A class of veterinary students started a three-year University of Arizona adventure as trailblazers and have now exited their graduation ceremony as doctors of veterinary medicine.
The 106 students in the UA College of Veterinary Medicine’s inaugural class graduated Thursday amid a veterinarian shortage.
“You can feel it,” said graduate Megan Brown. “There’s never a shortage of pets and their owners walking through the doors … or you’re getting called out to their house for emergency, vaccines, all of those things.”
The students studied and practiced in active clinics, many of which are short-handed.
Dr. Christine Staten, a veterinarian at Adobe Veterinary Center in Tucson, said her clinic is “protective” of its schedule, for instance.
“We had almost two years where we did not accept any new patients into our practice so that we could take excellent care of our current patients, and not book them out a year,” she said.
The U.S. Labor Department projects 4,900 new veterinarian openings nationwide within the next decade. The veterinarian employment growth rate is projected at 19%, compared to 5% for all occupations.
Arizona not having a veterinarian school hasn’t helped the state, Staten said.
“Arizona students who were going to veterinary school were leaving and they weren’t always coming back. Now we’ve got them potentially staying here,” Staten said.
“That’s good for our community, that’s good for our state.”
According to the UA, the 110 students admitted into the inaugural class were among 518 applicants. Fewer than half of the applicants were interviewed.
The UA veterinary school coursework is expedited, with four years of study condensed into three. Therefore, the students are getting into the veterinary workforce a year faster than at many other schools.
“It’s the same amount of money, but it gets me into clinical practice one year quicker, which gives you the chance to pay off your student loans faster,” Brown pointed out.
The only other college of veterinary medicine that offers an accelerated program like UA is Ross University in Saint Kitts, an independent British commonwealth.
Besides its accelerated program, UA’s College of Veterinary Medicine is among only a few veterinary schools using active learning methods, said Dr. Julie Funk, the school’s dean.
Funk said the method is proven to help students retain information rather than memorizing and risking forgetting. Using the method in veterinary schools is uncommon, Funk said.
“We’re not the only one, but we’re one of the few. I would say that the combination of the accelerated program as well as the fully distributed model is very rare,” Funk said.
The model entails rotations covering a wide range of veterinary specialties, such as large animal medicine and companion animal medicine. Students also get a chance to study at Tucson’s Reid Park Zoo.
Adobe Veterinary Center was one of the program’s hosts.
“When they arrive here, they have a good base knowledge to jump into clinical learning, which is a very different type of learning,” Staten said.
For two UA veterinary students, their rotation in Adobe Veterinary Center doubled as a hands-on job interview. They will work at the clinic soon after graduation.
“Because of this veterinary school, and because of our opportunity to spend time with people, it’s the best working interview you could possibly get,” Staten said.
Brown, who is one of Adobe’s new hires, said, “You get to choose who you want to be as a doctor and to work so closely with so many amazing veterinarians and network across the country … within the state … within the city. That was absolutely my favorite part of the program.”
Starting a veterinary school has its own obstacles. There have been talks of adding a vet school to UA’s menu for about 50 years, Funk said.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Staten was in Tucson, waiting in the wings.
“We all wanted it to happen, and it didn’t,” Staten said. “I left and went to the closest school at the time to Tucson which was Colorado State. “
Twenty-four years ago, Staten returned to her hometown of Tucson.
“During those 24 years, I kept hearing about the school, the school, the school …. The reality was it just wasn’t getting off the ground and seemed like something that wasn’t going to happen,” Staten said.
In 2016, UA officials were chomping at the bit. They applied for a letter of reasonable assurance from the American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education. That is a status conferred by the AVMA to developing colleges to allow them to pursue their plan for the veterinary program and to admit students, according to the association’s website.
“We were committed to (starting the school). So, we regrouped and took their recommendations,” Funk said.
The commitment paid off. The University of Arizona’s College of Veterinary Medicine has the highest accreditation possible at this juncture: provisional accreditation.
“Over the course of time, we give every six-month reports, plus the accrediting body comes out and does site visits,” Funk said. The school must also graduate its first class before receiving full accreditation. The AVMA did not respond to the Star’s requests for comment.
“My thought process (when enrolling) kind of was they’re taking a chance on me, so I’ll take a chance on them,” Brown said. “This has been a goal of mine for a very, very long time. To have that goal realized (Thursday), it was a really a humbling and really awesome moment.”
Because of her learning experiences at UA, Brown, who is originally from Michigan, saw how much she and her classmates are needed.
“I’ve definitely seen firsthand the need here in Tucson,” Brown said. “I’m so excited that myself and some of my classmates will be here in Tucson to help hopefully relieve a little bit of that burden.”
It will take time, Funk said.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to take all the burden off with our first graduating class,” Funk said. “We’re hopeful that this starts to help with some of the needs in Tucson, in the state of Arizona, and honestly, across the nation.”
A new internship program at the Reid Park Zoo gives University of Arizona veterinary students a monthlong opportunity to train under the zoo's head veterinarian. Video by Caitlin Schmidt / Arizona Daily Star.
