Staff shortages and being overworked are common themes at veterinary clinics in Western Canada. At the last few conferences I’ve attended, it seems to be the most prevalent topic of conversation.
Several factors are cited as causes for the shortage. We have at least anecdotally seen an increase in retirements of the baby-boomer generation of veterinarians during the past few years.
As well, many small animal and mixed animal vet clinics have experienced increased caseloads because many households purchased new pets during the pandemic, increasing the demand for veterinary care.
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A recent paper in the Canadian Veterinary Journal by Dr. Murray Jelinski and colleagues from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine provided concrete evidence of the veterinary shortage.
Jelinski and his co-authors surveyed veterinary practices between January and November of 2020. This was during the pandemic and as a result the findings might underestimate the increased demand for veterinarians that has occurred since that time.
Researchers asked veterinary clinics in Western Canada if they had hired veterinarians in the past year and if they were currently trying to hire veterinary staff. When extrapolating the results out to all four western provinces, they estimated that about 471 veterinary practices had hired a new veterinarian within the past 12 months, which represents about 35 percent of practices.
What was especially interesting was the time it took to fill those positions. Companion animal practices typically took three months to find a new veterinarian, food animal practices took eight months on average and mixed animal practices (which probably represent rural, small-town practices) took an average of 12 months to hire a new vet. That was a statistically significant difference and demonstrates how the shortage of veterinarians is felt at a greater level in small town mixed practices.
They also asked each of the clinics surveyed if they were trying to hire veterinary staff and how urgent their need was. At the time of the survey, 44 percent of the 526 practices that responded were looking to fill approximately 281 vacant positions.
When they asked about the urgency of the need to hire, there were some marked differences between practice types. Mixed animal practices reported the highest score of urgency in 41.4 percent of the practices trying to hire new vets. Food animal practices reported the highest level of urgency at a slightly lower percentage with 33.3 percent of practices and companion animal practices reported the highest level of urgency in 22.1 percent of the practices that were trying to hire veterinarians. Once again, this points to the significant challenges of hiring veterinary staff in mixed practices.
We’ve recently had news of expansion of class sizes at both of our veterinary colleges in Western Canada. The University of Calgary School of Veterinary Medicine plans to increase its class size over the next three years, while at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia recently increased their funding to add more seats. In addition, several seats at the WCVM have been dedicated to agricultural-focused seats hoping to address the shortage of veterinarians in rural Western Canada.
This is welcome news for the veterinary profession and the livestock industry. It may help to alleviate some of the current shortage. However, it will take at least four to five years before this increase in new graduates will be ready to practice. In the meantime, many veterinary clinics are struggling to keep up with an increased case load without burning out their staff.
The shortage is much greater than just a lack of veterinarians. It extends to veterinary technicians and other staff. It certainly is a challenging time for rural, mixed practices especially.
So be kind to the staff at your local veterinary clinic. They are often doing their best with less than adequate human resources.
John Campbell is a professor in the department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine.
