At the committee’s request, the president of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association laid out the profession’s top issues before the House Committee on Agriculture and Livestock on March 4.
Don Ferrill, DVM, cautioned the panel that many bills backed by Wall Street concerns “will rest upon a faulty premise — that there is a massive shortage of veterinarians in Texas and across the country.”
Expert data, he said, “simply does not bear this out.” Demand for office visits is trending downward, and 13 new veterinary colleges are being planned across the country.
Those are reasons, Ferrill said, for the committee to reject proposals that could water down the quality of care delivered to Texas pets and large animals.
Where Texas likely needs more veterinarians, he said, is in rural areas and along the border as well as in large animal and food animal practice.
He praised the Texas Legislature for previous years’ investments in the new Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine and in expanding the class size at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine. Both schools are recruiting and graduating veterinarians to fill the need.
“Given that the food animal industry — mostly cattle — contributes nearly $15 billion a year to Texas’ GDP, your targeted investment in veterinarians dedicated to this piece of our economy is significant and very much appreciated,” he said.
Ferrill said the legislature can further that progress by appropriating $5 million to the Rural Veterinarian Incentive Program.
“This loan repayment program ... allows new graduates to pursue their ambitions in large and food animal medicine, even if they could pay off their substantial student loans more easily in a small animal clinic in Houston or Dallas,” he said.
Ferrill recommended the legislature direct the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to conduct an updated study of the veterinary workforce in Texas, last done in 2016.
“Now is a good time to examine where those new veterinarians (from Texas Tech and Texas A&M) are going and how they are affecting those communities,” he said.
Other recommendations Texas veterinarians have for the legislature include: — Not diluting the important public health work of the Texas Animal Health Commission by expanding its mission to include programs for household pets, especially when the agency is engaged in protecting the public from animal-borne diseases such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.
— Expanding the resources available to the veterinary emergency team at Texas A&M to better prepare Texas for the animal aspects of disaster response.
— Examining the recent 75% increase in Texas veterinarians’ annual license fees.
The Texas Veterinary Medical Association is a professional association committed to protecting public health, promoting high educational, ethical and moral standards within the veterinary profession and educating the public about animal health and its relationship to human health.
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