CRISIS IN VETERINARY MEDICAL EDUCATION

The increase in basic knowledge has created a crisis in professional education that our rapid pace society has to address; I am mainly concerned with veterinary medical education. The current pre-veterinary, professional veterinary school followed by graduate school for years has been showing signs of tearing at the seams all due to too much to teach and no time to teach it. The simple answer of extending the “time in school” is an economically unreal solution. Doubling up of programs, such as PhD plus DVM, has also proved to be a failure.

By their entrance requirements, veterinary schools have caused feeder colleges to designed pre-veterinary medicine programs from a minimum of three years to four years and sometime extended to a Masters Degree. Prospective veterinary students evaluate preparatory programs by the success of applicants from that program to veterinary professional school. Because pre-veterinary program administrators know that and because grade point average drives entrance to veterinary college, there is a tendency toward grade inflation and a lowering of difficulty of required course material. Of course, it is not blatant and is only recognizable over time.

Profession veterinary medical education is traditionally four years: two years as basic science courses and two years in clinical science courses. Because of complex college political issues and economics there has been a shift in requirements for college professor qualifications. In the past, all professors in the veterinary colleges were veterinarians and all professors in pre-veterinary programs were basic scientists or in liberal arts. The expansion of basic science knowledge, which reflected in the time it took to teach the subjects, slowly pushed the liberal arts aside. In addition, the level of expertise need to teach basic sciences in the professional school grew which means veterinarian were hard pressed to qualify.  First, the DVM degree expanded to a DVM-PhD degree with the doctorate degree in specific basic sciences: microbiology, nutrition, embryology, physiological chemistry, electron-microscopic anatomy, immunology, etc. The addition of a PhD to a DVM degree added a minimum of three more school years.

The response was as might be expected. Students soon recognized that could obtain a bachelor’s degree (BS) in the basic science followed by PhD degree in a minimum of four less years than a DVM-PhD degree. Veterinary college administrators recognized that they could hire a BS-PhD for less money than a DVM-PhD to teach. In addition, veterinarians recognized that they could easily compete intellectually but not economical with people holding bachelor degrees in PhD programs. This led to a seismic shift in postgraduate education. Postgraduate education shifted from PhD programs to residency programs.

A political shift modified the academic shift. Because of teaching ratios, clinicians and surgeons outnumber basic scientists in colleges of veterinary medicine yet basic scientists controlled the vote in their departments. There were a number of department realignments in various colleges around the country but the “tyranny of the majority” eroded the power of basic scientist in the colleges. This resulted in a shift away from teaching basic science as such and putting that responsibility in to hands of residency program directors. The teaching of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology of the specific organs involved in the residency:  heart, kidney, GI tract, or eye for example, moved from the basic sciences and allotted to the various residency programs.

The problem of discipline and species specialization of programs has been addressed but has yet to be resolved. We have dog, cat, horse, cow, pig, sheep and goat; we have surgeons, cardiologists, ophthalmologist, and dermatologists with each wanting their own space, and of course, their own budget.  

Some quotable quotes related to this are: “I learned everything I have to know about veterinary medicine in my clinic courses”. A senior clinical professor who worked in a college teaching hospital made this statement in a faculty meeting. Further a veterinary cardiologist told me, “Pathologists don’t know how to examine a heart; therefore, I do all my own necropsies.”

States are cutting taxes and allotting less and less operating money to the colleges of veterinary medicine. College administrators are increasing student tuition to pay for their education. Students are graduating with more and more debt. The amount of debt directly relates to time in school.

There is a crisis but we have to recognize it for what it is. We have more and more to teach, with less and less time to teach it, and we are becoming less and less able to afford what we must do—teach quality veterinary medicine and surgery. We can continue as we are and allow random haphazard circumstances to change our profession or we can actively engage in finding the best solution. 

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