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Veterinary shortage endangers security
"They just aren't out there," said Loutsion, of Canon Hill Veterinary Clinic. "I searched the listings of available vets online for about 10 months, and there were only two of them: one from Holland -- who couldn't get a visa -- and the other was a professor from Chile."
The decline in the number of vets choosing careers in two critical specialties -- large-animal medicine and public health practice -- creates more than just a staffing problem for Loutsion. It's a matter of homeland security, according to a report published this summer by the National Academies' National Research Council.
The shortage is occurring at the same time that the threat posed by animal-borne illnesses -- such as avian influenza and mad cow disease -- is growing.
More than 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases and 80 percent of bioterror agents are zoonotic, which means they are transmissible from animals to humans, the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges reports.
"The medical community is preparing to be able to handle the infected people, but the infected animals also have to be taken care of or they will re-infect the people," said Dr. James Roth, a veterinary medicine professor who heads the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University.
An estimated 75 veterinarians service the 9 billion chickens produced in the United States each year with an equal number providing care to 58 billion swine and 10 billion beef cattle, said Dr. Alan Kelly, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia, the state's only vet school.
"The numbers are frighteningly small," Kelly said. "If we have any type of widespread disease outbreak, we are in serious trouble."
In the past five years, Americans have contended with the specter of SARS, West Nile virus and monkey-pox -- three animal-borne diseases that never existed here before. The globalization of food production, ease of world travel and the increasing encroachment on wildlife habitats increase the possibility of other outbreaks, Roth said.
Veterinarians trained in public health and large-animal medicine have expertise in diagnosing, preventing and controlling foreign animal illnesses and bioterror agents, said Dr. David Wolfgang, field studies director and senior research associate at the Department of Veterinary Science at Penn State University.
"If we don't fill shortages in public practice, the risks for bringing in a contagious, very virulent disease are much higher," said Wolfgang, president-elect of the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association.
Specialists at the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State are working to establish veterinary emergency response teams in many states, including Pennsylvania. The $3 million center is the only program launched by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to focus on veterinary medicine and zoonotic diseases.
Last month, Pennsylvania appointed its first public health veterinarian: Dr. James Rankin -- formerly an epidemiologist with the state health department -- to work with state officials and farmers to devise a plan for monitoring and controlling animal-borne diseases.
"Right now we're in the fact-finding stage," Rankin said. "We're trying to find out what is possible and set our priorities."
Chow chows vs. cows
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics expects 28,000 job openings for veterinarians by 2012, factoring in the retirement of the Baby Boom generation and population growth. But many vacancies will go unfilled -- especially in public health, food safety and security and large-animal medicine.
While the nation's 28 veterinary medical colleges graduate about 2,500 students each year, most opt to treat household pets.
Fewer students entering veterinary school have a background in farming, which makes them less likely to gravitate toward large-animal medicine and public health, Wolfgang said.
In addition, after eight years of graduate education, veterinary students can find themselves saddled with upwards of $100,000 in debt, said Dr. Dale Boyle, who heads the National Association of Federal Veterinarians in Washington, D.C. The amount is comparable to what a physician runs up in medical school.
It can be more lucrative for vets to care for chow chows and Chihuahuas in a city practice than to work as a federal inspector at a meat-packing plant or to spend hours on the road as a large-animal vet driving from one remote farm to the next, he said.
More than 50 percent of veterinary medical college graduates last year chose private clinical practices that treat small animals. Roughly 6 percent opted to care for large animals, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, an Illinois-based nonprofit group. Fewer than 2 percent of graduates went to work for federal and state governments or industry, the AVMA reports.
It's also less physically taxing to work with small animals than half-ton Holsteins and often more emotionally rewarding to have patients that don't literally end up on the chopping block, said Dr. Dave Griswold, assistant director of the bureau of animal health and welfare for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
"People in food-animal practice have a hard life, working with animals that outweigh them by thousands of pounds," said Griswold, who recently left his work as a dairy cattle vet in Millerstown, Perry County, after 25 years. "They also don't have the luxury of turning off their phones at night and referring clients to an emergency services clinic."
Canon Hill vet Loutsion said he and his partners spend from 45 to 60 hours a week traveling to care for 12,000 horses within a 40-mile radius. They are on call 24 hours a day.
"It has happened more than once in my practice that someone has decided they just don't want to do this kind of work anymore," Loutsion said.
Expanding the work force
The National Research Council report calls for more government support, new educational opportunities and financial incentives to increase the number of public health and large-animal vets. At least 500 graduates every year must enter these fields just to meet current demand, the report estimates.
Schools like Penn Veterinary Medicine are hosting summer research programs, career days and scholarships to encourage students to pursue public health practice.
In April, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., introduced legislation to allocate $1.5 billion over the next decade for veterinary medical education, though Congress is still considering it.
President Bush signed legislation three years ago that authorized the federal government to pay principal and interest on education loans of veterinary graduates who work in rural areas or in underserved disciplines. The law remains unfunded.
"We need to move forward much more quickly and have much more federal investment," Roth said. "It's sort of like with Hurricane Katrina. For years they asked for money to strengthen the levees in New Orleans, and in retrospect, it's too bad that money never materialized."
From animals to humans
More than 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases and 80 percent of bioterror agents are zoonotic, that is, transmissible from animals to humans. Here are some biological bad actors that public health and large-animal veterinarians are trained to look for and control:
West Nile fever
Monkeypox
Foot and mouth disease
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease)
Avian influenza (bird flu)
Sources: Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. and the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges.
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