Is there a veterinarian shortage in rural animal practice?

The US economy is suffering, this is leading to problems and saturation of the job market for recent graduates (from all types of educational background). With the rise in tuition, and decrease in available jobs, it is a scary place for anyone pursuing a college education these days, let alone financing one! 

According to the American Association of Bovine Practitioners' (AABP) Ad Hoc Committee, there is no shortage of veterinarians in rural food-supply veterinary practice! I was shocked to hear of this report, because for years, the AVMA and other veterinary organizations have stated the growing need for food animal veterinarians.

In an email from one of my colleagues, they say, " I can tell you from personal experience that jobs are very tough to find.  The class of 2011 is all but graduated, yet I would estimate that only about 50% of those who are food animal track have secured employment-and its not for lack of trying."

Their opinion is reflected in the DVM360 news article (link below): 

"In fact, creating an 'over supply' of food supply veterinarians will lead to widespread unemployment or underemployment of food-supply private practitioners and will have a significant detrimental effect on salaries for all veterinarians. 

We do not want to flood the rural practice market," Navarre says. "It will have an impact on the entire veterinary job market. If graduates can't find jobs in those areas, they are going to be competing with other students. And, we need to ask ourselves, do we really need to increase the overall number of veterinarians in general -- not just rural practitioners?"  

This is an emerging issue and a hot topic among veterinary professionals. If veterinary schools increase veterinary school class sizes, will they flood the job market with new graduates? Another issue, is their thought of increasing the amount of out of state applicants accepted to veterinary schools, this is an even more absurd idea to solve their current budget crisis. Out of state tuition is very expensive and may bring the school more revenue, but may it lead those students to go bankrupt and on top of that also be "job-less"? We really need to consider our plan for this downfall in the economy and think of other ways to solve our economic issues.  

Links to More Information:

http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veterinary+news/Report-Rural-vet-shortage-exaggerated/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/724093?contextCategoryId=47831


http://www.aabp.org/

http://www.avma.org/fsvm/fsvmc/default.asp

http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=18590 

http://www.free-online-veterinarian-advice.com/new-veterinarians-face-tough-job-market.html