Workforce Needs In Veterinary Medicine: Research Nutshell
A report issued this year by the National Academies Press addresses the current state of the veterinary field in the United States regarding employment, pay, veterinary school enrollment, and subfields within the profession. The authors conclude that while veterinary school enrollment is high, the cost deters people from pursuing a PhD in the field, undercutting the academic base of the field.
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Study Summary
The report outlines the trends and challenges facing the veterinary profession in an increasingly diverse and demanding world beset by economic conditions that affect funding for veterinary education.</p >
The National Research Council notes about the report that “A potential shortage of professionals with training beyond a Doctor of Science in Veterinary Medicine could impact the supply of veterinarians to fill jobs overseeing and enforcing food safety and animal health standards, conducting research in human drug development and advances in pet health, and participating in wildlife and ecosystem management, infectious disease control, biosecurity, and agro-terrorism prevention.”
In the Faunalytics’s most recent Animal Tracker survey, veterinarians ranked highest on perceived credibility when it comes to information about animal welfare, underscoring the value of veterinarians as animal advocates.
Policy Implications
Although media reports of widespread shortages of veterinarians are largely untrue, there is a growing lack of higher-level expertise, particularly involving companion animal care. Because of this, the veterinary profession is less likely to be a source of future innovations and advancements in companion animal protection. The dynamics are quite different for farmed animal veterinarians, who generally are being shut out of the process as animal farming becomes more intensive and secretive. As veterinarians are less involved in the raising and slaughtering of animals for food, the welfare of those animals becomes even more precarious.
Continued federal funding is needed to provide sufficient education and opportunities to would-be veterinarians. But that funding must be used strategically to encourage an improvement in higher-level expertise in both companion animal and farmed animal care. The funding should also be used to stem the frequent lack of veterinary oversight at animal farming operations.
Despite its occasionally adversarial relationship with animal advocates, the veterinary profession is a major element of the animal protection movement. For animal advocates, the goal is to work closely with veterinarians to encourage a perspective that includes compassion as well as objective veterinary science. For veterinarians, the goal is to provide a stable future for themselves and their families. For animals, both groups need to work together to improve care and create a more humane society.
Read excerpts or order the full report of “Workforce Needs in Veterinary Medicine” here.
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This research nutshell comes from Che Green at Faunalytics in partnership with the Animals and Society Institute (ASI), an organization dedicated to policy-oriented research and human-animal studies. Faunalytics and ASI already collaborate on multiple projects and we will work together to identify important studies for future research nutshells.
See the original post here.