I sincerely appreciate and thank you for the opportunity to serve the association that has given me so much. It is an amazing time to be involved in agriculture, animal care, and veterinary medicine with new influences, animal care technologies, and roles for the animals we treat in our society. A common characteristic of the AASV membership seems to be that many are adept problem solvers. While no one really confesses to wanting more problems, there are many of us that thrive on identifying and digging into problems large and small.
That is fortunate because among all the reasons to be optimistic about the future of our profession, there are a few significant problems to tackle. First, our education system is evolving, and we are not responding fast enough to changes that will reduce the likelihood of student exposure to swine medicine as a career option or limit access to the level of training that most entry-level swine veterinary jobs require. As an organization, we must engage and drive standards for swine medicine training. If we do not, swine medicine education will continue to erode and disappear.
Second, the “keep your head down”, work hard with humility, don’t rock the boat, introverted characteristics that seem to be selected for in the veterinary training pipeline tend to work against proactively engaging society and promoting our value at protecting public health. The absence of understanding or appreciation of the value of highly trained, board-tested, legislatively regulated, science-based veterinarians has allowed the public’s relationship with us to become mostly transactional. This change in relationship has given rise to movements to establish midlevel paraprofessionals who are held to less rigorous training standards and professional oversight.
Third, swine medicine has moved from being one of the highest compensated veterinary specialties to nearly the lowest compensated veterinary specialty over the past 20 years. Job satisfaction and employment decisions are complex and multifactorial, but compensation is certainly a very important piece of those decisions. Does this shift accurately reflect our actual value, our perceived value, or our reluctance to press the issue?
One thing I have learned as a team member inside and outside of veterinary medicine is that problem solvers, especially successful ones, are good at finding and pointing out problems! To people that are not energized by problem solving, this characteristic can very easily be viewed as critical or negative and can demotivate team members and allies that might help us. More important than the specific problems I have mentioned are how, and who, we engage in the process. It is easy to identify challenges, but it takes much more investment and participation to find solutions. For the challenges I have outlined, we must be involved and engaged in areas, and with groups, that we historically have not. Engaging the social scientists to understand career decisions, challenging the educational accreditation authorities to facilitate swine clinical training, and proactively participating in grassroots educational programs that emphasize the role of swine veterinarians will be required. It might be uncomfortable, but it will be transformative.
Over the years, swine medicine and swine veterinarians have reinvented themselves through many challenges and transformations. I cannot think of a better group than AASV to embark with on the journey ahead!
Locke Karriker, DVM, MSc, DACVPM
AASV President-Elect