Practice decisions of veterinarians

By Arden Wohlers DVM
Extension Veterinarian
University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Education Center

Across the United States there are growing concerns of a shortage of veterinarians in all specialties of veterinary medicine. The shortage of veterinarians working in companion animal, food animal, equine, public health, research, regulatory and academics is apparent in many regions. It appears that a shortage of veterinarians to serve the important food animal industry of Nebraska is becoming more likely. Since much of Nebraska is composed of small towns and rural areas, the problem is better described as a shortage of rural veterinarians. A rural veterinarian in Nebraska usually works on companion animals and equine as well as food animals. In our state, where cattle out number the citizens 4 to 1, our economy can ill afford a failure to keep our livestock healthy because of a misdistribution of veterinarians.

I have been involved in a study by a team from the Veterinary Biomedical Science Department at the University of Nebraska led by Dr. John Schmitz that was conducted in 2006 to analyze why this shortage was occurring.  The study was recently published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education.  416 Nebraska veterinarians participated in the study, which allowed the team to determine the reasons veterinarians selected their locations to practice.  Of the many variables that were studied, most had little influence as to practice type and practice location.  But the following list appeared to influence where today’s Nebraska veterinarian practices.

1.  71 percent of female veterinarians and 40 percent of male veterinarians were in companion animal practice.  Those in mostly companion animal practice usually lived in urban areas.

2.  Respondents were more likely to be a food animal veterinarian if they grew up on a farm or ranch, if their parents owned livestock and their home town had a population of less than 10,000.

3.  Respondents were more likely to be a companion animal veterinarian if they grew up in a town of 10,000 or more, and their parents did not own livestock.

4.  Influences at an early age were important, as the decision to become a veterinarian was made by the average age of 14 years.

5. 94 percent of veterinarians whose first interest was companion animals were currently engaged in companion animal practice, whereas only 53 percent of veterinarians whose first interest was food animals were still in food animal practice. Veterinarians that initially were interested in a mixed practice had shifted to strictly companion animals by nearly 50 percent.

6.  The most influential factors for where veterinarians lived were lifestyle, quality of schools and proximity to family, either rural or urban.

7.  Younger veterinarians were more likely to be influenced by personal time away from work, leadership opportunities and employment for their spouse. These reasons were less likely to have influenced veterinarians that had been out of school 10 years or longer.

The results of this study support the argument that student selection is the key to increasing the proportion of veterinary medical graduates who seek careers in food-animal and rural practice communities.  Other studies have also supported the idea that selecting students based on their background would be more effective in producing rural veterinary practitioners.

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