Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
(N/A)
COLUMBIA,MO 65211
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The shortage of veterinarians in rural communities is a threat to livestock health, public health, food safety, and the economy of the agricultural industry. While this issue is complex, matters related to salary, time off, and practice atmosphere are stated reasons why veterinarians leave rural practice. Practice ownership may help provide a path for rural veterinarians to increase their income and improve their wellbeing through personal control of their work environment. Many young veterinarians lack interest in ownership and one factor is their lack of knowledge in entrepreneurship. The long-term goal of the proposed project is to produce a sustainable platform for educational materials for mixed and food animal veterinarians and veterinary students interested in practice startup and ownership in rural communities. This goal will be accomplished through four objectives. First, we will create an online platform for educational materials and program community member engagement. Second, we will hold a stakeholder focus group to discuss the issues and needs. Third, we will develop a live webinar series based on stakeholder input in collaboration with the Missouri Small Business Development Center. Finally, we will use the webinar series to develop online modules in collaboration with the University of Missouri Extension Career Accelerator. This program aligns with the Veterinary Service Grant Program goals by providing distance education opportunities for veterinarians and veterinary students that will strengthen veterinary programs by focusing on practice startup and ownership and therefore enhancing rural practice and strengthening the rural veterinary community.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The long-term goal of the proposed project is to produce a sustainable platform for educational materials for rural food animal and mixed animal veterinarians and veterinary students interested in practice startup and ownership in rural communities. The platform will include both live and on-demand educational opportunities that will be open to veterinarians and veterinary students.The proposed project has four specific objectives:Objective 1: Creation of an online platform for the educational materials and program community engagement.Specific aim:Development of a program specific website. This website will be used for advertisement, communication of events, and will be a hub of all educational materials that are created through this program.Creation of a program network. This will be done by requiring user to register to join the network in order to access the materials on the website. Once contact information is obtained, this information will be used to keep users informed about upcoming webinars or any new materials that have been added to the website.Objective 2: Create a focus group and hold a round table discussion concerning the issues.Specific aims:Creation of a focus group to discuss the issues and needs of the stakeholders. This group will be made up of recently graduated rural practicing veterinarians that have purchased or started their own practice within the last 10 years, students interested in owning their own rural practice, content experts from the SBDC, and project personnel.Objective 3: Develop a live webinar series.Specific aims:A 15 event live webinar series will be created focusing on topics of importance based on the feedback from the focus group. These sessions will be open to all members of the program community and will be available as continuing education credit for practicing veterinarians.Objective 4: Use the webinar series to develop online modules to be accessible by veterinarians and veterinary students.Specific aim:Business topic experts and project personnel will help transition the recorded webinars into educational modules. The modules will be organized with clear objectives and knowledge points. These modules will be made available for veterinarians and veterinary students through the program website and the MU Extension Career Accelerator.
Project Methods
The program will be a collaborative effort including personnel from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, MU Extension, and the Missouri Small Business Development Center.Objective 1: Creation of an online platform for the educational materials and program community engagement.A program website will be created for advertisement, community engagement, and data collection. Users will be required to register to access website information. Registration will be free but will require the user to provide basic information including their name, age, email, and year of veterinary school graduation. Additional information to be collected will include profession and, if they are a veterinarian, they will also be asked which state they practice in, which counties they practice in, how long they have practiced veterinary medicine, type of practice, and if they serve in a Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) shortage situation. Collecting this information will allow us to track usage of the program material and the demographics of the audience we are serving.Once logged in, users will have access to program materials. Materials available on the website will include a schedule of upcoming live webinars, edited recordings of previous webinars, webinar associated modules, resource links, and guide sheets related to the subject matter. Users will be able to freely view all information on the website and usage of webinar recordings and modules will be tracked through the MU Extension Career Accelerator. This tracking will be done to allow for CE credit to be available after viewing material. One hour of CE credit will be issued through the University of Missouri for each hour of webinar or module material that is viewed. User emails will be used to send out CE certificates, information regarding upcoming seminars, and if any new information has been added to the website.Objective 2: Create a focus group and hold a round table discussion concerning the issues.Prior to any webinars, a focus group will be created to allow for discussion among stakeholders and project personnel. The discussion will be organized by the project personnel to focus on rural practice startups and purchases and obstacles that practitioners have come across in managing these experiences.The focus group will be created by contacting veterinarians throughout the state of Missouri that have been in practice for < 10 years and have owned a practice for < 10 years. Those that attendwill have meals and hotel rooms reimbursed by the program. We plan to recruit approximately 6-8 currently practicing veterinarians and approximately 6-8 current veterinary students with interest in owning a rural practice. The meeting will also be attended by Missouri SBDC representatives and content experts as well as project personnel. The purpose of the meeting will be twofold: 1) for the veterinarians to inform the project personnel and SBDC representatives about topics that would be useful for people going through the process of practice startup and ownership and 2) to allow the veterinarians to provide context to the SBDC representatives on the issues that they are facing and to help content experts to understand how rural veterinary practices function.Objective 3: Develop a live webinar series.The results from Objective 2 will be used to finalize the live webinar series. Live webinars will be led by topic experts from the Missouri SBDC. The Missouri SBDC has access to content experts with knowledge pertaining to all aspects of business. These live webinars will be made available using a Zoom Business Account (San Jose, CA, USA), which can host up to 300 participants and includes video and voice. All webinar events will be recorded, and all participants will be notified that the information will be recorded prior to participating in the event. All webinars will be scheduled for 1-hour sessions. The target number of participants will be 60-80/session. Over the 3-year period of the grant, we plan to hold 15 webinars (one every other month, starting 6 months after the initiation of the grant). Each videoconference will have a facilitator, who will be one of the MU project personnel. The facilitator will help manage the meeting, keeping things on track and help make sure attendee questions get answered. A schedule of topics will be made available on the program website and emails will be sent to users with updates regarding upcoming events. Additionally, the webinar schedule and information that is available on the website will be shared with veterinarians through platforms commonly used by rural mixed and food animal veterinarians including the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) listserv, the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners (AASRP) listserv, and the Academy of Veterinary Consultants (AVC) listserv.Objective 4: Use the webinar series to develop online modules to be accessible by veterinarians and veterinary students.Recorded webinars will be used to develop online modules. These modules will be produced for multiple reasons, including: 1) to provide an alternative learning modality for users, 2) to provide access to the information for those unable to attend the live sessions, and 3) to provide a method to use the material for educational purposes for veterinary students. The modules will use components of the recorded webinar series, however all personal interactions with webinar participants will be removed for privacy purposes. Additionally, summary points will be added to help provide take home messages.The University of Missouri currently offers a 1 credit hour business course for first year veterinary students. The course coordinator (Dr. Gerelyn Henry) has indicated that she would be interesting in using these modules for her course (see attached letter of collaboration). Having the modules set up with clear learning objectives and with learning summary points will help the students summarize and process the material. The modules will be made available through the MU Extension Career Accelerator platform. The Career Accelerator platform can provide the modules to users that are outside the MU system. They can track completion of modules and therefore provide proof of completion of the material for CE purposes. Through this program, we plan for access to the modules to be free during the lifetime of this grant. After the funding of the grant has expired, the modules will continue to be available for free to view but a small fee will be collected in order to view the modules for CE purposes.The results of the program will be communicated to stakeholders and the public through the website and presentations at local and state Missouri Veterinary Medical Association meetings. At the midpoint and end of the program, demographic and survey results will be summarized and analyzed for a peer review publication. Information will be submitted for review to a journal that is read by practicing veterinarians, such as the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association or Bovine Practitioners.