Transcript:

[0:03]

So I want to start today’s podcast out by telling my story, really quickly, on how I made the decision not to go to vet school and instead pursue a PhD and pursue education in science. Because when I was a young boy, I knew I was going to be a veterinarian — no doubt in my mind. That is what I wanted to do since I was like four or five years old. And that’s like many of our veterinarians — they knew at a young age this was the career for them. I fell in love with animals, and I specifically fell in love with horses.

[0:42]

After I went and got my undergraduate degree — or actually, during my undergraduate degree — I knew I wanted to specialize in horses. I wanted to be an equine vet. In my undergraduate degree I studied hard like all the previous vet students did. I had actually put myself through my undergraduate program, so I was working, and I didn’t get the strongest grades. But in saying that, I had to do other things, like I did ROTC to get a scholarship, and I owed the Army a few years after I graduated and so on and so forth.

[1:18]

When I got out of the military, and then when I went into the private industry making really good money, that drive of still wanting to be a vet was there. And I went to UC Davis and sat down with the admissions team and said, “Here’s my undergraduate degree grades, here’s what I’ve done since,” and I wouldn’t have been as competitive compared to a lot of the students. UC Davis is recognized as one of the best vet schools in the world, but that was my best shot of getting in because I was a California resident. Needless to say, I had to go and get my Master’s degree to boost my GPA, but I also had to finish out two courses — physics second semester and then an embryology course.

[2:04]

Went off to do my Master’s and was getting nearly straight A’s, doing really well, and I remember this day clearly in my head. One day in the barn, our equine veterinarian came out to scan some of our mares, and she came in and she was talking to me and Dr. Rodick, and I remember her telling us she was selling up her practice — that she couldn’t make ends meet as an equine vet. And as somebody who had been out in the world for a while, getting a paycheck, struggling to pay bills, struggling to pay rent, and then finding a great job in the industry in pharmaceuticals, then getting out and going to graduate school, and realizing she said she was making around $30–35,000 a year — my jaw hit the ground. I was like, “What?” I didn’t understand the business side of veterinary medicine.

[2:54]

And for me, I really started to think deeply. I’m going to go to four years of medical school — because that’s what it took in the United States to become a veterinarian — to make $30–35,000 a year, where I was waiting tables to put myself through my Master’s degree and I was making half that. And it made me do some soul searching. Now, many that get into veterinary medicine don’t do it for the money — and you’re going to… we’re going to find out today as we talk about what vets are making — they do it for the passion of the animals. But I was like, “How am I going to support a family? How am I going to pay bills? How am I going to put food on the table?”

[3:38]

And I pivoted, and I applied for PhD programs, which are very hard to get into, and I was very fortunate that I got into the equine science program at Texas A&M, Animal Science, where I studied animal physiology and genetics, and that launched my career. But that was my path — it was veterinary medicine for most of my life. And I am mad about horses and I’m mad about animals. And I… at the end of this, I’ll talk about — I still reflect back, like, “Oh, maybe I should have,” because that was one veterinarian in one area of the country. And we’re going to find out vets make more than that, typically, equine vets — but they’re not making money hand over fist. And I’m going to share a lot of what the veterinarians have to deal with, especially on the business side of veterinary medicine. But we’re going to tell their story today — your equine vet, their path.

[4:41]

And we are in a crisis — I am going to tell you, we are in a veterinary crisis where we don’t have enough equine vets around the world. I’m finding this on continent after continent, no matter where you live. Obviously in the United States, we’re going to focus a lot on that today because we have a lot of good data there, and Canada, but in Europe, down in New Zealand and Australia, we are short veterinarians. In the developing world, they are in desperate need of food animal veterinarians and small animal veterinarians. And around the planet we are losing veterinarians more than we’re replacing them, and our animal populations are just growing — our pets, our companion animals, our horses. Our horse population’s going up, and so it’s a big, big concern.

[5:37]

And at the end of the podcast today, I’m going to give you some tips on how you can help your equine vets and make their lives easier — because they need it. Trust me, you’re going to look at this data today and you’re going to go, “Wow, I didn’t realize we were in this crisis.” Maybe some of you do know that — maybe you do know your veterinarian very well, or you live in an area in the world where it’s very difficult to find an equine vet to come out and treat your animal, or you have to trailer them to a hospital miles or kilometers away from where you live. So it is a very poignant and topical podcast today.

[6:15]

Now, this follows up from last week’s podcast on vaccines, and I was going to do this one on veterinarians, but I pushed it forward because last week I read a snarky article — I called it snarky — an opinion piece, which again, I said last week, I understand opinion pieces are meant to ruffle feathers and, ooo, you know, get clicks, right? That’s the big thing today — headlines and clicks. And this was a horse owner who was writing about how her young veterinarian showed up, didn’t know what she was talking about, driving a 4x4 that she couldn’t handle, or she was too young. I mean, it was just venom, to be honest.

[6:57]

And it really made me think, after reading that, that it was so unfair to that young veterinarian who is doing her best. She probably was coming out of school within a few years, and this owner took out a lot of her frustration on her in her writing — and it was nasty. And I just didn’t… it angered me, to be honest. I just was like, that’s not fair, because I know the journey vets have to take — and I’m going to share that with you today. And I know how hard they work, and I know, with all the stuff they have to deal with, you didn’t need to write this snarky article because you didn’t like a rule change that they’re making for competitive horses, which is based on science, not money — as the author of that article insinuated. It was based on science. So you can check that one out if you want more about that.

