Her name is Dr. Montserrat Torremorell, but most people just call her Dr. Montse (mont-see). She is an international expert in swine health at the University of Minnesota, joining the College of Veterinary Medicine earlier this year as the Al Leman Chair in Swine Medicine. So, she definitely knows her stuff when it comes to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, better known as PRRS.

She was on the program at Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica’s (BIVI) Area Regional Control of PRRS seminar last week in Chicago, just prior to the start of the 2009 International PRRS Symposium. Her topic was building and executing herd plans within ARC projects.

“We do need herd plans in order to move forward on PRRS elimination,” Dr. Montse says. “A herd plan is putting in writing all the steps to take to clean up a farm or clean up an area. What we intend to do with that is to use those documents for communication purposes, to bring everybody on board, and at the same time to identify the limitations we may encounter in the future.”

Listen to or download my interview with Dr. Monste about PRRS control herd plans here: