Careers in Veterinary Medicine
Charletta
Begay and classmate, Dawn, carry out a ram breeding
soundness exam.
“The field of
veterinary medicine is bigger than I ever imagined,”
says Christina
Swindall,
Gabrielino, DVM. “You can practice as a dog and cat vet
or a horse vet or a dairy vet. You can work for
companies that make animal food or pharmaceuticals or
surgical supplies or veterinary office supplies. You can
work in a zoo or do wild life conservation, even
internationally. You can work in aquaculture, raising
fish for consumption. You can work with food animals,
such as chickens and turkeys. You can be involved with
the regulations for shipping food in and out of state.
You can work on reservations and get help with your
student loans by providing low cost care.”
Animals and people have an enormous impact on each other.
Veterinarians are advocates for animals, and they educate
people about ways to safeguard the health of animals.
Veterinarians are also concerned about the health and
safety of people. For example, working with physicians and
scientists, veterinarians are addressing zoonoses -
diseases that primarily affect animals but incidentally
affect humans. The AIDS, SARS, avian influenza viruses and
other infectious agents carried by animals have led to new
and emerging human diseases.
Career Options
The field of
veterinary medicine is evolving and expanding with the
changing needs of society as well as new knowledge and
technology. The following are some of the current career
options.
Clinical Practice Almost 70% of
veterinarians care for animals in private or corporate
practices. More than half of these clinicians work mainly
with small animals, such as dogs, cats, birds, reptiles,
rabbits and other animals that can be kept as pets. Some
veterinarians have a mixed practice where, in addition to
seeing pets (companion animals), they also care for such
animals as pigs, goats, and sheep. A smaller number of
veterinarians work with large animals, such as cows and
horses.
Veterinarians diagnosis animals’ health problems, give
needed vaccinations and medications, treat and dress
wounds, set fractures, and perform surgery and assist with
deliveries when necessary. Like their physician
counterparts, veterinarians use stethoscopes, radiographic
and ultrasound equipment, surgical instruments and other
tools. Veterinarians also educate people who own and/or
have responsibility for the care of animals.
Veterinarians treat most animals in clinics and hospitals.
Vets who take care of large animals typically carry their
equipment in their trucks or cars and drive to the farms or
ranches where the animals are housed. Some veterinarians
take mobile clinics to reservations and rural areas to
provide care for dogs, cats and other animals.
Education
A
few veterinarians serve as faculty members in veterinary
colleges and schools. Some also provide continuing
education to practicing veterinarians. Most faculty members
also conduct research and do community work.
Research
Veterinarians
do research in such places as colleges and universities,
industry, and governmental agencies. Most focus on new ways
to prevent and treat animal and human health problems.
Working with scientists and physicians, veterinarians have
contributed to such successes as solving the mystery of
botulism and developing techniques for doing hip and knee
joint replacement and for doing organ transplants.
Public
Health Veterinarians
in public health, such as Roberta
Duhaime, Kahnawake
Mohawk, DVM, and Dwayne
Jarman, Grand
Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, DVM, MPH,
work in areas where public health and veterinary
medicine overlap. The areas of overlap include
environmental health, food security, food borne
diseases, zoonotic diseases, and bioterrorism.
Public health veterinarians working in environmental health
study the effects of pesticides, industrial pollutants, and
other contaminants on animals and people. Veterinarians
serve as epidemiologists in city, county, state, and
federal agencies investigating animal and human disease
outbreaks such as food-borne illnesses, influenza, rabies,
Lyme disease, and West Nile viral encephalitis. At the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration, veterinarians help evaluate
the safety and efficacy of medicines and food additives.
Veterinarians also help ensure the safety of food
processing plants, restaurants, and water supplies.
Veterinarians involved in homeland security help to protect
the health and safety of animals and people by developing
antiterrorism procedures and protocols. Public health
veterinarians are also employed in colleges and
universities, the food industry, the military and
international public health organizations.
Need for More Vets
In July, 2007 Dr. Greg Hammer, the newly elected president
of the American Veterinary Medical Association, said that
there is a critical shortage of veterinarians working in
public health practice, who can ensure food safety, combat
bio-terrorism and oversee environmental health and
regulatory medicine. He warned, "At a time when more and
more emerging disease is zoonotic and the potential for
bio-terrorism and food safety disasters are increasing, our
capability to respond is decreasing."
Hammer thinks that the profession needs to include more
minorities, and he's concerned about the shortage of
veterinarians working in large animal programs involving
food production. In part, he says that this might be due to
the fact that many of the veterinarian students and young
graduates have not been raised in or near farms. Unlike the
older generation of vets, most students come to veterinary
school with little or no knowledge of large animals.
Hammer says that there has been a decrease in the number of
students applying to colleges of veterinary medicine. Many
of the current vet students plan to care for companion
animals.
Need
for American Indians and Alaska Natives in Veterinary
Medicine
Dr. Duhaime, who is a veterinary medical officer with the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says, "I’d like to
see more Indian people in my agency. A lot of the
prophecies say that now is the time to share Native wisdom.
Indian people can enhance the ability to look at things in
a different way. Native American values are important to
all. An example would be when a Native person hunts deer
for food there is a strong connection with that animal, and
the animal is to be thanked for its life. Currently in
American slaughter houses we do not have this same sort of
feeling of thankfulness. Although much work has been done,
much more is needed to enhance respect for the domestic
animals that we eat.
Duhaime says
that many reservations lack money to pay veterinarians, but
veterinarians may be able to create a job doing such things
as providing some clinical medicine, testing reservation
dogs and other animals, and helping to bring back wild
life.
Parts
of this article were originally published in the Autumn
2002 issue of
Winds of Change. (The cover
artist is Virginia Stroud, United Keetoowah Bank of
Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.)