Current issues in veterinary medicine

[susiewaits]

I have been hit with this question before in an interview. Last year I spoke about the overuse of antibiotics and the subsiquent resistance. But thinking back, yes this is an issue, and it is current, but not entirely new.
With the recent economic developments, I am thinking that this is of course affected veterinary practice. Working in the field I have definately noticed a difference in the willingness of clients to spend on their pets. We have even had a woman come in with two 13 year old dogs who she could no longer keep because she was evicted.

I just wanted to get some qaulity sdn input on the question of current veterinary issues.

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[kakurubird]

I think there have been a few threads on current issues recently. Gives the archives a search (use the advanced search so that you can select only the veterinary forums).

http://www.dolittler.com/ also has a lot of good discussions on wide range of topics and definetly worth taking a look at.

 

[Ranglah]

I was asked this question as well in my KSU interview. I did mention the recent downturn in the economy. I also mentioned the lack of large animal vets in rural communities and lack of public health vets in general. Near the end of the interview I was led to believe that the large amount of debt that new vets take on is an issue. I don't see that as "current" so much, and I was thinking in terms of what affects the entire industry (vets who have paid off their debt or for whatever reason didn't accumulate the debt would not be affected necessarily) as an issue so I felt I messed up by not mentioning it. I also mentioned that current threats of zoonotic diseases (rises in avian flu H5N1, etc) is a current issue.

Since I haven't been working in the industry so much lately I use http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/ as a way to stay current on veterinary news. It's an excellent resource and keeps me very updated on what's going on in the industry as of late.