Veterinarians Still in High Demand; Legislature Says So What?

AP runs a story on jobs that are still hot in the recession. Making the list: veterinarians:

"There's a tremendous demand" for veterinarians, particularly to serve livestock growers in rural areas, said Dr. Ron DeHaven, chief executive officer of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The government is also short of veterinarians needed to inspect slaughterhouses and undertake other food safety measures, he said. The Labor Department projects that the number of veterinary jobs will grow by 35 percent by 2016, DeHaven said [Christopher S. Rugaber, "Even in a Recession, Some Companies Are Hiring," AP via Yahoo News, 2009.03.10].

Now you'd think a big agriculture state like South Dakota, where the veterinarian shortage is particularly acute, would have the foresight to ride this job market wave and create programs that would help fill that demand.

Alas, our State Legislature is apparently as short of foresight as rural South Dakota will remain of animal doctors. HB 1248, which would have authorized the construction of a veterinary school at SDSU, died in committee (even Representative Larry Tidemann of Brookings voted against it). HB 1181 didn't go nearly as far to address the veterinarian shortage: it simply proposed a loan repayment program for up to three veterinarians a year. It received a pretty strong affirmation from the House, only to be shot down 7–1 by Senate State Affairs (District 8's Russell Olson voted the wrong way here... as did Abdallah, Gray, Heidepriem, Knudson, Turbak Berry, and Dempster).

HB 1248 proposed to spend $30 million over the next seven years. I can understand legislators' squeamishness over approving a big-ticket item like that during a budget crunch, but investing in a new veterinary school would have produced a slam-dunk return for Brookings and the whole state. The expense of HB 1181 was minuscule and would have served small communities well.

On both bills, our Legislature demonstrated a lack of vision. We have missed a chance to strengthen South Dakota agriculture and cash in on a high-demand job area.

Legislature Working on Veterinarian Loan Forgiveness; Now How About Vet School?

A bill to establish a loan repayment program for large-animal veterinarians is working its way through the House. HB 1181 made it through the House Education committee Wednesday on an easy 14–0 vote, including the aye of our own Rep. Mitch Fargen, a co-sponsor of the bill. (Keep up the good work, Mitch!)

This bill is a good idea. It addresses the shortage of rural vets in South Dakota, which, as we discussed here back in November, is compounded by high student loan debt. To be eligible for money under the program, the vet needs to work in a community smaller than 15,000 people (no limit on number of cattle or sheep, though).

Unfortunately, the bill caps participation in the loan repayment program to three vets at a time. O.K., that covers Bison, Lemmon, and Faith; how about all the other communities having trouble getting cow docs?

Enter HB 1248, introduced by Fargen's District 8 counterpart Rep. Gerry Lange. HB 1248, backed by a lot of the same folks who have signed on to HB 1181, would authorize $30 million for the construction of a college of veterinary medicine on the SDSU campus by June 30, 2016. Train those vets here, benefit from their services during their internships, and have first crack at recuriting them upon graduation. Now that's big thinking!

(Not to mention, as Mayor Munsterman and the SDSU folks will happily tell you, every dollar in tuition turns over seven times in the community. Total ballparking, but 50 students paying $100K each over four years... golly gee, that's $35 million in local economic activity.)

Helping veterinarians repay their burdensome loans is a good start. Establishing our own veterinary school to work in conjunction with our already outstanding animal science program at SDSU would be a spectacular long-term investment in South Dakota's agricultural economy.

The vet school bill goes to House Appropriations at 8 a.m. Friday. Reps. Putnam, Tidemann, et al., think big, and moooove HB 1248 to the House!

Vet Debt: Student Loan Forgiveness Could Ease Rural Veterinarian Shortage

It 's hard enough finding a doctor in rural South Dakota (that free market thingy is working so gosh-darn well for us). Apparently South Dakota's horses, cows, and other big critters have fewer health care choices as well: Chuck Clement reports in Friday's Madison Daily Leader that rural South Dakota has a worsening veterinarian shortage.

If you ride your horse to work in Sioux Falls or Rapid City, don't worry: apparently 39% of our vet's offices and 42% of vet-science workers are based in those two cities. But out in the small towns, our vets are getting older, and the vet schools aren't getting a lot of applicants to fill the pipeline.

Now I haven't looked into whether a universal single-payer not-for-profit coverage system would work the wonders on animal health care that it would for people health care. But Clement's article does point toward one parallel between the veterinarian and doctor shortages in rural South Dakota: both stem in part from high student debt. Young doctors graduate with $150K–$250K in debt; young vets graduate with an average debt of "only" $107K, but starting salaries are also a lot less for vets than for docs. When med or vet students graduate with that much debt, they can't afford to take a realtively low-paying job in Arlington or Bison, not if they want to get free and clear of that starting debt so they can buy a house and start a family.

I guess we could let the free market decide that 64 out of South Dakota's 66 counties just aren't worth having veterinarians or doctors. Or we could take some of that bailout money and use it to stimulate the rural economy.

How about this: declare medical and veterinary work to be national service. Fund an expansion of veterinary and medical schools at universities in rural areas (note to my neighbor Gerry Lange: let's see that bill of yours for a vet school at SDSU on January's agenda!). Forgive new vets' and docs' student debt, or at least give them zero-interest loans. Let's keep the rural economy healthy!