By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Looking for job security? Want to enter a profession that is high in demand? Consider the field of large animal veterinary study.

Dr. Tom Rosol, dean of Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, has noticed a decline in the interest in large animal practice. Last year there were 106 graduates of the OSU veterinary program and just six went into large animal medicine exclusively and 12 went into mixed practice.

The breakdown is similar at the country’s other 26 veterinary schools. According to the American Veterinary Medical Assoc. (AVMA), of 1,405 graduates only 197 concentrated on large animals.

While there is still plenty of interest in working in small animal practices among veterinary students, fewer of them are interested in working on cows, sheep, pigs and other animals that are bred as food.

“Veterinary schools became more popular for people without agriculture backgrounds and women began to dominate the profession,” said Fred Emerich, president of the Wyoming Veterinary Medical Assoc.

“In the 1940s and 1950s most vet students had a rural background and many were interested in working with large animals in rural areas. Now, vet school populations are 70 to 80 percent female and for whatever reason women tend to be more interested in caring for pets than for food animals.”

Student loans pose one problem. Freshly graduated veterinarians bear staggering amounts of student loan debt.

Many exit school and face loan figures as high as $120,000.
“It simply doesn’t make sense for someone with that much debt to work in a rural area, where they might only earn about $40,000 per year when they could make about $60,000 working in an established small-animal clinic in a larger city,” Emerich said.
These experts point to many reasons for the rural vet decline – fewer are from a rural background, longer work weeks required, more irregular hours, more safety in small-animal practices, more time on-call and more time on the road.

Ohio State University is trying to attract more students to large animal practices by offering its students a guaranteed spot in the veterinary school, which this year attracted 1,000 qualified candidates for 140 spots.

The university also plans to develop a production animal institute, which would have all the large animal vets and experts under one umbrella to address the current needs of rural Ohio and beyond. Emerich said the vet shortage should concern everyone because there is also a shortage of public-sector vets like meat inspectors and public health veterinarians.

“Veterinarians are the first line of defense against animal diseases,” Emeich said.

“About 60 percent of all diseases in humans comes from animals. If we have a healthy animal population the likelihood of a healthy human population is enhanced.”

Congress is aware of the veterinarian shortage and is considering legislation that would provide capitalization funds for veterinary schools so they could build more teaching facilities and research laboratories.