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Executive Summary
The U.S. veterinary medical profession contributes to society in diverse ways, from
developing drugs and protecting the food supply to treating companion animals and investigating
animal diseases in the wild. In a study of the issues related to the veterinary medical workforce,
including demographics, workforce supply, trends affecting job availability, and capacity of the
educational system to fill future demands, a National Research Council committee found that the
profession faces important challenges in maintaining the economic sustainability of veterinary
practice and education, building its scholarly foundations, and evolving veterinary service to
meet changing societal needs.
The committee found little evidence of workforce shortages in most fields of veterinary
medicine. True personnel shortages are indicated when salaries rise sharply in an attempt to
attract qualified candidates to fill persistent vacancies. That is not occurring in any sector of
veterinary medicine, except industry, where high salaries are offered to candidates with both a
doctoral degree in veterinary medicine (DVM1) and a PhD, or with advanced training in
pathology or laboratory-animal medicine.
Nevertheless, some veterinary colleges have increased enrollment and the American
Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has accredited additional veterinary schools to
accommodate more students, most of whom will likely practice companion-animal medicine.
Those actions will increase the supply of companion-animal practitioners, the largest group of
veterinary practitioners, at a time of uncertain demand for companion-animal services. The
profession’s leaders should pay attention to improving the economic value of the DVM,
especially given the cost of a veterinary education, which is typically shared by the student and
the public. The financial reward for the investment of time and money in obtaining a DVM is
lower than that in other medical professions, such as dentists and pharmacists, which have the
same or fewer years of training.
A larger consequence of increasing enrollments may be for the veterinary colleges
themselves, which have inadequate resources for clinical faculty, specialists, and others needed
to train future practitioners. Companion-animal veterinary medicine has come to dominate the
curriculum and resources of veterinary schools, sometimes to the detriment of other fields of
veterinary medicine, at a time when many veterinary schools are facing a precipitous decline in
state support for faculty positions and tuition.
Future actions should be informed by reliable national data on consumer demand for
companion-animal care and the economics of private practice (including the work patterns of
practitioners and the role of veterinary technicians), by the need to maintain the quality and
1
The University of Pennsylvania awards the Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris (VMD), an equivalent to the DVM.
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2 Workforce Needs in Veterinary Medicine
affordability of a veterinary education, and by the need to educate veterinarians for other sectors
of the profession. Developing new business models for providing specialty training is part of this
challenge. The committee recommends that the Association of American Veterinary Medical
Colleges, the American Animal Hospital Association, and the AVMA work together to collect
the necessary data and conduct planning.
The committee found that increasing student debt associated with a veterinary education
is one factor that undermines the inclination of graduates to pursue PhD research training that
would prepare them for academic careers, key jobs in public practice, and some positions in
industry. Partnerships between industry and academe to expose DVM students to research and
the establishment of joint DVM-PhD programs may increase the pool of potential candidates
needed by academe, government, and industry .
Because research is important for the future of the profession, leaders in academe should
make a greater commitment to strengthening its scholarly base. It is essential to attract more
public and private support for veterinary colleges, but that requires academe to demonstrate the
value of investment in veterinary medical research. Hiring DVM-PhDs and PhDs to attract
grants, serve as mentors, and provide graduate training of veterinarians at the doctoral level for
both biomedical and clinical animal research would keep veterinary schools in the mainstream of
research.
An important challenge to the profession is its ability to evolve veterinary services in
synchrony with societal needs. For example, to increase the value of veterinary services to large,
intensive livestock and poultry producers, the education of food-animal practitioners should be
reoriented toward herd health and improving the productivity of farm operations. In rural areas,
where primary veterinary care is needed but there are too few farms to support full-time
veterinarians, a system of animal health care involving rigorously trained technicians under the
supervision of veterinarians could be developed. Such arrangements, which would also
strengthen disease surveillance, could be initiated through negotiations by veterinary
professional associations with state regulatory officials.
The veterinary profession should expand its capacity to address complex global
problems, such as those associated with food security, by encouraging interactions between U.S.
veterinary graduates and other disciplines and cultures, particularly in the developing world,
where the profession has an opportunity to leverage its expertise in One Health2 and lead
advances in food-animal husbandry and welfare, water safety and security, and the health of
wildlife and ecosystems.
2
One Health is a holistic concept of health that recognizes and addresses the complex linkages between humans,
wild and domestic animals, and their ecosystems.
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