Recipient Organization
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF BOVINE PRACTITIONERS
3320 SKYWAY DR STE 802
OPELIKA,AL 36801
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
"Building Excellence in Rural Veterinary Practices" is a new veterinary business management training program for early career veterinarians. Funding for this grant will allow the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) to continue to more directly affect multiple early career veterinarians in a positive way which will keep them in successful rural practices. This in turn will meet their community's needs for sustainability, as well as help to recruit future veterinarians to join us as colleagues to fill tomorrow's needs.This grant will fund direct training for 135 early career veterinarians, divided into 3 groups of 15 participants per year, for each of 3 years. The training program will be multimodal in its efforts. This will include a 3 day in-person workshop (held at AABP headquarters or at an AABP conference), 6 virtual training events over several months, one-on-one consultations with faculty working on individual projects and outreach to high school aged youth. To magnify the effects of the grant, AABP will be using the curriculum created, in an adapted form, via podcasts, webinars, newsletters, documents and other resources to reach more veterinarians and youth. The faculty participating in this training have academic, practical and industry training and experience to provide an in-depth, but practical learning experience for the participants. This business training is needed because the rigorous veterinary training curriculum provided by many Veterinary Colleges does not have enough room in it to provide their students with high level business management training and development of skills in this area.AABP has recognized that many of the underlying issues regarding shortages and maldistribution of veterinarians in rural veterinary practices are related to variable and suboptimal veterinary practice management. Business issues range from financial understanding and management, effective strategic planning and implementation, effective business transitions and various human resource management issues. These human resource issues include effective onboarding, leadership skills, employee management, conflict resolution and effective compensation programs among other things. This can lead to high turnover, burnout, difficult financial performance and eventual loss of effective veterinary services being provided to communities that need them. Further, AABP recognizes that it is important to engage high school aged youth to introduce them to the idea of becoming a veterinarian in their formative years.The major goal of AABP in providing these business training modules is to have better managed practices that help the veterinarians and staff lead productive, fulfilling professional careers while serving as leaders in their communities and meeting the needs of the livestock industries they serve. These training modules not only help the veterinarians that attend them, but also the practices where they work.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The major goal of AABP in providing these business training modules is to have better managed practices that help the veterinarians and staff lead productive, fulfilling professional careers while serving as leaders in their communities and meeting the needs of the livestock industries they serve. These training modules not only help the veterinarians that attend them, but also the practices that they work in when they return home. This has a multiplier effect within the industry, especially when AABP takes the curriculum developed within these grants and shares it with the rest of the membership via podcasts, newsletters, member resources, and presentations at CE events.Objective #1: Provide no cost continuing education training to recent graduates in veterinary practice management to improve participants' knowledge, practical understanding, and application of these principals in their individual situation. The specific competencies we will address include:1. Understanding accounting principles: financial statements, financial recordkeeping systems, managerial accounting principles, and budgeting/projections.2. Creation and analysis of historical performance spreadsheets for the participant's business and create projections for future performance.3. Learn strategic management planning tools such as value proposition and SWOT analysis.4. Develop a strategic planning project with implementation over time with the help of one of the faculty of their choice.5. DISC personality profile assessment, leadership development, and human resource management topics in veterinary practice.6. Understanding veterinary business transitions - practice valuation and financing options.7. Explore entrepreneurship and starting a business.Objective #2: Provide exposure, training, and useful resources to engage with grade 11 and 12 high school students using organizations such as 4-H groups, FFA chapters, and at career days, to emphasize the importance of becoming active in local communities as food animal veterinarians.Objective #3: Leverage the curriculum, teaching materials, and resources of the training to reach other veterinarians to improve the impact of objectives #1 and #2 through collaborative efforts with the various committees and staff of AABP.
Project Methods
Once applications are gathered, they will be scored with a similar rubric that has been used in past grants to give priority to veterinarians less than five years in practice, contribution of their practice that is large animal, serving underserved areas, and interest in future ownership. All recipients of the grant will be less than ten years in practice. Forty-five veterinarians will be selected each year over three years to participate, for a total of 135 early career veterinarians. . There will be three cohort groups of fifteen participants each established for each of the years of the grant. Three sets of dates for the in-person workshops will be identified and participants will self-select dates by registering for the dates of their choice.The proposed project activities all relate to a multi-modal educational process, teaching principles necessary for excellence in veterinary practice management. The different modes of education employed in this grant include:1. Learning modules will utilize a virtual learning management system, allowing traditional lectures as well as small group activities to occur easily and conveniently.2. An in-person three-day workshops involve multiple faculty members. We will utilize traditional lecture format, interactive discussions, and small group activities with interactive reporting back to the cohort. Those participants unable to travel to the in-person workshop will have the option to participate virtually, using AABP resources.3. Each participant will have the opportunity to do pre-conference homework where they enter actual practice financial data into a pre-formatted spreadsheet or the option of using their current practice accounting reporting methods to provide baseline data for course activities. If desired, they will have the opportunity to work individually with the Project Director to analyze their data and develop a plan of action on any desired changes.4. There will be opportunites to budget future changes, using their historical financial data as a baseline. As an alternative, if data is not available to the participants, case studies or forward-looking partial budgets of proposed changes within their business can be utilized to learn these important principles of practice management.5. Learning strategic planning techniques in group activities. The participants will be taught and encouraged to use these techniques in their practices when they get home to help planning within their businesses, while also gaining leadership and group dynamic experiences valuable for their own growth.6. One-on-one virtual consulting assistance from the faculty member of their choice on a personally developed project which is intended to help their individual situation or their individual practice situation.7. One training module will be dedicated to marketing veterinary medicine and community outreach to grade 11 and 12 high school students. This will be followed up with a requirement to complete an outreach event in their practice area. This will lead to growth in the participants in the areas of community involvement, leadership skills, and public speaking.