It’s frustrating that this is a good conversation and point , but what’s the solution?
If I had a dollar for everytime I got asked this 😅
1) There was a pretty good article and comments from the past AVMA president that I think needs some serious consideration. There's been a 20% growth in the past few years which is likely enough to alieviate the "small animal shortage."
2) I think ancedotely we are starting to see retraction of the profession both in demand and what owners can/want to afford
3) last I counted there were 12ish schools wanting to open which is absurd imo and will lead to oversaturation of the profession. Who is the gate keeper though? (ultimately supply and demand which will be too late) COE is just for standards and aside from denying schools not meeting standards I'm unsure there's truly a way to stop new schools from opening other than 1-lack of teachers 2-lack of support across the profession
4) opening of these new schools is not helpful for the actual issue of rural/ food animal shortage (TT) might be the only university that has opened recently that might actually be addressing this issue but TBD (and honestly I doubt it will be solved until the government (state, feds, or otherwise) steps in with some serious things). It's easy to say yeah I'll do food/rural until you graduate and are staring down 200k+ in loans those hours, small animal sign-on bonuses, and salaries are hard to pass up
5) financial literacy and the dare I say it the "American dream" are the detriment on the applicant side. So many people are told they can do anything they want with their life no matter the cost, but it really takes self dicipline to know even if it is possible doesn't mean one should pursue that for a healthy financial future and retire one day. Most applicants have no plan for their loans in 4 years when they graduate. Bats is right in the government involvement or lack of? being an issue as well almost 9% interest on 60k+ student loans for 4 years while a student is unable to do anything about them is insanity.
On the school side, I think the private schools opening is predatory and only publics should be allowed to open with the stipulation of a VTH that don't already have a school in the state
I deal alot with the question of how do we "solve" the shortage. TBH we as a profession have thrown ALOT of money and time at the issue but nothing we've done has truly made a significant difference. IMO the only true shortage is food animal/rural. How do you fix it? 1-stipulate paid tuition for students to be placed at specific places in the state (this has its own set of issues, but KS has this program) 2-somesort of govt ran programs, potential option is have the vet schools run satelite rotations or have a govt supplemented practice (again issues of their own variety), but short of basically forcing people to set areas they will be perpetually short; the ups and downs of economics and schools already open will settle out the small animal issues given a few years. If someone else has a magical wand for the solution I would love it.
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