Veterinary demand

The term "veterinarian" tends to trigger images of cats and dogs. But Teri Coon thinks of cows, sheep, goats, swine, and even llamas and alpacas.

Coon is an associate veterinarian for East Cocalico Township-based Agricultural Veterinary Associates. The Lancaster County practice strictly serves the food-animal industry - in other words, the kind of animals who eventually end up on a dinner plate.

Veterinarians who focus on food animals are somewhat plentiful in the midstate, but that is not the case in northern and western Pennsylvania, Coon said.

"The practices in this area are really well established, and there are a lot of good clients," she said. "In some of the other areas where there are shortages, there are fewer and fewer farms, so there's not as much work there."

As a result, those areas have fewer veterinarians. And the ones who are left are stretched thin, as they are forced to expand their practice areas because there's no one else available, Coon said.

Agricultural Veterinary Associates covers Berks, Lancaster and Lebanon counties, as well as the edge of Dauphin County. Even with 10 doctors on the payroll, the company stays busy each day, she said.

The firm has hired two veterinarians since Coon started with the practice two and a half years ago, she said.

"I've heard of many practices looking for new associates and new people to hire. Even if they're not short, there's room to grow," Coon said. "Demand is increasing."

Across the country, the gap is increasing between societal needs and the veterinary workforce, said David Kirkpatrick, spokesman for the Illinois-based American Veterinary Medical Association.

One of the biggest gaps is between the number of food-supply animals and the number of veterinarians choosing to focus on food-supply animals, Kirkpatrick said. That gap is of greatest concern, but other areas are facing similar shortages - such as veterinarian needs in government, research and public health, he said.

"It's very important for people to know that veterinarians do much more than take care of the family pet; they play a vital role in preserving our public health by protecting people from diseases spread by animals and ensuring the safety of our food supply," Kirkpatrick said.

The shortage problem came to a head for the association in 2004, when a coalition of veterinarian organizations commissioned a study of several aspects of the profession.

The study found that the demand for food-supply veterinarians in the U.S. would increase about 13 percent between 2006 and 2016, he said. But the study also determined that over the same span, there would be a roughly 5-percent shortfall of veterinarians in that specialty each year.

"Consider the demands of food supply," he said. "There are a huge number of animals. It's not like one person can pick up the slack for another."

Some of the reasons for the shortage include that veterinary schools aren't large enough to accommodate more students. Over the last 20 years, the number of veterinary-school graduates in the country has only increased from about 2,200 to roughly 2,500, he said.

"With that number remaining so stagnant and the number of applications growing over the last 20 years, there certainly is not a lack of interest; there is a lack of space for colleges to educate these veterinarian students," Kirkpatrick said.

Another issue is society's growing disconnect from farm life and rural living, he said. This is because the number of families living on farms and children growing up on farms has steadily decreased.

Coon grew up on a dairy farm in southeastern New York and has always had an interest in working with dairy farmers. Her upbringing has a lot to do with why she chose a career as a food-supply veterinarian, she said.

"In each veterinary class, not as many students are coming from farm backgrounds or do not have an interest in food animals," she said.

One of the reasons veterinarians aren't choosing to specialize in large-animal medicine is because it's hard work, said Dena Owings, an associate at Shiloh Veterinary Hospital in York County. She worked in the profession during her first year out of veterinary school before switching to companion-animal care.

"There are so many opportunities for veterinarians to get employment, and people are just getting pets. Pets are becoming so much more the thing to do," Owings said. "There are more pets, so we need more doctors."

There are some concerns in rural and inner-city areas where companion animals are underserved by veterinarians, Kirkpatrick said.

One effort to combat the growing shortage of veterinarians in certain practice areas and regions of the state is being spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association.

The group last month began an effort to increase the number of students who go into and stay in underserved areas of the profession by establishing a loan-forgiveness program, recruiting students interested in the areas and providing on-the-job mentoring for new graduates.

The proposed loan-forgiveness program could help graduates who are deterred by an average veterinary-school debt of $120,000.

Salaries in underserved areas of the profession are lower than the pay offered by a traditional career path into the field of companion-animal medicine. The program could pay off a portion of the debt for each year the graduate remains in an underserved region or sector.

"Everybody is very cognizant of the issue. Day by day, more people are getting everyone together to recognize this is a critical issue," Kirkpatrick said. "Even though budgets are stretched, we can pay for it now or pay for it later, and it's cheaper to pay for it now."