[8:02]

But it got me thinking about our equine vets and the crisis that we’re in today. The statistics are concerning, and I didn’t know how bad it was. I knew it wasn’t great — you know, I’ve been in the veterinary medicine field for 30 years now of my life, since I was really young, going to school, spending 11 years in the universities getting my Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD, mentoring hundreds of students — students wanting to go to vet school and helping many of them get into vet school. Even my graduate students who I got to know really, really well, inspiring them and guiding them into vet school, where many of them are now DVMs.

[8:43]

But if we look at the data, and what’s coming out from these societies around the world — but again, particularly in the US — they estimate there are 3,785 veterinarians in the United States in 2022, so just a couple of years ago, that are equine-focused. That’s their clinical practice. So that’s not many, across 50 states. And if you haven’t been to the United States, it’s a massive country — roughly eight million horses officially, but unofficially they think there’s about 10 million horses in the country. And that is just 4.1% of all practicing vets in the country. That’s an important statistic to remember — 4% of all veterinarians in the United States are equine-related.

[9:37]

But we’re graduating them — about 1% of the graduates are going into the equine field. So we are losing./p>

[9:51]

When you look at the AAEP and AVMA — the vet associations, the equine associations — they said we are having trouble not just retaining equine vets, because they are retiring, a lot of them are getting older, but recruiting — getting veterinary students interested in pursuing equine medicine. And I’m going to break down why a little bit later — you know, what is the barrier of me saying, “I want to go to vet school, I go into veterinary medicine, I intend to be an equine vet maybe, but I’m interested in these other fields,” and a lot of these students just go off in these other fields and they don’t end up being equine vets.

[10:30]

Now, I was going equine medicine — it was either zoo or equine vet medicine. Being a zoo vet, job opportunities were really low, so I was like, “No, I’ll definitely just stick with my babies and go to horses.” That is where I intended to go in vet school. Now, there was a survey done of all the graduates leaving vet school in 2020 — so recent, recent data — and there were surveys sent out to 3,243 veterinary students, and they got back 2,874 responses. So, very, very good response rate. And they asked them, “Which practice are you going into?”

[11:22]

Now, one of the things you’re going to find out when I talk about some of the data in vet school today — in the 2020s — and I saw this in the 2000s, in the last 20 years, where the majority of your graduates, or those even applying to vet school, are women. It has become a field more dominated by women, which plays into some of this about being an equine practitioner. Now, why veterinary medicine is becoming more women-dominated — I didn’t find any surveys on that. Just from my personal experience, I think it is so difficult to get into vet school — and obviously, I’ve had male students go off to be DVMs, many of them are DVMs today, they’re my good friends — but a lot of them… I don’t know if they can put up with the rigor, the academic rigor. I think that’s just my own personal experience. It is so hard to get into vet school, and some of them maybe look at the money involved and realize, “Not worth it, it’s not worth going into debt for.”

[12:33]

Other factors I think vet schools need to look at more on how to recruit more men into the field, which is fine. And there isn’t any data — I couldn’t find any data — on why more women are applying to vet school. But, I mean, they’re all wonderful students. They are so driven. I just… oh, I just loved working with them — they’re just such the brightest students I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. But when they asked them, “What field do you want to go into?” — okay, of all the respondents, so that was 2,874, only four of the men said they were going into equine practice, and only 26 of the women were going to go into equine practice. So that was 30 out of 2,874 — about 1% of all the students coming out, just a few years ago, intended to be equine vets. And then, how many of them actually went on — that is where the concerning data is.

[13:34]

So if you look at — I mean, that’s 30 vet school graduates in the United States, there’s 50 United States, that’s less than one new equine vet a year per state. And when you talk about somewhere like Texas, where there’s a million horses, or California where there’s a million horses, or Florida — 500,000, but in the winter we get a bunch, or used to get a bunch down there, so over a million horses there — Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, I mean, across the United States, Kentucky obviously a horse hotbed. What about the horses in Montana, or Wyoming, or Oregon, or Washington State? You know, how many equine vets are going there? Not many, if any. So this is a big, big problem.

[14:20]

And then, just to quote the AVMA — so, American Veterinary Medical Association — when they said they were looking at this, that the population of equine vets is shrinking, they said, quote: “So you have this pipeline that’s getting smaller and smaller, and now you have half the students that go into equine practice leaving. So then you really have a small number that you’re retaining at the five-years-out mark. We also have a huge number of people retiring on the other end — about 33%, and this is of the American Association of Equine Practitioners — so these are your equine vets. A third are over 60, and 57% are over the age of 45. The AVMA estimates that about 60 equine vets retire every year, and that number is expected to increase by 3% each year.”

[15:17]

So you’re talking about data of the last couple of years when only 1% of all the graduates from vet school are becoming equine vets, and we’re losing 60 — so that’s 30. We’re replacing 30 if all 30 of those intend to be equine practitioners and they stick it out, which a lot of them don’t stick it out past the five-year mark. You’re looking at the equine vets — the percentages and numbers — going way, way, way, way down. And some of you are probably going, “Yeah, I have trouble — my vet’s overworked,” or, “I have trouble getting a hold of them,” or, “I’m in an area where, again, like I said in the beginning, you’re having trouble finding them.” So, we are in a crisis.

