Share your thoughts: Future of veterinary education accreditation

We need to look at new avenues for technician training and therefore accreditation. Our state is starting an apprenticeship program. This keeps and trains our valued assistants in clinic.

It seems as though the COE has strayed a bit in the goal of training students to be veterinarians. In my opinion, the pendulum has swung too far from teaching medicine and surgery to other topics, such as communication and equity and diversity issues. At our institution, students cannot answer basic anatomy questions. At institutions across the country, there is less and less emphasis on surgery topics and skills. The answer seems to be, if it is a surgical issue, send it to a surgeon. Unfortunately, many owners cannot afford this level of care, and many procedures can be performed in general practice if they had the appropriate training. The sole emphasis on surgical training for veterinary students is centered on spays and neuters, and how many a student can perform during clinical years. Also, I think it is time to consider the model used in 95% of other countries, with direct admission to veterinary school with a 6 year curriculum rather than 4 years of nonspecific education, followed by 4 years of veterinary school. Think of how much more targeted a curriculum could be in the first 2 years, eg writing for the medical sciences, physics for medical sciences, chemistry for medical sciences.

The capitalistic demand for doing everything faster to increase profit has ruined human medicine. Now it is creeping into Veterinary Medicine. We teach these new doctors to go faster, do more, and take more cases, all the while we are sacrificing our quality of care. I cannot count the number of mistakes that are corrected each day in our clinic pharmacy, which are 90%+ just poor attention to detail. I also find that basic communication skills, medical math, and just basic prescription writing fundamentals are all completely lost in the "advanced curriculums" that have slowly snuck in to our institutions. Yes automations have made many lazy, but if the simple things are not solidly in place, then how can we continually shift to this "faster" and "more" attitude that prevails. I would personally like to see a return to the basics and ensure solid foundations for these new clinicians to build off. They will have plenty of time to specialize. That being said, I would agree completely with a full "university" track that builds those fundamentals from the ground up. A comprehensive 6 year program or at least a restructuring of a 2+4 curriculum would go a long way in investing time in some of the areas that are lacking.

Since the term "animal welfare' was added to the AVMA Oath in 2010, all curricula should ensure that this subject is taught. This may be taught in conjunction with other subjects such as ethics and professionalism.

As ethical conflicts are a major source of work-related stress, training in ethics including how to recognize and navigate ethical conflicts should be mandatory.

I am personally aware that the COE has been ensuring that meaningful animal behavior is included in the curriculum of various veterinary programs - thank you for that.
An understanding of the breadth of animal welfare is becoming increasingly important, not just the medical aspects but the sentience and cognitive portions as well. To stay relevant, veterinarians of the future will need advanced knowledge in animal welfare, so I would encourage the COE to increase the emphasis of this topic in the profession. Thank you.

Innovation is needed (e.g., online courses) to address the lack of appropriate specialty staff to provide adequate training to veterinary students to allow graduate veterinarians to protect welfare and relieve (mental) suffering, as required by the veterinary oath. Veterinary medicine, as with human medicine, has historically seen mental health as separate from physical health. However, humans have mental health practitioners while animal mental health is pretty much completely neglected. Veterinarians serve as animal dentists as well as animal doctors, and we need to take on the role of animal psychologists/psychiatrists, too. Not every vet needs to be a specialist in this area. As with other specialties, practitioners just need a basic education, and they can then refer patients to specialists. To some extent, the need for mental health care is addressed (primarily in dogs and cats) by DACVBs. DACAWs can also help with patient mental health/welfare. However, we need more such specialists, because there are not enough to provide the basic education of students in every veterinary school. Therefore, the COE needs to consider how innovation can address this need. Perhaps, an online course can be developed for students at schools that don't have appropriate specialists on staff. As was noted by Dr. Kipperman, the AVMA Oath now requires veterinarians to swear to devote their skills to "the protection of animal health and welfare", as well as "the prevention and relief of animal suffering." Without appropriate training, veterinarians do not have the skills to protect welfare or relieve mental suffering. As a profession, we need to use innovation to address that lack.

Veterinarians promise in their oath that they will take care of animal welfare, but no education on animal welfare and behavior is required for the accreditation of veterinary schools. The study of welfare and behavior must be part of the core curriculum. Behavior health problems are a leading cause of rehoming and euthanasia in small animals, and a public health problem (i.e. dog aggression), but they are not considered part of the fundamental curriculum. Large animal welfare is essential in farming, transmission of zoonoses, public health, food quality and safety... and is virtually ignored in the vet curriculum. Please revise the accreditation requirements accordingly.

I am so glad you are planning the veterinary curriculum to prepare our future veterinarians -- and appreciate that you are open to comments.

Veterinary behaviorists need to use their entire veterinary degree to properly assess and diagnose cases; medical conditions frequently have behavioral signs such as anxiety, fear of noises or isolation, house soiling or aggression as the sole signs of a medical condition. Veterinarians are asked more questions about behavior than many other topics, and it is essential that they know how to address these issues without causing more harm, for example for missing a medical contributor, failing to prescribe or adequately manage life changing behavior medications --- or as commonly happens, by sending them to a trainer they have not personally vetted, that they don't know how to vet properly, that makes what is often a physiological problem far worse with aversive based training. It is important that veterinary students receive foundational coursework taught by a behavior qualified veterinarian (eg. veterinary behaviorist or DVM with advanced scientific training in behavior (vs a trainer or other with no medical background), and whenever possible gain clinical experience in order to apply the knowledge effectively.

Many decision makers at Universities have not themselves had enough behavior education to understand its importance. If anyone working on strategic planning wishes to see for themselves how important clinical behavior knowledge is to veterinarians, you may contact me directly and I will do my best to arrange a clinical experience with a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists near you.

Thank you for your consideration!

DEI programming needs to be incorporated into all standards. This needs to be considered an operational necessity.