![]() ![]() Jennifer Serling, president-elect of the Association of Veterinary Technician Educators, tells CNN that 35% of all vet techs eventually “burn out,” while Cushing says that half of them leave the profession within five years. But for veterinary technicians, the promise of an enriching career is not as apparent, despite only requiring two years of schooling, and even less in some states. ![]() Something’s gotta give, right?”Īndrew Maccabe, CEO of the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, says that applications to graduate veterinary medicine programs increased by 19% this past cycle compared to the previous year. “Instead of having your average emergency shift, one patient every half-hour, you now have four every hour you’re trying to deliver care to. “(You go from) not having enough prior – veterinarians and technicians – to even worse during the pandemic, where everyone else has to work harder and more,” he says. It also means the shortage of veterinarians and vet techs has led to a need to stop taking new clients and squeezing others in. Karl Jandrey, associate dean for Admissions and Student Programs at the University of California, Davis, who also practices as an emergency critical care specialist, says that people working from home means they’re seeing problems with their pets that they wouldn’t have normally notice, leading to more calls with concern. That number has remained about the same not because fewer people are trying to see their veterinarians rather, it’s because there aren’t enough veterinarians to meet client demand. “While the amount of time it takes to see each patient has increased, total veterinary visits in the United States do not appear to have gone up – according to national data compiled by the AVMA and VetSuccess, the number of veterinary visits in the United States was about the same in 2020 as compared with 2019.” “This has also resulted in an increase in client wait times – our current data indicate an average 20-minute wait in 2020, up from 11 minutes in 2019,” Kratt says. Douglas Kratt, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association, tells CNN that a recent AVMA survey found that the average number of patients a veterinarian saw per hour was 25% lower in 2020 than in prior years, which means clients are waiting longer before their animals can be seen. While an increase in pet adoptions is generally a good thing, it also means that veterinarians and vet techs have to see more patients, field more calls from pet owners, which sometimes result in delayed visits and care. “People who are into it, they know how much fun it is and want to have a playmate for their pet when they go back to work.” “Millennials, last year where they had or got one dog, they got two or had one dog and thought a cat might be fun,” he says. Pet adoption program expands to help seniors keep pets amid the pandemic Joan Reidy adopted a 2-year-old dog from her local shelter and named her Babygirl. Because baby boomers are adopting fewer pets as they grow older, millennials and Gen Z adults now make up half of all pet owners, he says. Millennials and Gen Zers are also adopting pets at higher rates than their predecessors, says Mark Cushing, a founding partner and the CEO of the Animal Policy Group. And an ASPCA survey released in May 2021 shows that 90% of dogs and 85% of cats adopted during the pandemic were kept by their owners. Inquiries about pet adoptions increased 70% between March 2020 and March 2021, according to spokeswoman Lorie Westhoff. Rise in adoptions strain veterinary clinics That holiday season in 2020, she realized she’d had enough, and is now a veterinary assistant instructor at the Pima Medical Institute.Īpproximately half of all vet techs burn out of the profession within their first five years and 35% of them burn out altogether. And that was my, ‘I’m kind of done with this’ day. It was my first Christmas working emergency and it also happened (during) the pandemic and I had only discharged one patient that day. “There were a couple of days where everything was dying,” she says. The vet tech says she “had more anxiety and depression than joy from the job,” even after changing clinics. The effects of the pandemic took a toll on Vollbracht. Her work was already grueling before the Covid-19 pandemic.īut the pandemic sparked a dramatic increase in pet adoptions, “Covid puppies and kittens,” as Vollbracht calls them, as well as a rise in inquiries about pet care, which greatly increased the workload.Īlso, the mandatory lockdowns forced many people out of work, which meant some owners could no longer afford care for their pets, and in some cases, had to surrender or euthanize them. Madison Vollbracht says she burned out after five years working as a veterinary technician. ![]()
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