[16:03]

Okay, and I see this where I am here in New Zealand — we are short equine vets, we are short equine nurses, we are short food animal veterinarians, we’re trying to recruit them from overseas. I see it in Australia. We go up into Europe — same trends. Up into Canada — same trends. I can only imagine what South America is going through. So, around the planet, you have this big need for veterinary doctors, but they’re not there — they’re not filling that need. And a lot of that is because there is this long road to become a veterinarian. It is brutally tough.

[16:50]

And I’m going to use the US as an example, which is just like Canada — very, very similar setup. Now, I will talk a little bit about how it is, you know, in New Zealand, the UK, Europe, and different countries — becoming a veterinarian may be not as arduous, as difficult — that’s a big word — but very competitive. It’s not to say, “Oh, you know, I can go and become a veterinarian in New Zealand and then, you know, go to the United States.” No, you can’t. They can come the other way, because in the United States they go through a lot more school, and I’ll explain that here in a second.

[17:27]

But again, the students that do become veterinarians outside of Canada and the US — they have to go through a lot of schooling, and they’re still some of the brightest students you’ll ever come across. And again, I’ve worked with some of them — some of them are my close friends. South America — I’ve known a lot of veterinarians from Brazil, Colombia, veterinarians here in New Zealand and Australia that I work with — so, again, some of the best and brightest students you’ll ever come across.

[18:01]

Now, in the US and in Canada, it is said that getting into vet school is a lot harder than medical school. They have to take much of the similar curriculum, they have to get similar grades, but the reason it’s a little bit harder to get into vet school is because there’s fewer of them. Just as an example, in the US there’s 30 vet schools that students can choose from today. Conversely, there’s 155 medical schools. So really, the difficulty is finding a slot — that’s the hard part for a lot of students. And for many of the vet schools, they give preference to in-state students — so it depends on where they are. So for me, it was California — very large population, 40-something million people — applicant pool… you know, I’m going to show you some statistics here in a little bit, talk about it. UC Davis — but like a thousand applicants, and they slot 130. So, you know, low acceptance rates.

[19:07]

Here’s some of the acceptance rates across some of the other schools: Auburn University has a 9% overall acceptance rate — 7.9% of that is in-state students, so students from Alabama; 1.1% are out-of-state applicants. Now, one of the things I used to coach my students on was not only looking to apply in-state — so University of Florida was where a lot of my students went — and then I said, “Look at out-of-state, and then where they have better success rates.” So, for example, I would tell them to apply out-of-state, but your best bet is always in-state — it’s always in-state. They have the highest acceptance rates.

[19:50]

And GPA — you’re looking anywhere from 3.7 overall to 3.4; some of the others 3.4, 3.3. But that is — you’re looking at science GPA. So you couldn’t pad your GPA with very easy classes. At UC Davis they would also look at your science GPA, and that had to be 3.3, 3.4, 3.5. So you were needing to get mostly A’s and a few B’s, and you had to take things like biology, genetics — I put “chemistry for days,” I mean, inorganic chemistry two semesters, organic chemistry two semesters, then biochemistry one or two semesters, depends on the school you’re applying to. Take physics — I had to take two semesters of physics — statistics, animal physiology courses. All of these were intense study — forever. Very competitive, very difficult to get A’s in, very difficult to even get B’s in, and you needed mostly A’s to be competitive for vet school — and then, you know, medical school too, for those students that were looking at that.

[20:59]

So your veterinarians are very, very intelligent — very, very bright. They studied very, very, very hard in those undergraduate years. They didn’t have time to go out and have fun, they didn’t have time to do a lot because not only did they have to study all the time — and again, I would coach my students on setting up good study practices — but they needed thousands of hours of animal experience and veterinary clinic experience, which was tough for them to get. So their summers were very busy, where they had to volunteer, work 40 hours all summer if they could do it, or during the school year, on top of studying, on top of extracurricular activities that they’re expected to do to shine in their application.

[21:51]

So these are the presidents and vice presidents and treasurers and social chairs of all the animal science clubs, the vet science clubs, the equine jumping society — whatever it was — these students were so busy. And for an old fuddy-duddy like me — and I did have to work through my undergrad, which was rare — because tuition’s so expensive today compared to when I went to school, I guarantee you most of these students have a part-time job. And I would go to bat for all my students all the time against some of my older professors because, in my department, I’m like, “You don’t understand. These Millennials and Gen Z — they are busy, they are working incredibly hard. They are not just going to college life, kicking their feet up, going out and partying, doing all the things you see in social media or popular culture.”

[22:43]

I’ll tell you what — my students, especially the ones that were going into vet school — they were in the library every night. They were studying every day. They might get to go away on a weekend to the beach or something, but that’s only if they weren’t working, and that’s only if they weren’t volunteering somewhere. So it was a long road for them just to apply to vet school and be competitive.

