Some of you may not know this, but COVID created a veterinary shortage. Many vets died. Many others who were even close to retiring, did, leaving a huge gap in the number of vets left and willing to work with patients. It seems like many of the new vets I spoke to wanted to work in the tech industry (creating new drugs and tests), for more money, less hours, and no risk of getting peed on, bitten, or yelled at by clients.
Since then, pretty much every vet hospital in the country has a ‘we are hiring vets’ sign, and students graduating have 15-20 hospitals begging them to come work, all for less hours and even more money than the last (especially the corporates like Banfield with deep pockets). I quickly realized that anyone who answered my job ad, and there have been very few, didn’t care much about what I thought of them, they were interviewing me, and what I could give them. Although I knew, it would be at least 4-6 months before they could even bring in enough revenue to cover the cost of their payroll.
One told me it was actually very stressful, having so many pet hospitals call and begging to please pick them and come work for them right away. Wow! A new kind of stress, imagine being that in demand!
Well, lucky for me, I don’t mind working hard, so I figured I would just give up on the idea of hiring a vet for a bit, and wait for some new vets to graduate and go from there. Others in my profession, did not take that approach, and decided the solution to this crisis was to create this mid-level Physicians Assistant type position for the veterinary field.
Well, that might have seemed like a great idea right after COVID, but, in the 2-3 years since then, the time it has taken to get what was needed to get this thing on the ballot, the situation is improving, just as I had predicted.
My apologies for cluttering your inbox with something political, but I have gotten so many questions, in person, on the street, and in emails, that I thought it was worth making a statement about my thoughts on this Colorado Proposition 129. It’s actually been a bit unexpected, and certainly an honor, to have so many people humbly asking me my thoughts on this matter. It makes me feel valued and respected, thank you for that!
The way I see it, Colorado’s Proposition 129 is creating a job we have no actual path yet to fill (no curriculum, students, credentialing, licensing). Plus, if you read the details, they would not be able to prescribe medications. I have no idea how this helps pets.
Also, this will create more burn-out for vets. We work a lot of hard hours, yes. But we also get to play with sweet puppies and kittens, too. If there is a mid level position, what then? Do they do all the ‘easy’ puppy and kitten appointments, while I am stuck doing all the emergency surgeries and complicated cases of diabetes and Cushing’s disease? And to boot, they don’t have the experience and knowledge I do about how to set that puppy and kitten up for tremendous success, throughout its life, and deal with all the behavior issues that go along with puppy appointments. Let’s face it, even puppy appointments sometimes are not easy. And what is a ‘routine’ surgery? Anything can go wrong at any time during surgery. Do you want someone less trained doing surgery on your pet?
I know there is the issue of retention in the field. But creating a new position is not going to guarantee any kind of improvement in retention. In fact, maybe less, because they have less skin in the game, so to speak.
Veterinary schools have responded to the shortage already and will be graduating more vets soon with bigger classes. There are 13 new vet schools about to start training and graduating veterinarians, too.
In fact, a recent study was just done, by a very reputable independent company (we relied a lot on their data back when I was the North American Professional Services Veterinarian for the entire Novartis Aquatics business) Brakke Consulting, who have carefully studied pet care supply and demand, and predict there is no shortage of veterinarians.
A link to that information can be found, here: https://www.avma.org/news/no-dire-shortage-veterinarians-anticipated-coming-years
I'm just not convinced this measure helps anything except waste state revenue and spending to create something new, that it doesn’t seem like we need at this time.
Again, sorry for the ramble, I just figured it might be helpful to people who are wondering how to vote on this.
I am voting NO or AGAINST Proposition 129.
Thanks for reading!
Take care and God bless,
DrQ and the Crew of Aspen Park Vet Hospital and the ResqRanch