Oh, Cable Guy!

So, this isn't meant as a "poor me" post, or a husband bashing post, or anything other than a "take a minute and think about this" post. 

I'm a full-time small animal veterinarian. My husband works for a large cable company as an installer. We both work our butts off to be good at our jobs.  

I was paying bills the other day and realized: 

• I spent 4 years in graduate school to be able to do what I do. My husband was on the job trained. 
• I graduated with ~$115K in loans (all from grad school). My husband has none. 
• I paid for my school. My husband's company paid him to attend school. 
• I pay for my health insurance, have my own retirement plan since my clinic does not offer one, and get no money for continuing education, uniforms, dues for professional organizations, etc. My husband gets full medical, dental, vision, retirement plan, weekly paid training sessions, a work vehicle, and paid for uniform shirts. 
• I work, on average, about 60-65 hours per week. If there are emergencies, I have a patient in hospital that needs care, or we are busy, it's significantly more than that. My husband works about 50 hours a week. 
• I do not get any paid time off for sick days or vacation. He accrues paid time off every week, and is guaranteed sick days. 

So, all of this adds up to a significant difference in the bottom line, right?

Well, I suppose it does.....the past few months, he's made more than I do. 

In essence: with less training, less debt, fewer hours, better pay, and better benefits, it makes more sense for me to go work for a cable company than it does for me to a be a practicing doctor. Kinda makes me stop and think - next time I have a bright eyed young person look up at me and tell me they want to be a vet, too... It's sad.

Speaking of Veterinary Economics....

I read this today http://www.abcmontana.com/news/local/Budget-Would-Fund--170275226.html. Apparently the state of Montana is considering starting a new vet program.  This press release quotes Montana State University College of Agriculture Dean Jeff Jacobsen as saying, "There is a workforce shortage of veterinarians practicing large animal in Montana."

Yeah?  Why is that?

It's not a lack of veterinarians!  

There are enough veterinarians willing to practice in rural areas.  

Maybe if I say it again:

There are enough veterinarians willing to practice in rural areas. 

Maybe if I type it real slow: 

T  h  e  r  e    a  r  e    e  n  o  u  g  h    v  e  t  s . . . 

Maybe if an expert says it. A bunch of them, actually.

The American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) (national professional organization for cow vets) made this statement in May 2011:

" there is not currently a shortage of veterinarians for rural food supply veterinary private practice....Efforts to increase interest in rural practice among graduating veterinary students have been successful, so lack of available veterinarians is no longer an issue... there remain underserved rural areas across the country that may not be able to sustain a veterinary practice... The committee is extremely concerned that the perception by veterinary schools and the public that there continues to be a shortage of rural practitioners is leading to increased class sizes at veterinary schools and the creation of new veterinary schools.  Continuing to increase the number of veterinarians interested in serving rural areas will not solve this problem."

 

Figures the guys who remove testicles for a living would have enough to come out and say that.  I'm not hearing it anywhere else.

 

I mean, really- the people who make a living doing it are saying, basically, there's not enough money in some places to make a living doing it. 

 

So what the hell kind of sense does make to to crank out ten more heavily indebted* new grads every year to do it in those very places?!?!!?

 

Especially since there's not much proof that a state's students will come back to that state to practice.  

Much less farm kids.

 

I married a guy who grew up on a farm.  He'll tell you, there's a reason he went to college.  It wasn't so he could go back to the farm and pull calves in the 20 below dead of night.  Very few people are going to put themselves six figures in debt for that.  And they're damn sure not going to put themselves six figures in debt to do it for chicken feed. 

Will educating kids from Montana mean those kids will come back to Montana to practice large animal?  Especially if there's not enough money for them to get paid for it?  

Must be nice, spending other peoples' money. 

Seriously, if I were a Montana taxpayer I would reeeeeallllyy want to see some independent financials on this.  Would the state not be better off taking the money that's going to go into this program and paying vets to provide services in those areas, or hire techs or some sort of paraprofessional to work with existing remote vets, or set up telemedicine, or, well, ANYTHING a little more certain to achieve the goal of filling the gap?  As a staunch free market adherent those words make me cringe but I have to say them.  For animal welfare and biosecurity purposes we can't let large areas go without some kind of veterinary presence.

The reason there are areas of Montana, and the rest of the country, that lack a veterinary presence is because there's not enough money in those areas to pay a vet, and not enough reason to go be a vet there even if there were plenty of money.  See above about pulling calves in the 20 below dead of a Montana night.  

Think that's cold?  How 'bout 40 below?  Because Alaska is proposing a new program to produce 20 a year, in collaboration with Colorado State. This article from a Fairbanks paper last year  quotes a Fairbanks veterinarian as saying the shortage of vets there leads to burnout and high turnover. Typically, labor shortages lead to high wages and lots of work which leads to happy veterinarians; it's crappy working conditions and a lack of clients wiling to spend money that lead to burnout and high turnover.  Even if there were a shortage... does Alaska need 20 more vets every year?  Really? There's enough paying work for TWENTY MORE VETS in Alaska every year, year after year?

And Utah is accepting it's first class of 30 this fall, to spend their first two years in Logan and the last two in Pullman at good ol' Washington State.  Not to be a hater, but there's no way Utah needs 30 more vets each and every single year.  It's Utah.  I'm unaware of it being a huge agricultural power and a major population center.  

I haven't even mentioned the new schools that are supposed to be starting in Arizona and Tennessee at over a hundred students apiece every year.  Or the bigger classes at lots of the established schools...

So I guess the takeaway for me is that it doesn't seem like the profession is working as a system.  The schools aren't hearing what we as practitioners are saying.  The VMAs certainly don't seem to be saying much to the states.  The AVMA can't figure out what it ought to be saying.

I hope things start getting better soon, but with the tsunami of new grads hitting the market, and the livestock markets dropping like a rock because of the drought, things are maybe going to get a lot worse instead.  I don't know what to do other than this. I'm scared for my future.

 

Sincerely, 

 

Dr. Who-the-hell-runs-this-joint-anyway-oh-*&^%-its-us

 

* Well, they will be slightly less heavily indebted.  Spending the first year at Bozeman instead of Pullman means $14,000 instead of $39,000, according to the colleges' websites.  I grant that $25,000 isn't chicken feed, but it's not exactly a huge reduction of the $160,000 tab these kids are looking at running up before they graduate.  Well, more than that if you count inflation- Washington State's tuition went up over 6% this past year.  Plus there's interest while you're in school now.  Fabulous!