[23:14]

So I did tell you I was going to talk about the UC Davis stats, and this is pretty typical. If you look, you can go online and look at the universities around the world and look at their admission profiles. So these are the veterinarians that are coming in this year that are going to graduate in 2027. UC Davis had 937 applicants, they sent offers to 143, and they sat 135. So very, very, very difficult.

[23:49]

And the overall science GPA — like I said, how tough this is — this is Davis, now. They’re regarded as one of the best, if not the best, vet schools in the world. So back in my day when I would have… they were very good back in my day, but it wasn’t as competitive as it is today. An overall science GPA of 3.69 — that is nearly straight A’s again in all those chemistries, biologies, physics. You can get a few B’s — three maybe — if on a 3.7 GPA, maybe two B’s; probably they need straight A’s in that. And their last two semesters’ GPA was 3.8 — so again, almost straight A’s in everything they did.

[24:34]

Non-residents — so that few, those very, very competitive slots that they give, which was only 19 out of all their applicants in vet school for UC Davis — their science GPA was 3.94, and then overall last 40 or last 45 semester hours was 3.96. So they got one B in something, maybe, or an A-minus in something — but that’s straight A’s. That is straight A’s. These are very, very, very bright students.

[25:14]

Now, of the career interest — I think this would be very interesting — was equine. They had small animal, small/equine — so they were going to look at maybe doing a mixed practice — they had 10 students that intended to do that. So one of the things you had to do at Davis back in my day was indicate what area you were going to go into. Fifty-five were small animal overall — that’s always the most popular. Mixed animals was 37 — so that’s small and large — but small/equine was 10, and then just equine was nine. And we know those numbers drop through the four years that they’re in vet school, because the 2020 data says we only graduated 30 overall across all vet schools. And that’s because — I’m going to share some of the data why — but it’s also that they find out it’s a very difficult life being an equine vet, and you don’t get as compensated as some of these other areas, and so these students realize, “Maybe this is not the field for me.”

[26:29]

Now, the next step for students — and I just want to put this in here — is there are two island nation, or island veterinary schools, that are very good. There’s Ross and St. George’s. I have sent many students there that couldn’t get into one of the vet schools in the continental US. They have a higher acceptance rate — close to, it’s 44% roughly — and the GPAs are 3.2 to 3.4. So they’re not taking marginal students; they’re taking good students, or the students that just quite couldn’t, say, get into a Davis. And it’s a very, very, very good school — there’s just… there’s some good data on it. Of their graduating class in 2019, of the 177 that were graduating, they had three that wanted to be equine vets — so again, 1%, 1.2%, really low.

[27:36]

Starting salaries — this is why I pulled this up. Starting salary average was $90,000 out of all their veterinary graduates from Ross and St. George’s. The starting salary for equine vets was $44,000 a year. Small animal — $94–95,000. Mixed practice — $92,000. Food animal — so there is a big need for dairy vets and beef animal vets and stuff like that — they were starting around $82,000 a year. But then you get this huge cliff where the starting salary for an equine vet was $44,000 a year. So that is a big, big drop-off, and that is where we see students in vet schools shy away from equine medicine.

[28:40]

Now, the other aspect of this is debt — educational debt — and it’s a big political issue in the United States and elsewhere. But of these students graduating from these island universities, 47%, nearly half of them, had debt greater than $330,000. So let that sink in again — 48% of these vets that are graduating — so 177 of them, so you take half of that, 80 to 85 of these students — have educational debt greater than $330,000. Four students that graduated reported debt in between the range of $490,000 and $499,999 — so close to half a million dollars in educational debt. That is insane.

[29:40]

And the ranges are all in there — only 13% do not have debt, and they must have been very blessed with good funds to fund their education. But most of them are running in that $200–300,000 range. And, in fact, when you look across all vet schools — so the islands are much more expensive to go to, higher tuition, higher cost of living…

[30:11]

But when you look at veterinarians across the board in the United States, they on average graduate with about $180,000 in debt. It depends on the school you go to — some of the other ones are close to… the average is up in that $300,000 range, where Oregon State, University of… or Oklahoma State, they’re $150–160,000 range. Florida was in that range too because in-state tuition wasn’t quite so much. But for those students going to those overseas — you know, Ross University or St. George’s — they’re paying very hefty tuition plus cost of living.

[30:50]

And, you know, I… just why Ross University’s acceptance rate is very high — they do have a high dropout rate; about 25% of their students drop out. And it’s not because, again, these are very bright students. And I still remember a couple of my students when they got accepted to Ross, and I told them — I said, “Come talk to me in my office.” And I sat them down and I said, “Okay…” and they’re vets now — they both went, which I’m very proud of them — but I said, “You’re going to go to an island nation. You’re going to be distracted. You have beautiful beaches. You can go and have a very, very expensive vacation for a year — it’s going to cost you $50,000 — or you’re going to go, and you’re going to study hard. You’re going to have some fun, sure, every now and then, but you’re going to go, and you’re going to…”

[31:43]

Because they have a high dropout rate, and I warned them — I said, “If you’re going to go and do this, I want you to study,” and I would give them all my study tips, and I would coach and mentor them. And they ended up being vets, which is awesome. But it’s just that debt load, I… oh, you know. And then after they graduate — so, again, if you go back as a Ross graduate with, you know, $150,000, or just any graduate, $180,000 in student debt, and then you’re getting a job paying $45,000 — I’ve got some more data to show you in equine vets — that’s where I was sitting years ago going, “Do I really want to do this?” And I did a lot of soul searching.

