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Why aren't students choosing farm animal practice and what can be done about it?
Abstract
The profession faces a recruitment and retention problem, whilst at the same time increasing numbers of students aren't selecting careers within farm animal practice. Recent research from universities and the student Farm Animal Veterinary Society have considered causes and barriers. More recent movements by several farm vets and veterinary associations have sought to highlight farm vets without ‘traditional’ farm vet backgrounds. This article considers the FAVS report (Owen, 2023) alongside other literature and research into potential barriers to students entering farm animal practice, whilst the panel discussions provides the views of experienced veterinary surgeons working in the farm sector as to what practitioners, and the wider profession can do to increase the number of students considering and choosing careers in farm animal practice.
It has been widely reported for several years that the veterinary profession is in the middle of a recruitment and retention crisis (Gardiner, 2020; Hagen et al, 2020; RCVS, 2022). This has been felt widely within farm animal practice with attracting and retaining experienced farm vets increasingly challenging (Allcock, 2016; Loeb, 2021).
In the last ten years new veterinary schools have opened at five UK universities (Surrey, Harper-Keele, Central Lancashire, Aberystwyth and SRUC), almost doubling the number of universities offering undergraduate training in veterinary science. While some pose that opening new veterinary schools will alone solve the workforce shortages, others disagree and see increased graduates per year as only one small part of the solution, as generating more newly graduated staff will only further increase the burden of support on the more experienced colleagues who do remain in clinical practice. Furthermore, a 10.9% decrease in applicants to the UK veterinary schools has been reported this year (Webb, 2023).
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