Richard had already established what promised to be one of the better Web servers on the Internet.
The bottom line is this. Were it not for Richard Talbot and his presence and support at particularly critical moments, there may very well not be a SNOMED International, a NOAH, an AAVI, an AVCS, or a Veterinary Informatics mailing list. It is a gross understatement to say how much he will be missed, personally, by the profession, and everyone he affected.
Life's web weaves us together in so many ways. I will always remember Richard's warm handshake and friendly, knowing smile, and I will always appreciate his personal counsel and his capacity for new ideas and for getting things done. Indeed, we are all indebted to this remarkable human being. We need to keep Richard's spirit and boundless enthusiasm in mind as we carry on to fulfill those goals he set out to achieve. I know that is what he would want us to do.
In Richard's honor, I have dedicated the Veterinary Informatics Home Page on my web server to his memory.
Respectfully,
Ken Boschert, DVM
ken@wudcm.wustl.edu