[32:32]

Then, once you graduate, you need to pass your licensing exam, and a lot of them go off to do residencies for at least a year, if not more, to get more hands-on experience. Most equine vets are not going to go out and start practicing right away — they’re going to go to an established hospital or clinic, do a residency for at least a year, if not more, and then go out and join a practice somewhere or try to start their practice — which, again, I’ll share that in a minute.

[33:02]

So that was the Ross data. Now, going back to this 2020 data of the 2,800-and-something students — okay, starting salaries for males in equine, of those four, they were starting salaries of $75,000, which was very good. So that’s… it’s a data point of four. But you go to the females, and again, this shows definitely some very concerning data with women being paid less. In 2020, those 26 women that were going into being equine vets — their starting salaries: $56,000. So $75,000 for the four males, $56,000 for the females. That’s a huge disparity — that’s very concerning.

[33:52]

Now, why? I don’t know — they didn’t talk about this. If we go and look at some of the other data points — definitely overall, the men are making a little bit more. If we go to food animal — $88,500 for the women, $87,500… again, that’s a $1,000 difference. If you do mixed animal — $85,200 for the men, $79,900 for the women. So yeah, there’s definitely salary disparity. I mean, that’s probably not new for a lot of you listening, but especially in the veterinary field.

[34:37]

Now, overall, women are paid about $1,400 less starting salary. You have 266 males, 1,332 females — definitely some bias there, and I think the industry needs to address that because that is not okay. Now, it’s not the point of this podcast, but again, even as an older male, it still bothers me because, you know, for all the wonderful students — and I’ve worked with them, my best friends — to see that disparity is concerning, so it’s something I’m actually going to keep following on.

[35:17]

But what that data can show you — I think this is the big takeaway — is equine vets, because most of them are women: $56,000 a year versus $96,000 as a small animal vet. That’s a $40,000 difference. And if you can imagine, as a young woman coming out — they come out in their 20s, and I’m going to talk about this in a minute — you’re coming out in your later 20s, your friends all have jobs, making money for years, more established in their jobs by their late 20s, so probably making really good salaries. You know, this is outside of vet school — these are your friends that you knew throughout life — and, you know, one day you do want to start a family, or you need to contribute because most homes today, around the world, are two-income households, wherever you live. So that is huge, and I could see where we are losing equine vets right there, just looking at salary difference.

[36:28]

And again, that was when I heard our vet was making $35,000 a year — and this was 2003, 20 years ago — I was like, “No way, no way, no way.” And when you look outside the US — so here’s one in the United Kingdom — equine vets made up 11% of their veterinary pool; small animals, 75%. So that’s pretty good. And then that’s just private practice.

[37:04]

If you look at salaries for veterinarians in other fields, they don’t necessarily have to go and be an animal doctor — they can go work in a clinic or a laboratory for a company, or they can get a government job that pays very, very well. You’re looking at jobs — bacteriology, mycology — average salaries of $140,000 a year for these veterinarians. In clinical pharmacology, upwards of $150,000. In immunology — so this is looking at maybe research or some of that — they’re making upwards of $175,000 a year. You know, specialty salaries. And so if I go and see an equine vet making not much money, and I can go in vet school and go, “Hm, if I put my area of focus in immunology, I can triple or quadruple that salary,” why wouldn’t you? Like, why wouldn’t you do that?

[38:05]

The average US — US Bureau of Labor Statistics, so again, in the United States — the average 2020 salary for veterinarians across the field was $99,250. So that was the average — small animal vets, what have you. When you looked at specifically equine vets, the best paid was in New York State, and the average salary was at $81,820 — so half would be making more, half would be making less. You went into Wyoming — equine vets make close to $73,000 a year, probably because there aren’t many in Wyoming. I know there’s a lot of horses up there, but, you know, maybe not many equine vets. So again, that disparity — that’s almost a $20,000 difference across veterinarians.

[38:56]

So your vets aren’t making money hand over fist — that is the point of all this. The other point is these students have had to go through a grueling trial of three to four years in undergraduate — most, all of them, graduated with a Bachelor’s degree, some took five years but most got it done in four years, at least in University of Florida — then they had four years of veterinary school, then they had at least a year of residency. So that’s an eight- or nine-year journey. If it was for me — because I did 11 years…

[39:35]

But I did a PhD, Master’s — my Master’s took me two years — so some of these students need to get Master’s degrees to get that bump. You’re looking at 10, 11 years of college — that’s tuition, room and board, books, everything — working part-time just to put food on the table, getting out with a heavy debt load, not getting the highest salary. Again, for these equine vets, $45,000–$56,000 roughly for most of them, maybe $60,000. Then you’ve got to go and — where are you going to practice? A lot of them look to buy into a practice, or they need to be hired by a practice.

