Veterinary Shortage

[Equus caballus]

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Members don't see this ad.

I am a posting fiend, teehee.

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2007/06/25/news/doc467f671538056590371931.txt
and
http://www.yumasun.com/news/state_34898___article.html/arizona_yuma.html

Comments, anyone?

Sidenote: If anyone is interested, a really cool thing to do is to receive Google Alerts that email you news articles about certain key words that you specify. I specify "vet veterinary veterinarian" and receive articles everyday that mostly pertain to my key words. Often you find some pretty interesting things to read. You don't have to receive them every day, and you don't have to even get them by email. Let me know if you're interested and need any help setting it up!

 

[sofficat]

good news for us up & coming vets... we can practice anywhere!

 

[Equus caballus]

good news for us up & coming vets... we can practice anywhere!

Very true, especially for those going into large medicine!

However, something needs to be done in order to supply sufficient care to animals in all areas, especially rural. What can we do? The article brings up the possibility of starting a new vet school in Arizona, but how realistic is that possibility? With the decline of veterinarians, which in turn shuts down large animal care, how much time do we have before it becomes an even bigger problem? People are spending lots of money and time to haul their animals to clinics hours away, putting an animal at even more risk if it is an emergency. How can we persuade veterinarians to rise to this call for help? How can we express our possible need for more veterinary education programs, if that, in fact, is a factor?

As the article states, many veterinarians out of college are in debt. There needs to be some kind of incentive for veterinarians out of college to take the responsibility to set up private practices in rural areas, an expensive amibition.

Are there enough veterinary students, or are they all finding work in their state that they graduated from; therefore, ignoring the fact that there are more animals who may need veterinary care elsewhere?

If there are not enough veterinary students, why? I once wrote a paper for an Econ class on college debt and benefit analysis, and it is most likely that many students out there are struggling with the idea of attending vet school due to the heavy debt that would ensue. Is there enough financial aid in veterinary education? Is tuition just to high?

 

[silverelf]

How can we persuade veterinarians to rise to this call for help?

HELP WITH LOANS! There are SO many areas that are starved for vets that have been throwing around this idea of loan forgiveness if you commit to practice in an area for at least 3-5 years. I've yet to see this actually come into practice. But I would willingly go to any area in the country that would forgive my loans, or make them interest-free, or even just offer a bonus to assist with their repayment. Its a different situation for veterinarians...we walk out with the same amount of debt as lawyers and M.D.s...but we don't have their salary. Not that I'm complaining, I love what I do and what I'm going to do, but if they want a solution to the problem....well there's no thinking required, its obvious.

 

[Equus caballus]

Loan forgiveness! Great! I have actually never heard of this option in veterinary medicine, but I am learning!

http://www.pheaa.org/loanforgiveness/Agriculture_Education_Loan_Forgiveness_Program.shtml
http://www.maine.gov/education/highered/SpecProgs/Specialized.htm
http://www.mizzoulinc.com/muaalinc/news.html

Pennsylvania has gotten somewhere. It seems that Maine and Missouri have, as well. Not sure which other states have passed this legislation, but EVERY state has its under-served areas.

Also:

The Veterinary Medical Service Act was signed into law in 2003 as a loan repayment program for veterinarians working in underserved urban and rural areas, but there's still no federal funding to support this act. However, some states, such as Pennsylvania, offer a loan forgiveness program for eligible agriculture and veterinary medicine graduates. So check with your state to see whether such a program exists.

As a new grad, you may qualify for total or partial loan forgiveness, says Veterinary Economics Personal Finance Editor Fritz Wood, CPA, CFP, if:
You didn't receive a refund that was due to you.
Your signature was forged.
You become totally and permanently disabled.
You or the dependent borrowing the loan dies.
Your loan is discharged due to bankruptcy. (Typically though, student loans can't be discharged due to bankruptcy. Wood recommends checking with your legal counsel in this situation.)


Wood says some other circumstances in which the federal government will forgive your loan are if you:
Volunteer with an organization like AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, or Volunteers in Service to America.
Serve in the military.

Quoted from http://www.vetecon.com/vetec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=323673.

 

[CookieBear]

So I can either pay all my loans back, die, or, move to rural Pennsylvania!

Pennsylvania is looking GOOD! 😀


But, seriously, good links and info. Thanks for posting that.

 

[Equus caballus]

😀 Isn't it? Ohhh, lordie.

Of course, Pennsylvania's program restricts to a maximum of $10,000 in loan forgiveness, two thousand a year. Still, it helps, and it really is an incentive for students to go on and help the rural communities at risk. I wonder how it has affected Pennsylvania, if there are more vets total, if there are more vets spread out, if there still is a problem.

 

[VelcroSky]

Of course, I'm all for the idea of loan forgiveness, but this is not going to fix the shortage problem. There isn't a shortage of applicants to vet school. The problem is is that there aren't enough seats in each class. Somebody on here posted a link to a radio show a few months ago where the president of UC Davis (I think it was) was saying just that. He said that every year lots of very qualified people were being turned down due to lack of space and that every year the demand is growing faster than the supply. So the first step is to get more seats because there are lots of people that want to become vets that end up not getting in.

On a side note, usually when there is a shortage of a profession, salaries go up commensurate with that increased demand. Look what happened with nurse salaries, many of whom make well more than vets. It seems that this is not the case with vets. I think that this supports what I said before. You don't have a problem attracting people to the field, you just have a problem facilitating them.

 

[runnerDC]

This may be of interest for anyone who is Wisconsin-bound:

http://www.wrn.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=6D9D2893-A986-ECB6-FA60971D24271016

 

[LuckyJo]

The Kansas Legislature set up a debt forgiveness for rural veterinarians. This was actually put in place last year and 5 students from the class of 2010 were given the funding. Details...Go through an application process, commitee chooses the number of students that can enter the program, those students get $20,000 for each year of vet school, which is then forgiven if they practice exclusive large animal or mixed in 1 of about 95 counties in kansas for 4 years.😀

http://www.vet.ksu.edu/admit/pdf/3005.pdf

 

[Bill59]

On a side note, usually when there is a shortage of a profession, salaries go up commensurate with that increased demand. Look what happened with nurse salaries, many of whom make well more than vets. It seems that this is not the case with vets.

... which should make you question the premise that there aren't enough veterinarians.

For example, if there's such a shortage of food animal veterinarians, then why aren't salaries for food animal veterinarians higher than for equine and small animal veterinarians? The reality is they're often lower -- which is why fewer veterinarians choose to go into food animal in the first place.

The problem is not that the supply is too small. The problem is the demand is too small. Livestock producers are not willing/able to pay food animal veterinarians enough. Veterinarians are just responding to the free marketplace and going where the demand (i.e. money) is.

Everyone wants the veterinary schools to fix this but they can't -- because the problem is not the supply. There are all sorts of ways you can funnel new graduates into food animal practice: scholarships, loan repayments, biased selection of vet school applicants, and so on. But that will just serve to depress salaries even further, compounding the problem.

 

[jfitzpatri8]

There's always the government... going to work for the NIH or the DOD or the FDA can get your loans completely paid off. Sorry, don't have links, but I know that that is how the gov't gets suckers to do food safety testing at slaughterhouses and such.

J