Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
Professional veterinarian organizations across the nation are focusing on the challenge of recruitment and retention of professionals due to many factors, the main reasons being identified as 1. work-life balance and 2. lack of professional support. These factors are hitting large animal medicine harder as fewer veterinarians are graduating with the intent to practice food animal medicine. According to the USDA, in 2023 the shortage of food animal veterinarians had reached an all-time high.In Gainesville, Florida, a group of women are combating this issue by supporting each other in these challenges by stretching the model of"solo mobile practice". With cooperation and innovation, quality-of-life issues have improved, but the current exigency is unsustainable. The strain has grown as other local clinicians have discontinuedproviding emergency care to their own patients leading to an increase in "non-client" emergencies. The FL-241 area has been identified specifically as lacking in emergency food animal care.Hoofand Horn Veterinary and Acupuncture Services (H&HVS) proposes this Emergency Personnel Project (EPP) supporting shortage region FL-241 will grow food animal coverage and decrease animal suffering.H&HVS EPP's goal is to create a self-sustaining emergencylarge animal veterinary service. Thiswill result in better support of our local underserved community and provide a model for more sustainable large animal practice. We will reach these goals by providing emergency care to cows, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, llamas and alpacas within the FL-241 region while monitoring the number of animals impacted and cost of the program. We will then share this information with other practitioners and professional organization in hopes of catalyzing change within the large animal veterinary profession. H&HVS EPP will immediately affect the quality of life of animals and producers within our shortage region and plan to affect agriculture as a whole by creating a more sustainable model for food animal veterinary medicine.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Hoof & Horn Veterinary and Acupuncture Services (H&HVS) is a woman-owned mobile large animal veterinary service. H&HVS focuses on education, preventative medicine and emergency services to support the welfare of animals and clients in the agricultural community. Veterinarian and project director, Dr. Jill Barabas, has a fierce commitment to prevent animal suffering and improve public health through preventative care and education to farms in the FL-241 shortage region. She is supported by her emergency cooperative which is composed of three other women owned mobile large animal practices. This grant will provide much needed increase in emergency coverage in the FL-241 by providing consistent weekend emergency services to both client and non-client patients. H&HVS is utilizing funds to purchase a vehicle and help underwrite the salary of dedicated emergency staff for three years.Over 10 years the FL-241 area has lost six practices who provided consistent emergency coverage. The shortage of large animal veterinarians nationally has been directly tied to unsustainable working weeks due to constantemergency coverage. Veterinarians are leaving the field and there are not being replaced as fewer veterinarians choose to enter large animal practice.In the past three years University of Florida(UF) has seen an increase of emergencies that could have been treated in the field if alternative resources were available. This results in significant cost for producers.FL-241 is described as having increased density of small ruminant herds and recognizes the community outcry for better emergency coverage. H&HVS' goal is to fill the underserved emergency coverage need in FL-241 while promoting sustainability of local practices. Our secondary goal is to share this model with the veterinary industry in hopes of supporting the large animal veterinary community at large.1. Provide Large Animal Veterinary Emergency Coverage in the FL-2412. Support the Local Veterinarians within FL-2413. Provide a model for Emergency Coverage that could be utilized by other areasresulting in more recruitment and retention of Large Animal Veterinarians
Project Methods
The project will be initiated by hiring 1-2 veterinarians to provide emergency veterinary coverage in the FL-241 region. The pratitioner(s)will initially share the current practice vehicle until an additional vehicle and veterinary box can be purchased. Current wait times are approximately one year for practice vehicles. The expected caseload for the program will increase over the three year term of the grant as the associated practices grow. Additionally the emergency practitioner will provide phone support to help people determine if their animals require emergency services.Hoof & Horn Veterinary Services utilizescloud based medical record system. This allows access to generated reports. Reports will be run quarterly to assess the animals impacted as well as income generated. Data can be analyzed based on species and provider.