A Growing Problem: Too Many Veterinarians

Winner, Forum
Shira Rubin, Cornell University 

Forum: "There are proposals/plans for new veterinary education programs in several places including Utah, Arizona, and New York.  There is still controversy over whether there is a shortage or excess of veterinarians to fill the workplace demands.  Weigh in with your opinions, comments, or suggested solutions."

There is ample evidence that there are going to be more veterinarians than jobs for veterinarians in the U.S. in the near future.  With plans for four new veterinary schools in the United States underway or in existence and class sizes increasing at many exisiting US veterinary schools, the number of graduating veterinarians is set to rise, perhaps dramatically.  Combined with the recent American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) accreditation of several overseas veterinary schools and expanding class sizes at Caribbean veterinary schools, this could quickly become a crisis for the American veterinary profession.

 

Although the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) contends that there will be a shortage of 15,000 veterinarians by 2025, there is little evidence to support such a claim.  In fact, there may be too many veterinarians already, especially in small animal practice.  One indication that the supply for veterinarians has outpaced demand are the results of  the annual survey of employment, starting salaries and educational indebtedness of new graduates from U.S. veterinary medical colleges published by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA).  Their reports show that since 2010 new graduates have been receiving significantly fewer job offers and the starting salaries of new graduates have gone down.  Even the oft-touted claim that there is a shortage of large animal veterinarians has recently been challenged.  The Association of American Bovine Practitioners (AABP) released a statement in 2011 that, "Continuing to increase the number of veterinarians interested in serving rural areas will not solve this problem. In fact, creating an ‘over supply’ of food-supply veterinarians will lead to widespread unemployment or underemployment of food-supply private practitioners and will have a significant detrimental effect on salaries for all veterinarians."

 

So what are the motivations behind the founding of these new veterinary schools?  And who stands to profit from them?  

 

1.  The developers for the proposed veterinary school in Buffalo, NY won a contest to renovate an abandoned human hospital.   If all goes according to plan, as many as 600 students may be enrolled at the campus within 3-5 years.

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Support for Discrimination and Marginalization? Not Surprising

Op Ed

Sonia Fang, Western University

 

On March 14, dvm360.com posted an article entitled “Minority students report strong support from veterinary schools, but racism and sexism remain, study says”.  The article provided preliminary results from the Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) climate study conducted by Lisa Greenhill (Associate Executive Director for Institutional Research and Diversity at the AAVMC).  Some of the results included that one in five female veterinary students reported hearing sexist language at their school, and LGBT students reported they did not have a faculty or staff member to confide in at higher rates than those students who did not identify as LGBT.  In response to the article, DVM NewsMagazine published a letter from Dr. Larry Fisher of Topeka, Kansas.

 

I was disappointed and disturbed by the letter printed in DVM NewsMagazine.  On a purely factual level, the statements leveled against LGBT students are not founded in current historical analysis, and the myth that homosexuality has lead to society’s decline has been debunked repeatedly.[1]  Not to mention, even if there were civilizations for which an increase in homosexual activity coincided with a society’s purported decline, there would still be the classic issue of confusing correlation with causation, a definite and basic no-no in evidence-based research.  There isn’t evidence for homosexuality correlating with the destruction of civilizations, much less any research performed demonstrating its causation. 

 

Regardless of the factual inaccuracies, I was taken aback because the printing of this letter was, in itself, telling of the problems that we as LGBT veterinary students face on a systemic level.

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Case Report: Adult Female Bald Eagle

Winner, Abstracts and Cases
Chelsea Anderson, Cornell University

Signalment: Adult Bald Eagle, Female

 

Common problems: Bald eagles do not commonly present to the Wildlife Health Center but most cases have been fractures secondary to trauma or lead toxicity.

 

History and clinical presentation:

This Bald Eagle presented to the Wildlife Health Center on 02/05/2011 after being brought in by a rehabilitator. The eagle was seen walking sternally with its wings folded, down an embankment and across a two-lane road into a bush. Upon presentation the eagle was quiet, alert and responsive and sternally recumbent. On initial evaluation of the legs, the bird was not moving and seemed to have no deep pain when stimulated by hemostats. The cloaca did not have any tone when palpated with forceps. When pressure was applied to the right metatarsal region, the bird reacted appropriately by flapping her wings and moving away from the stimulus. A small wound was seen near the uropygial gland but otherwise the integument was normal. The left leg was slightly abducted away from the body. A small amount of blood was seen in her mouth and on inspection was coagulated in the oral cavity, with a few drops in her glottis. She was weighed at 5.55 kg.

 

Presenting problems:

• Pelvic fracture (left most significant)

• Paraparesis

• Inability to urinate/defecate voluntarily (spinal trauma)

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Breed Specific Legislation

 Winner, Life as a Vet Student Category
Julia Drury, Cornell University

With the arrival of October, a month in which many celebrate Pit bull awareness, it is fitting to discuss Breed Specific Legislation and its affect on the veterinary profession. On March 22, 2012 Massachusetts passed the Bill S.2192 outlining that “no dog shall be deemed dangerous: . . . based solely upon the breed of such dog”. Massachusetts is one of a hand-full of states that has banned breed specific legislation (BSL). The drive behind BSL is that by banning or regulating ownership of certain “dangerous” breeds the number of dog bites and fatalities will decrease. Breeds that are frequently targeted with BSL are Pit Bulls, Rottweiler’s, Chow Chows, and Presa Canarios. The extremes of BSL legislation can be seen in Bermuda and Australia which include banning breeds, force muzzling in public, posting “beware dangerous dog” signs on the property, and banning importation of specified restricted breeds.

There is no scientific evidence that breed specific legislation is effective in reducing the number of dog bites or fatalities in communities. Rather, it places the blame of aggressive behavior on the dog breed instead of on the owner and does not address the fact that a dog of any breed can become dangerous when improperly trained or trained to be aggressive. We have all met, owned, or treated wonderful canine citizens that are pit bulls, chows, and Rottweiler’s. 

So how do we as veterinary professionals promote safety in our communities and decrease dog bites without demonizing certain breeds?

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The Vet Student Times

Winner, Foot in Mouth category
Alicia Niedzwiedzki, University of Wisconsin