[40:18]

Now, one of the things that — and I know vet schools are trying to address this — is the business side of being a veterinarian. These are, again, incredibly intelligent students — very book smart, just amazing women and young men — and then now they’ve got to go and start a business. And they don’t have a lot of business classes. They don’t — there’s no room to take business classes. I developed curriculums, and the curriculum for a 4-year pre-veterinary student was packed with science. And we tried to — “This semester is going to be brutal, they have to take organic chemistry, they’ve got to take animal reproduction, they have to take this other course… gosh, let’s put them in a riding class or something fun, you know, go horseback riding because their brains are going to be fried.” Where are we going to fit business classes, of all things?

[41:13]

And on top of that, they need to go learn how to manage not just customers and all that, but then manage employees, vet technicians, and things. So it could be overwhelming when they do look to buy into a practice. And I looked for data on equine vets particularly — couldn’t find anything — what they’re doing. But overall, to buy into a vet practice it can cost anywhere from $200,000 to $1.5 million and up. And, you know, they said about a million dollars for a private small animal practice, $250,000 for a mobile veterinary practice. So if you think of your equine vet in the back of that 4x4, it’s going to cost them not just the automobile and all the equipment, but also when they buy a practice, they’re buying that veterinarian’s clientele.

[42:22]

And then they work with the vet — this is the new one, you’ve seen it — I’m sure many of you have seen it. The vet I used to ride with, they bought their practice — one in particular, the one young vet I rode with a lot, she was being introduced by the old vet whose practice she bought. For a year she would go out with him, he would introduce her as the new vet coming into the practice, and then he was going to retire. But she had to buy into that. So they have this huge student debt, and now they’ve got to buy more debt to start a practice or buy into a practice.

[42:54]

So I say all this — I don’t want to dissuade anybody from going to vet school. We need you, bottom line. But things are changing — I’m going to throw that out there before I lose you. There are opportunities to make good money if you’re really focused on that. The industry is waking up, in the last few years, that we need to support you more. This is just anecdotal — I remember at University of Florida, a farrier came around, “Hey Chris,” we’re talking one day, he’s like, “Do you know any vets that need work? I’ve got a farm down the road — this is Ocala, Florida — they need a part-time vet, they’re willing to pay upwards of $80,000 a year.” Okay, those opportunities exist. There are horse hotbeds like that — desperate need. Again, this was 10 years ago, but still desperate need for veterinarians.

[43:50]

And I don’t want to scare anybody off from going to vet school — I just… there is some reality that people need to realize about our equine vets or if they’re going into equine veterinary medicine. Okay, but for the majority of you that are horse owners or interested in horses, I’m fighting for your veterinarians today. And I am asking you to put yourself in their shoes — they graduated with all this debt, which is all of us that graduate… you know, I graduated with debt as a graduate student — that’s a big worry. “Okay, I need to get a job, okay, but I need to take on more debt to get a job if I’m going into private practice.” And so that is where they get a lot of stress. It is extremely stressful.

[44:41]

And I go back to that dumb article I opened with that was snarky at this poor young veterinarian who is trying to field questions from this client who is probably… I’m not going to get myself in trouble. Anyways, it was frustrating. One thing I would love you all to read — and obviously it’s going to be on the screen — *The Chronicle of the Horse* had a three-part series last year, “Where Are All the Equine Vets?” This is an excellent snapshot of where we are, and they have a lot of good quotes from people in the field that are talking about our equine vet shortage in the United States, but then you’re seeing this again, like I said, around the world.

[45:31]

So Dr. Emma Reed, who is a Dean at the Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine, talking about — to quote her — she’s saying, “Analysis of the AAEP data — again, that’s American Association of Equine Practitioners data — and the results of surveys have painted a stark image: approximately 1.3% of new veterinary school graduates go directly into equine practice, while another 4.5% continue their training in equine internships.” And she said the number is way down from what it was 10 years ago. But within five years, 50% of all these new vets leave. They either switch to small animal, or they leave veterinary medicine altogether.

[46:25]

And she said, “You have this pipeline of veterinarians getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and now half of the students that even go into equine vet practice are leaving. You have a huge volume of all of those people retiring — like I said, a third of your equine practitioners in the United States today are over the age of 60 — they’re retiring, and we’re not replacing them.” So it is this big problem.

[46:56]

Now, some of the reasons why — this is why they postulate why — and I thought about it, because I put myself in my students’ shoes, my shoes: it was the calculus of it all. The calculus for me — supporting a family, the sacrifices required. So I seriously thought about going to medical school for a while. I’m like, “If I’m going to go to four years…” But I just… I don’t know, I’m not a human — I love people, but I’m not… animals is my thing. That is my life’s work and passion, obviously.

[47:33]

And then, so the business side — once I think you get into it or realize it — then, like I said earlier, many more women are becoming vets. And so what they’re thinking — the vet schools are thinking — they said a lot of it is this generation of students coming up coming from two-parent households that are working, how their moms and their dads had to work very hard, and there wasn’t a lot of great work-life balance. So a lot of these students today say, “Wow, I don’t want a career where I can’t enjoy my life.” You’re seeing that in this younger generation.

[48:18]

Then they say, by the time an equine vet is entering the workforce — so four years of undergrad, four years of vet school, and then a year or two of internship — she’s near the end of her 20s. She may be married, maybe wants to get married, maybe wants to start a family. And when you’re talking about a job making — we saw $56,000 on average starting — you start to really doubt, “Okay, why would I go into this field?” And then equine vets work on average about 58 hours a week. So where’s that work-life balance?

