Bring back rural veterinarians
By Katie Allen
How new government funding could turn out more food-animal veterinarians
The decline in the number of large and food-animal doctors nationwide has made it difficult for many rural areas to find care for their livestock. But a new advanced budget request in Missouri could help bring back rural veterinarians.
Last fall, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt requested $500,000 for veterinary students at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The proposal could mean $20,000 in grant funding per year for each of six veterinary students who pledge to work in underserved rural areas after graduation.
Since the request, the Department of Agriculture has been working on policies for the funding program, including the process of selecting students for the awards and how much, if any, of that money they’ll need to pay back when finished with school.
“If it is successful, the funding may increase student desire to get into the program and into rural segments of Missouri,” said Dr. Ron Cott, professor and associate dean of student and alumni affairs at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine.
A change in demographics has influenced the decline of veterinarians in rural sectors of Missouri, said Cott. Veterinary graduates find more money working in urban areas and small and companion-animal medicine, where there is less hard labor and fewer working hours. The number of rural veterinarians who practice large-animal medicine has steadily decreased as a result, overworking the large-animal vets available and leaving livestock producers hard-pressed to find a veterinarian in their area.
Cott said tuition for the veterinary program at MU is between $16,000-17,000 each year. With books and housing added into the mix, the cost jumps to anywhere between $25,000-30,000. The average student will have an $80,000-100,000 debt load when they graduate.
“Most students have a similar debt load,” Cott said. “This forces students interested in rural practice to re-think what they’re going to do.” 
According to Cott, the average salary for a new graduate in urban St. Louis and Kansas City is anywhere from $58,000 to $65,000 per year. Rural areas will provide a starting salary of around $45,000 a year.
Dr. Taylor Woods, state veterinarian for Missouri, said he’s dealing with an extreme shortage of food-animal veterinarians on a daily basis. He said all livestock markets in the state are required by law to have a licensed veterinarian on-site, and many of those markets are in need of a new vet.
“I have nine vets who need a replacement,” Woods said. “I need nine large animal veterinarians today.”
Woods said rural areas in Missouri will benefit as soon as MU can graduate grant recipients. Outside of the livestock markets, certain counties with greater livestock populations are also feeling the pinch.
“Usually in the large-animal business, the responsibility of the entire county comes on a single veterinarian,” Woods said.
But veterinarians practicing in rural and underserved areas will likely need experience in the variety of animals, not just large-animal.
“You get quite a bit of cross-training in school,” Woods said. “You’ve got to be there to treat animals, regardless of what they are.”
Cott, who was once a practicing veterinarian in Kansas City, sits on a task force with the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association to provide insight on the program to MDA policy makers. The association has asked students to also participate in discussions and make recommendations on what they’d like to see in the program. Ultimately, the MDA will form the policies and will determine the program’s success.
“The final policies will control the success or lack of success of the program,” Cott said. “It needs to be a well-written set of rules and a relatively straight-forward process.”
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