BY: SAMANTHA BARTLETT, DVM
Over the past ten years, the demand for criticalists has increased while the supply has been unable to keep up. Hospitals offering 24 hours emergency services are often short-staffed, with some having to curtail after-hours services completely. It has become such an issue that the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society (VECCS) and the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care (ACVECC) have come together to develop a task force to identify underlying issues and investigate strategies to encourage more veterinarians to enter emergency medicine as well as to keep up retention numbers. It is not just the demand for criticalists that fall short, hospitals are also having a hard time locating non-specialized emergency veterinarians for their programs.
It is estimated about half of the available job listings for emergency veterinarians go unfilled. Many hospitals are hiring 2nd year residents, knowing they will be unavailable to work for over a year. While the number of emergency veterinarians is rising, according to the AVMA Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook, it is still way behind the demand for their services. The shortage is even more severe in smaller towns where salaries may not be as competitive as large cities with high volume.
Several reasons have been offered for the shortage of emergency veterinarians. The intimidation factor may be keeping young, inexperienced veterinarians out of the field. In response, some larger hospitals are developing training programs to help these young veterinarians to gain confidence and skills to work emergency and critical care.
Younger veterinarians are prioritizing work-life balance which may be a large factor in their career choices. Traditionally, emergency medicine requires long hours away from family and friends. Some older veterinarians working overnight shifts are putting in 60 hours a week. These long hours coupled with heavy case loads from increased demand and short-staffing are causing burnout among established ER veterinarians.
To counter these concerns and entice veterinarians into emergency and critical care, the VECCS and ACVECC are working to develop an advanced certification program for ER doctors and a mentoring program for new graduates that want to go straight into emergency medicine without residency training. Private companies, like Blue Pearl, are also trying to provide training opportunities. Blue Peal offers a one-year paid training program in emergency medicine for new grads in return for 3 years of employment at the company.
The task force is also surveying emergency veterinarians on pay, hours and volume as well as opinions on what can change. The task force is hoping this information will give them more information to enable them to provide more support to the industry. The annual International Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Symposium has seen a 70% growth in attendees over the past eight years with just over 1000 attendees participating in the symposium’s job fair this year.