[49:02]

And you know, I used to think about this too because I went through this whole decision tree — equine vets have to work 24/7. And I remember the vet I was working with — this was during my Master’s — when she came in, she was like, “I can’t take vacation.” I remember her just talking about — because I was questioning her about her business — and she’s like, “Chris, I can’t take a day off. If I take a day off, my client will call my competitor,” because there were three equine vets around the Fresno area at the time, “and I’ll lose them as a client most likely, because I couldn’t go out to their farm. And so, well, I can’t get this vet, this guy came out, or this woman came out — I’m going to use them now.”

[49:47]

So it hurts their business if you don't come out with every client call. They felt like they had to be working 24/7, and it wasn't just the business aspect — but think about it from a veterinarian standpoint. I love animals, I love horses, and if I get a call at midnight that my horse is colicking, or their horse is colicking, and I'm the vet, I've got to go out and treat this animal. I am not going to let that animal suffer till morning — gosh, no. I'm going to jump up, get in my truck, and drive however long it is to that farm and take care of that animal. And that's what a lot of these vets do, because it's not just ethical and good for business, it's — that's their drive. That's why they do what they do.

[50:28]

And when you look at small animal vets, they clock out. Now, they work long days — again, many friends that are small animal vets work very long hours, usually till six, seven o’clock at night — but then they’re done. Doors closed. If there’s any problems after that, there’s emergency small animal clinics. And I’ve taken my dogs there, and they’re very expensive. That’s why you don’t go back there for normal treatment — because they’re that expensive. But there are after-hours clinics available for small animals, where there really traditionally hasn’t been for equine vets.

[51:03]

New Approaches to Emergency Coverage for Equine Vets — so that leads me into the part two of this article: new approaches to emergency coverage. A lot of these equine vets are realizing being on call 24/7, working close to 60 hours a week, isn’t the type of life that’s acceptable today. It’s just not. And even then, you probably have equine vets turning away business because they have too much — there’s not enough of them out there to cover all the animals and all the emergencies and all the things they need to do.

[51:42]

So what they’re talking about is coming up with new approaches and developing these emergency co-ops, which could be an answer for a lot of these equine vets. Different vet clinics or equine veterinarians will come into a co-op together and agree: “Okay, Dr. Jessica, you’re going to handle emergencies Mondays and Tuesdays. Dr. Brooke, you’re going to do Wednesdays and Thursdays. Dr. Chris, you’re doing Fridays and Saturdays. And then we’ll all alternate a Sunday.” Something like that. We keep our clients, but we enter a cooperative where I’m on call those late nights — and the other nights of the week, I don’t have to worry about it. I can turn my phone off, messages off, and I know my clients are covered.

[52:33]

They’re developing this and starting to encourage equine vets to do this, because we as consumers — or as clients — need to support our equine vets like this. If I have an emergency, and I know I normally deal with Dr. Chris, but if he’s off and Dr. Brooke is on call and that’s who’s coming out to treat my horse, I have to be okay with that. I’m still going to use Dr. Chris for my normal, day-to-day stuff, but in emergencies, I understand — because we’re going to lose them. We’re going to lose a lot of these vets, and we’re going to lose good people, and it’s just going to hurt the industry and hurt our horses in the end.

[53:17]

There are some vets — again, this article, and I’ll show it to you — but there are vets in Kentucky, and probably some of these other equine hotspots like Ocala, Florida, parts of New York, and California, where you have equine emergency clinics. They only handle emergencies. They could be mobile clinics or they could be hospitals, but there are veterinarians starting to specialize in emergency medicine only. They don’t do the day-to-day horse stuff, but they will handle colics, difficult foalings, any lameness that’s an emergency, or stuff like that. So that is encouraging — that there are strategies in place to help our current equine vets have a better quality of life so they don’t burn out, quit, or move. Because if they move, there’s probably not someone who can replace them, and that’s going to hurt you in the end.

[54:26]

Recruitment and Support for Future Equine Vets — now, part three of this series is we need more equine vets. This whole podcast has just shown you: wow, it’s not easy. But how do we recruit them? How do we pay them more? How do we ensure they have a better quality of life? Some of that is the emergency response — that’s a big one. A very, very big one — that they don’t have to be on call 24/7. I think a lot of equine vets would take a salary cut — I mean, I was in education for goodness’ sakes, of course I would — to be an equine vet versus some of the other fields of medicine, because I just… I love my dogs, I love cats, I love all creatures, but when it came to medicine, there was no way I was going to be a doggy vet. I just didn’t want to — it wasn’t my drive. I was going to be an equine vet. Taking a bit of a salary hit? Fine. But quality of life — that’s the big one. So things are changing to help them.

[55:33]

The other part is recruitment. A lot of the AVMA, or the AAEP, these organizations — I see it here in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world — the equine vet industry is centered around supporting new vets and vet students, and even undergrads, to encourage them to get in there. Now, I want to quote this because this is Dr. Ronda Wurger — she’s a DVM, equine vet at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute — been there, gorgeous, huge hospital. Lexington, Kentucky is just awesome. She said her daughter was a sophomore — again, this was published last year — at Auburn University and was going to follow in her mom’s footsteps and pursue equine medicine, but she’d seen some hurdles. To quote her, Dr. Ronda said: “I would listen to what advisers would tell her, and she got a job at the vet school as soon as she got to Auburn. What all the doctors were telling her at Auburn about how horrible equine practice was — she shouldn’t do it. And to be honest, it was gut-wrenching to me, because I made a really good life being an equine veterinarian, and I was proud that she could see me doing something I loved, and for her to want to do it — and then have so much discouragement — it’s disheartening. I feel like we’re losing them at all levels.”

