Lack of federal veterinarians could hamper government response to disease outbreaks

[The Straight Story]

Lack of federal veterinarians could hamper government response to disease outbreaks
By Alyssa Rosenberg [e-mail] February 17, 2009

The federal government has a dangerous shortage of veterinarians, putting the nation at risk in case of a major public health emergency, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

"No effort is being made to assess the sufficiency of the veterinarian workforce governmentwide," said the report. " has not conducted a governmentwide effort to address current and future veterinarian shortages identified by component agencies, as it has done for other professions, and efforts by the Congress to address the national shortage have thus far had minimal impact."

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Workforce Subcommittee provided a copy of the GAO report, which has not been released yet, to Government Executive.

Twenty-seven percent of the veterinarians at the Army; Food and Drug Administration; and the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Food Safety and Inspection Service, and Agricultural Research Service, will be eligible to retire by 2012, according to the report.

Some of those agencies already are understaffed. FSIS has not met its full staff level in a decade, GAO reported. In fiscal 2008, the agency aimed to employ 1,134 veterinarians, but had only 968 physicians on staff. Since fiscal 2003, the number of FSIS veterinarians has declined by 10 percent. ARS reported that it needed 65 veterinarians in fiscal 2008, but employed 57 vets. The Army veterinary reserve corps reported a 12 percent shortage of staff in fiscal 2008. FDA said it believes it has enough veterinarians to complete its mission, but does not have established targets for staffing levels.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42057&dcn=todaysnews

[drmeow]

1. For a second I thought that said

lack of vegetarians :)

[exboyfil]

2. The Army already offers Vet scholarships for a service commitment

My daughter wants to become a Vet, but the timing does not appear right. She graduates H.S. in 2014, and, I think by that time, the Stimulus in Higher Education will have priced it out of reach for her even to get an undergrad degree.

We might as well not have 529s as much good as they do for earners over the median income. I am putting away as much as I can, but I am going backwards.

The literature our state sends out about saving for college has a quaint estimate of 6%/yr returns. Well even in the best Iowa 529 fund since its inception, I would have made 3%. I choose the Conservative Track C (only a Track D is more conservative).

I would love to have a prepaid tuition backed by the institutions (the public Universities in this state). I would borrow against the full equity in my house, convert my 529s, borrow against my 401(k), and beg the grandparents for a loan to buy 8 years (4 per kid) now. I can't even imagine what tuition will be like in 2014 (especially when one of our state University Presidents is talking about raising tuition 25% for more need based assistance).

[kestrel91316]

3. I predict that the federal government will have LITTLE trouble filling

its ranks of veterinarians in the next year or two. Because hiring in the area of clinical practice has pretty much come to a halt.

A colleague of mine told me that he has personally spoken to large numbers of feline practitioners across the US in the past year or two, and our businesses are generally down 40-50% from the end of 2006. I told him I felt better knowing that at least I wasn't the only one to be facing a disaster. This is not a recipe for hiring, BTW.

The new grads would be smart to jump into regulatory medicine or find a nice teaching position at a vet school, because the jobs in clinical practice are no longer there.