“If our veterinary workforce is not adequately staffed and prepared, in the event of an animal health emergency, there could be catastrophic consequences for Pennsylvania, the United States, and the global food system,” said Dr. Erin Luley, assistant director, animal health and diagnostic services for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Officials aren’t sure when the shortage actually began, but it continues to grow, according to Jody Kull, assistant teaching professor in the Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences Department at Penn State University.

According to Kull, only 5% of practicing veterinarians in the United States are food animal veterinarians — working on food/fiber/milk-producing animals.

About 50% of rural veterinarians — large and mixed animal vets — currently in practice are within five years of retirement, statistics show. Nationally, about 3% to 4% of graduating veterinarians enter livestock practice. However, only 50% of rural veterinarians are still in rural veterinary practice within five years of graduation.

Dr. Aubrey Vena of Cambria Veterinary Care says the veterinary industry is “seeing practitioners aging out and retiring from the field, or leaving food and farm animal medicine for other aspects of medicine.” Courtesy photo

“When we put those numbers together, there is a large gap,” Kull said. “We are losing rural veterinarians to retirement, not replacing them with enough veterinarians, and we are not retaining them as rural veterinarians.”

Kull owned a large animal veterinary practice for 19 years in Montour County before joining the Penn State faculty.

“We are seeing practitioners aging out and retiring from the field, or leaving food and farm animal medicine for other aspects of medicine or a different profession completely due to quality of life and work-life-balance reasons,” said Dr. Aubrey Vena of Cambria Veterinary Care. “There aren’t many new veterinarians entering the field of large animal medicine to replace them.”

Even though there is a shortage of large animal veterinarians, enrollment in veterinary schools is actually going up.

“Our Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences major at PSU enrollment is growing,” Kull said. “However, the majority of these students do not have a rural/large animal veterinary interest.”

Experts point to several reasons for the shortage of large animal vets, one being the high cost of education.

“While the number of total veterinary students in the country is increasing, the cost of veterinary school is quite high. One alarming statistic is that 27% of recent graduates who are in equine practice owe quadruple their annual salary in debt,” said Liz Arbittier, associate director of Academics and Community Affairs at New Bolton Center, the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. Arbittier has been an equine ambulatory veterinarian since she graduated from PennVet in 2001.

In 2023, the average debt for equine graduates was $144,000 to $180,000. However, one in three equine vets graduated with debts exceeding $200,000 and 10% had a debt over $300,000, Arbittier said.

Another factor adding to the shortage is the rate of pay.

“Rural veterinarians tend to start at a lower salary than their urban/suburban counterparts in small animal veterinary medicine,” Kull said. However, large animal vets graduate with the same debt as small animal vets, so large animal veterinarians have a different debt to income ratio, Kull added.

The one uptick in pay seen recently is for those working as equine veterinarians.

“While there is still a significant difference for new graduates, starting salaries in equine practice are much higher than they used to be,” Arbittier said. “In my opinion, people who are passionate about equine practice are willing to sacrifice some income dollars compared to peers in small animal practice in order to live the life and do the job they’ve dreamed about.”

Some young people find that starting as a medical professional in a rural community without many colleagues close by is challenging, Kull said.

“In speaking to equine students, it’s less about needing to live in a rural area, since there are many thriving equine communities in suburban areas near big cities, but there is definitely less flexibility in where they can live compared to small animal practice,” Arbittier said, adding that students restricted in where they can practice due to factors like family and a spouse, can find it very difficult to get employment in an equine position that will work.

In addition to pay and housing issues, large animal medicine has emergency calls and on-call duty, which doesn’t appeal to many veterinarians, Kull said.

Working conditions, too, in the large animal world are different and more challenging than in small animal focus, Kull said. With large animals, “you work outside, in barns, in whatever weather it is that day and drive between farms. Compare that to a small animal vet hospital with a nice surgery suite, several exam rooms and a treatment room with trained staff to assist.”

Arbittier said it’s not uncommon for horse vets to work 80-hour weeks, which isn’t sustainable. That’s why small animal emergency clinics were developed and that has changed companion animal practice.

“Equine practices are becoming more flexible and creative with how they staff their on-call, after-hours shifts and it is making a huge difference,” Arbittier said.

The state Department of Agriculture has made several recommendations to help alleviate the shortage of large animal veterinarians.

Some of those recommendations include funding an additional three years of loan forgiveness for veterinarians who qualified for the Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program and consider the creation of two new or expanded grant programs to help cover noneducation expenses accrued with starting a veterinary practice.

The department also recommends that additional dollars should be allocated for animal science and STEM programs in K-12 schools. Comprehensive rural development in order to make rural areas of Pennsylvania and the United States a more opportune place to live, work and play is another recommendation.

“The future does not have to be bleak for the veterinary profession. The department believes that if these (and other) steps are undertaken, we can make headway in alleviating the veterinary workforce shortage,” Luley said, adding that it’s going to take state, federal and local partners to achieve that goal.

“This issue for the large animal crisis is a combination of many things, but it comes down to recruiting students into large animal medicine, retaining them in rural communities, and supporting them in their professional development,” Kull said.

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 814-946-7467.