AASV Participant-Led, Early-Career Swine Veterinarian Development Program

The goal of the AASV Participant-Led Early-Career Swine Veterinarian Development Program, funded by the USDA-NIFA Veterinary Services Grant Program (VSGP) is to create a practitioner-led, early-career swine veterinarian development program to provide participants with resources needed to encourage and ensure successful, lifelong careers as swine veterinarians and to cultivate new leaders in swine veterinary medicine.

Participants for the 2022-2025 program were selected in the fall of 2022.
We hope to offer this program again in the future. If interested in participating, please check back in fall 2025.

2022-2025 Program

News

• November 2024: Early-career swine vets explore economics, nutrition, NBAF, and more
• Jan 2024: Early-career veterinarians met in September and November
• July 2023: First meeting of the AASV Early-Career Development Program
• April 2023: Early-career swine vet program under way; participants announced

Eligibility

To be eligible to participate, you must:

• Be a current AASV member
• Be actively engaged in swine veterinary practice – includes those overseeing veterinary care for pigs in an integrated production setting (>50% of professional time dedicated to swine preferred)
• Have a primary practice area within the United States
• Have at least 1 year but no more than 5 years of experience.

Preference will be given to applicants who are current or previous recipients of a VMLRP award or who serve in a designated veterinary shortage area. See https://www.nifa.usda.gov/vmlrp-map for shortage areas. If all other eligibility criteria are met, participants will be selected by date of application submission.

Qualified applicants expressing interest in the class after capacity is met will be placed on a waitlist and will be the first selected if a seat opens.

Program and Timeline

AASV will provide information and resources that support early career swine veterinarians, as identified by the program participants.

This will consist of:

• One virtual orientation in December 2022.
• Six in-person educational modules held quarterly in a geographically central location between April 2023 and December 2024 (typically Thursday noon to Friday noon). Participants will select topics of most importance and significance for inclusion in the curriculum, either from a list of technical and professional development topics provided by AASV or self-identified by participants during the virtual orientation. This is truly a unique, participant-led program!
  1. April 5-6, 2023 – Ames, Iowa – Insights Communication Training
  2. September 19-20, 2023 – Minneapolis, Minnesota – “Risk Management” Professional Ag Marketing
  3. November 16-17, 2023 – Raleigh, North Carolina -“Ventilation” Billy Flowers and Suzanne Leonard
  4. February 23, 2024 – Nashville, Tennessee -“Economic Problem Solving Tools for Business and Personal Financial Decisions” Derald Holtkamp
  5. September 5-6, 2024 – Manhattan, Kansas – Tour of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility; “Nutrition and Non-infectious Disease Management” Kansas State University swine nutrition team Drs. Jordan Gebhardt, Robert Goodband, Mike Tokach, and Katelyn Gaffield
  6. January 21-22, 2025 – Champaign, Illinois – Topic TBD
• One half-day early-career focused pre-conference seminar, Early Career Development Program: Be the pig’s champion with effective herd visits, held Sunday, March 2, at the 2025 AASV Annual Meeting. All annual meeting attendees are eligible to register by paying the seminar fee.

Cost

This program is free to the selected participants. Participants attending modules in person will receive a $500 stipend per module to offset travel, lodging, and any other costs associated with participation in this program. Afternoon and evening meals are provided on day 1 of the module (modules 1-6) and morning meal on day 2 of the module (modules 1-5).

Agreement

If selected, participants agree to:

• Attend each module/conference in-person unless extreme circumstance prohibit attendance
• Complete program evaluations and assessments
• Complete all required reports to the program directors, Early Career Committee, AASV Board of Directors, USDA-NIFA, or others

USDA-NIFA Veterinary Services Grant Program

The goals of the USDA-NIFA Veterinary Services Grant Program (VSGP) are to support food animal veterinary medicine through Education, Extension, and Training funds for accredited schools and organizations and through Rural Practice Enhancement funds for veterinary clinics that provide services in veterinary shortage situation areas. This program is designed to support education and extension activities that will enable veterinarians, veterinary students, and veterinary technicians to gain specialized food animal skills and practices. The 2014 Farm Bill authorized the establishment of the VSGP as a companion to the Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program to incentivize service in veterinary shortage situations. Ultimately, the VSGP will bolster the capacity of private veterinary practitioners to provide food animal medicine in rural veterinarian shortage locations.