Shape the future: How your practice can guide aspiring veterinarians

Most everyone in the veterinary ecosystem can feel the ripples of the staffing shortage spreading throughout the industry. According to a report by Mars Veterinary Health, the US will need an additional 55,000 vets by 2030 to keep up with demand. And a survey by the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe found that nearly 4 in 5 EU countries had fewer veterinarians than they needed.

However, while the crisis is by no means over, there’s cause for optimism: Veterinary schools are graduating more and more students. 

Here are some encouraging signs:

• As of 2023, there were 33 accredited veterinary schools in the US, and many of them are increasing the number of seats in their programs. But growing their veterinary programs isn’t as easy as it may sound: Any school wanting to increase its incoming class by more than 10% over the previous year has to be approved by the AVMA’s Council on Education, a requirement intended to protect the integrity and quality of their program. 
  
  
• In addition, nearly a dozen more US schools have applied for accreditation for their newly established veterinary programs. 
  
  
• Finally, there are 11 veterinary schools in the UK and more than 100 in the EU, 9 of which have AVMA certification. 

The growth of veterinary schools won’t solve the staffing crisis overnight, though each graduating class helps. 

A bigger opportunity may lie in how veterinary practices can participate in an effort to attract new people to the profession, provide resources to guide them along the way, and help ensure that they actually stay in practice.

3 ways your practice can help shape future generations of veterinarians

A surprising number of veterinarians start wondering whether they should switch professions – or at least move into a different type of veterinary medicine – within 5-6 years after graduation. 

🙌  The good news is that you can make a difference!

Are you willing to work with and mentor young people planning to enter the veterinary profession? If so, here are three things you can do to shape a prospective student’s journey to veterinary school: 

1. Invite students to gain experience by volunteering or working in your clinic.

You might reasonably think that the staff shortage would cause veterinary schools to loosen their acceptance standards, but that’s not that case. Getting accepted is still competitive, because veterinary schools want not just more veterinarians, but competent, dedicated ones. And among the things they look for on applications is hands-on experience. So it’s not unusual for students to rack up as many as 1,000 hours by the time they apply to veterinary school.

Any type of experience working with animals helps. Volunteering at animal shelters is a popular option, but nothing quite compares to hands-on clinical experience under the supervision of a licensed veterinarian.

Share the hard truths about the veterinary profession

Giving students the opportunity to work in your clinic could also help reduce the number of vets who leave the profession because the reality turned out to be different than the dream. Working with you will give them a realistic view of the biggest challenges facing veterinary teams, including:

• Moral stress and compassion fatigue: Because not every day is spent kissing puppies who are there for their first round of shots, some students will find out what it takes to tell a family that there’s nothing they can do to save their pet from an illness or injury, or to euthanize a pet because the family can’t afford the care they need. 
  
  
• Work/life balance: You know all about the long hours, the interrupted dinners, and the middle-of-the-night phone calls. Your local laws may not allow students (especially minors) to work as many hours as you do, but be transparent about how late you stay at the clinic, for example, to analyze your practice’s finances or finish updating patient charts.
  
  This is also the perfect time to talk about how cloud-based practice management software can make a clinic run more efficiently by streamlining workflows, automating tasks, letting clients make their own appointments online, offering telemedicine, and integrating functions like inventory management and invoicing.
  
  
• Compensation: Many veterinary graduates in the US discover the uncomfortable truth that the average pay isn’t enough to cover their bills, especially if they have student debt to pay off. Have a realistic conversation about starting salaries for new veterinary graduates. Consider walking them through your practice finances so they can see that all of the money doesn’t go straight into your pocket. They’ll understand salary ranges better when they see how even a successful business doesn’t have a lot of money left over after paying for rent, utilities, and keeping up with new technology. 
  
  

Show them what’s great about veterinary life!

Working with aspiring vets doesn’t mean you should only talk about the negatives! The point is to give prospective students a realistic view of a career in veterinary medicine. That means talking to them about the good stuff, too:

• Building long-term relationships with your patients and clients
  
  
• What it feels like to save a sick or injured pet’s life and return them to their family in good health
  
  
• Witnessing technology shape veterinary medicine in real time, starting with your PIMS and all of its integrations, and continuing with things like wearables and AI-powered diagnostics
  
  

Should you pay student volunteers?

 

The first thing to do is check your local laws regarding students and volunteers. After that, it depends! A number of high schools – especially private schools – require their students to perform unpaid service hours. Some university scholarships have the same requirement. In those situations, it might be better not to pay students so they don’t have to spend time volunteering for other organizations in addition to working at your clinic.

2. Offer mentoring and other resources to student volunteers

There’s more to mentoring than working with students. You have the opportunity to be a resource for students who want some direction. So initiate conversations about things like:

• Veterinary school search: Ask about what schools they’re considering, and share what you know about them. One question a lot of students have but may feel uncomfortable asking is whether the school they attend really makes a difference after graduation, and whether the difference is big enough to justify the higher price tag. Moreover, some schools focus on companion animals, some focus on agriculture, some on research, etc. You can help steer students toward schools that align with their career goals.
  
  
• Help with applications: Some schools have unwritten “rules” regarding what they want to see on applications, and which may give an applicant an advantage in the process. If you have any insider expertise, guide your students in the right direction.
  
  
• Help with scholarships, grants, etc.: Veterinary school is expensive (although it’s cheaper in the UK and EU than in the United States), but more funding is available than most students realize, such as scholarships, grants, and loans from professional organizations, government agencies, the military, and the schools themselves. In addition, there are scholarships for EU veterinary students as well as a number of “study abroad” scholarships.
  

3. Engage in community outreach and education

In other words, start them while they’re young!

No, we’re not talking about having toddlers working in your clinic! But you can introduce children to the veterinary profession in a way that’s both age-appropriate and more in-depth than what they see when they tag along for their pet’s checkup. Here are a couple of resources to help:

• The AVMA is committed to “opening doors” for potential veterinary students, and they’re opening doors very, very early! They’ve developed K-12 resources teachers can use to create interest among even the youngest students (including coloring pages you can print out to keep kids occupied while you’re taking care of their pets!).
  
  
• Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences created an in-depth curriculum and a library of resources vets can use to make presentations to middle-school students about scientific topics as they relate to veterinary medicine. The website also provides materials teachers can use for follow-up lesson plans.
  
  

Key takeaways

No student should enter veterinary school without spending time in a real practice. For somebody who can’t stand the sight of blood or of an animal in pain, the sooner they realize it, the better! 

Sure, working with students will take some time. But once they learn the ropes, they can offer a valuable, extra set of hands. Most of all, you’ll be ensuring the next generation of veterinarians is as knowledgeable and dedicated as you are!