Subsequent to the Industry Day programme conducted at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) in September 2018 with the hope of establishing functional corporation between the University and Private Sector Organizations, VTH has been able to refurbish several state of the art functional units to provide conducive environment for student teaching, learning and better patient care. Under this project, a new Clinical Skills Laboratory, a Consultation Room conforming to international standards, a modern Clinical Teaching Area, a Clinician's Room, and a Self-Study Area equipped with Computer Workstations and a well-equipped Intensive Care Unit have been established.

Clinical Skills Laboratory (CSL): This will provide affordable facilities to teach and learn most of the practical and professional skills expected from a day one graduate as stipulated in the new veterinary curriculum. The models and simulators available in the CSL will be used by undergraduates from 1st year onwards. At the initial stage of setting up this CSL, the major concern was the exorbitant cost of the models and simulators if they were to be procured from foreign suppliers. To overcome this problem, innovative thinking based on information gathered from training workshops and free guidebooks developed by the international community came in to play. As a result, all the simulators and models for the new skill lab have been developed using locally available low cost material, which were innovations of a veterinary undergraduate. The teaching-learning innovations in the CSL could be easily replaceable after repeated use and will enable the students to enhance hands-on learning in a conducive environment.

As the expectations of the society are high of the VTH, which is reflected by steadily increasing direct access and referral case load, it is envisaged that the newly established facilities would provide high standard of care to the patients. Also, FVMAS being the only institution in Sri Lankan University system that produces veterinary graduates to cater to the needs of the country, it is vital that it has the state of art veterinary teaching facility to learn clinical disciplines and for the graduates to be competent veterinarians.

Main sponsors of this project were the following alumni of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine & Animal Science and some private sector organizations whose generosity is greatly appreciated;

• Graduates of 92/93 Batch of Faculty of veterinary Medicine & Animal Science.
• Dr. Sanjaya Wasala, Managing Director of Nutri Veto (Pvt.) Ltd., the Local agent for Royal Canin (France)
• Dr. Dassanayake with Perfect Companion Group Co. Ltd., Gamma Pharmaceuticals (Pvt.) Ltd.