[57:00]

That’s what her daughter experienced. I, as an adviser to hundreds of undergrads that applied to vet school — many went on to vet school — I asked them what field of medicine they’d want to be in. I didn’t discourage them from anything, I would just give them realities. Look at the data. I never had an agenda — I just said, “You want to be an equine vet? It’s an awesome field. Here’s the information. Here’s probably where you should apply.” For students going to Ross, like I said, I warned them about certain things: just stay focused and graduate, because we need vets. We need vets in all fields, to be honest.

[57:41]

You’re seeing this huge discouragement from industry, from certain segments of academia, saying, “Don’t go into equine medicine. It’s not worth it. It’s a very difficult life.” Especially — I guess if I was a small animal vet and I knew we needed more small animal vets, I would try to recruit them to my side. So there is some of this discouragement. But the AVMA — the overall vet association — realizes that, and they’re saying this is actually a great time to come out as an equine vet, because there is a shortage and you’re able to start picking your hours, dictating higher salaries, and having a better quality of life — because you’re in demand. So there is a big push with these vet schools to help students that do want to specialize in equine and come out as graduates.

[58:45]

So I hope that gives you a snapshot and a deeper appreciation for what your veterinarians are faced with day to day. I mean, there’s a lot to dissect here — there’s more to this story. I didn’t want to go down certain paths, because veterinarians across the world are faced with a lot. They’re faced with irate customers, they’re faced with animal death all the time — that’s horrible. We imagine when we lose one of our companions, when we have to euthanize a horse or any of our animals, how heartbreaking that is for us. Imagine it from the vet’s perspective. Again — they love these animals. Almost every student I ever came across had such a deep, deep love for animals and wanted to work with them day in and day out. They were incredibly intelligent, incredibly ambitious, but again — they’re graduating with a heavier debt load than ever before, they’re under tremendous pressure, and it takes a toll on them.

[59:50]

I think we, as clients, need to understand and appreciate them more than we do. And I know a lot of you do — don’t get me wrong — I’ve always loved my vets that I’ve worked with and that have worked on my animals. Always appreciative. But I think we need to go that extra little step, and here’s some of the things you can do to help your equine vets: Have a relationship with them — cultivate one. Understand you can’t just cold call them when there’s an emergency and expect them to show up unless they know who you are and you’re a client of theirs. When they show up to your farm, have your horses ready for them. Remember, they’re incredibly busy. They’ve got a lot of people they need to see, a lot of horses they need to see — you can make their lives easier that way.

[1:00:40]

Understand what makes an emergency and how to contact them. If you’re not sure — like I said, some of these vets might start doing after-hours emergency contact with other vets — be open to that. During non-business hours, ask them, “In case of an emergency, where do I go? Who do I call?” And again — know what’s an emergency or not. These young vets — give them a break. I said in that article in the beginning, my goodness, it gives me such a headache. Let them work on your horses. Understand that they’re maturing into the position. As a young veterinarian — like we all started off in careers not knowing everything, right? — they’re still learning. I’m still learning every day. Give them a break and help them out.

[1:01:42]

Always be willing to go with new ideas to help their practice and their work-life balance — we need to help them do that. Pay them promptly so they’re not chasing you around for bills. When they give you a bill, pay it right away — that takes a lot of stress off them. And then just let them know you appreciate them. Just say, “You know what, I love working with you and I appreciate what you do for me and my animals.”

[1:02:13]

Because, I mean, this podcast, when I put this together, made me reflect a lot on my own life. I always think about those forks in the road in my life — we all face them every now and then — and it was like, do I go the vet route? Sometimes I reflect back, like, what would my life be like if I did? If I did go to vet school and I was a practicing equine vet, where would I be today? Would I still be in academia, in a vet school teaching somewhere? Maybe. Maybe I would be in private practice somewhere, in a hotbed equine hotspot. I don’t know. But maybe in an alternate universe, I am a DVM instead of a PhD.

[1:03:04]

But I do know there are hundreds — thousands — of vets around the world specializing in equine medicine, and I appreciate them so much. I just ask you to appreciate them, because they’re caring for our greatest companion: the horse.

[1:03:15]

So anyways, I appreciate you watching this. I appreciate you taking this to heart and helping us thank our equine vets and support our equine vets. Please subscribe to this YouTube channel for more like this. Like this video, please — I appreciate it. You can also check us out on social media — TikTok, Instagram, Facebook — all of those. Look for Mad Barn. You can always go to madbarn.com, Learn tab, for more information on any topics you’re looking at. But again, overall, this is all about the vets and the veterinarians out there.

[1:03:57]

So for any of you that do want to go to vet school — do it. You can always email me: podcast@madbarn.com. But for any of the equine vets out there watching — thank you. Thank you for what you do.