Podcast #023 – Houston We Have A Problem
The equine veterinary profession is at a breaking point. There is little incentive for developing new horse vets. The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) knows it and is putting together a task force to address this. Unfortunately, they are asking all but the people they should be asking – the horse owners. Their efforts to discover the reasons are long overdue and are probably too late.
I have been writing about the certainty that horse owners, especially those in rural areas, would soon be out of options for finding expert veterinary care for their horses. There are three reasons:
1) the high cost of receiving a veterinary education and the low return on salary (money competition).
2) the generational changes for the desire to have a “quality of life” in a profession with high personal time demands (time competition).
3) the demand of horse owners driven by agenda-driven companies for reactive veterinary care diminishing the observance of proactive, preventive horse care (bias competition).
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