Recipient Organization
STERNER VETERINARY CLINIC P.C.
575 APPLE TREE DR
IONIA,MI 48846
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Sterner Veterinary Clinic has served the agricultural community of rural Michigan for over 75 years. During that time, we have successfully ensured the success of Michigan cattle producers and Michigan livestock veterinarians. Expanding into increasingly distant territories for a veterinarian can lead to personal hardships related to increased obligations while on call and diminishing financial returns for the work done for "small" producers. Finding a way to increase the availability of our veterinarians on staff to sustainably serve new clints with limited veterinary access is the goal of this grant funding opportunity.First, we want to hire a mobile, on-farm technician that is able to take on some routine care procedures for livestock and allow the veterinarians to attend to new clients in the underserved areas. This technician needs to be able to travel to farms independently of the doctor they are assisting. Utilizing the technician to provide employee training on farm with veterinary established curriculum will further increase the availability of licensed practitioners to service new clients.Next, acquiring mobile facilities to make routine cattle restraint and local group haul-in clinics feasible are paramount to serving areas with limited access to veterinary services. Producer meetings that teach people how to take care of common health issues will increase the likelihood cattle needing assistance will be treated faster and decrease the likelihood small producers will need to call for emergency services. Our technician will be able to set up, assist, and clean the mobile equipment giving the veterinarians time to attend to more clients. Proper cattle handling facilities are very expensive and outside the scope for smaller producers to acquire. Having mobile facilities readily available for use along with a trained technician to set it up for a reasonable fee will increase producer access and use. Proper facilities increases doctor efficiency and decreases the risk of injury to both humans and animals.Finally, providing a paid summer internship for prospective high school students will identify talented young people likely to succeed in this career. Positive experiences in rural veterinary practice will generate a pipeline of new veterinarians to replace retiring doctors and provide continuity of care for underserved areas.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
There are four main objectives Sterner Veterinary Clinic plans to achieve. The first is to hire a full-time technician to increase doctor availability for new clients by performing tasks on farms currently being done by veterinarians. These tasks include diagnostic sample collection, disbudding calves, vaccinations, dairy farm management data collection, and farm employee training for management practices using veterinary developed curriculum. Increasing doctor availability allows for more new clients to be seen in a day. The second objective initiates producer outreach meeting to help promote our availability to provide service and teach basics of husbandry, handling, and emergency medical care. In order for underserved producers to be able to utilize our services, they need to know we are available. Also, helping producers learn how to handle general care on their own should increase the speed where sick animals are identified and treated along with reducing the burden on our current veterinarians to provide emergency services. The third objective will be to purchase equipment to facilitate safe handling and efficient throughput of beef cattle for preventative health care procedures. Good equipment is very expensive and outside the financial scope of small producers. Having equipment readily available will encourage preventative medicine practices. The mobile facility can also be set up remotely for haul-in processing days for producers with only a few animals. The final objective recruits talented young people for the industry by creating a paid summer externship before college.
Project Methods
The methodolgy to achive the goals of this grant's initiative are to follow. First, identify and hire an on-farm qualified technician that will decrease the time needed for a veterinarian to perform certain procedures while on farm. Increasing a veterinarian's time to dedicate to new clients in uncerserved areas is critical. Our on farm technician is also available to set up mobile facilities acquired through this grant's resources to maximize the timeour veterinary staff has to provide preventative help to the bovine community.Second, to initiate contact with producers inthe underserved counties bordering our current location.Producer meetings to meet, identify, and schedule new clients is paramaount to developing agricultural relatioships. Presenting our mobile and preventative services to producers should solidiy new relationshijps that will satisfy the required need fora VCPR.Third, acquiring appropriate cattle handling facilites will allow Sterner Veterinary Clinic to provide preventative medicine servieces like preganacy diagnosis, vaccination, and fertility examinations to underserved producers. First, mobile facilities will be researched and contracted in the first year. Second, once the facilites are purchased, current producers will be notified via billing methods and new clients will be made aware via producer outreach meetings.Our on-farm technician will be deployed to set up, assist, and clean the mobile facility allowing the doctors time to move on to other calls.Finally, the first year will allow us to develop an application for a paid summer internship and identify faculty resources in regional high schools to funnel potential candidates into the program. Student applications and interviews will allow us to choose students we feel will most likely be successful within rural veterinary practice and allow them the opportunity to explore this career.