Veterinary Voices

Veterinarians entangled in effort to shrink federal workforce

A computer glitch felt ominous to a federal veterinarian in mid-February. "I was having trouble logging on to work," she recalled. She clenched up, asking herself, "Is this it?" The "it" was being fired without notice from a job she loves.

This story was published on Feb. 21, 2025.

NAVLE pass rates ticked up in 2024, stemming slide

After three straight years of decline, the percentage of students who passed the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination notched up in 2024 to 88%, albeit still significantly below the 2020 pass rate of 95%.

This story was published on Feb. 19, 2025.

Veterinary practice chains eye Indian market

In a country with 10 times as many cattle as pet dogs, working with production animals historically has been a well-trodden career path for veterinarians in India.

In recent years, however, India's growing middle class has warmed to pet ownership, upping demand for increasingly sophisticated companion animal medicine — and tempting corporate consolidators of veterinary practices to invest in the world's most populous nation for the first time.

This story was published on Feb. 13, 2025.

Pet microchip company goes missing

Someone was just trying to do the right thing by a lost dog when the staff at Sewell Animal Hospital in Oklahoma made a dismaying discovery about a pet microchip company called Save This Life, Inc.

This story was published on Feb. 11, 2025.

Avian flu comes home to cats

A rising number of cases in the United States of highly pathogenic avian flu in domestic cats has effectively pushed the disease into the purview of companion animal practitioners.

This story was published on Feb. 4, 2025.

VCA shrinks its urgent care footprint

VCA Animal Hospitals permanently closed at least 17 urgent care practices in five states on January 31st, judging from announcements on each practice’s website. Seven remaining urgent care locations were still listed on their websites as open and had no announcements about permanent closures.

The closures mark an apparent reversal of strategy for the company, which 2½ years ago announced its first urgent care center in Mar Vista, California, and plans to open in future locations.

This story was published on Jan. 31, 2025.

Veterinarian's creativity helps ease IV fluid drought

All appeared normal in the treatment room of Dr. Felicity Cole's clinic on an overcast and muggy afternoon in the Australian city of Newcastle. The day's scheduled surgeries were done, and four canine patients — including two cocker spaniel siblings with brilliant golden coats — sat peering out of their recovery cages, eyes glazed by the lingering effects of anesthesia.

Each dog was hooked up to a customary bag that provides patients with intravenous fluids after surgery. Only there was something about these particular bags of saline solution that was far from ordinary: They had been used initially on human blood donors.

This story was published on Jan. 30, 2025.

Mexico's ambitious public veterinary care law lacks bite

At 7:30 a.m. on most days in Mexico City, people typically are already lined up around the block, hoping to get into Venustiano Carranza, a low-cost, government-run veterinary clinic. Doctors who work there say the day's slots usually are filled by noon.

The federal government, through a new law, is hoping to replicate clinics like this one throughout Mexico — ideally, without the long queues.

This story was published on Jan. 28, 2025.

Veterinarians share their LA wildfire stories

Whether treating pets for smoke inhalation, finding homes for displaced animals or donning a firefighter suit to protect a clinic, veterinarians are very much in the thick of the wildfire disaster gripping Los Angeles.

This story was published on Jan. 24, 2025.

Show notes:

Two veterinary organizations are collaborating to raise funds assisting animal care professionals and animals impacted by the fires. To learn more, visit the VIN Foundation campaign page.

Controversial culling methods spotlighted in draft guidelines

Debate over the ethics of applying ventilation shutdown, a controversial method of killing livestock through heat stroke and suffocation, is again rising to the fore amid the publication in the United States of a new set of professional guidelines for killing animals en masse.

A highly anticipated update to the American Veterinary Medical Association's Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals has been published in draft form and made available to the association's more than 100,000 veterinarian members. They have until Jan. 30 to comment on the draft ahead of the completion of a final version later this year.

This story was published on Jan. 21, 2025.