Our Committees@Work

Animal Welfare Committee

The MVMA Animal Welfare Committee met at the MVMA Convention on January 2022. Current topics: - Education on animal cruelty and reporting guidelines -Dr. Schmidt – writing an update to go into the MVMA quarterly, appears to already be on MVMA website -Concerns that local law enforcement may not have knowledge on animal cruelty reporting and access on who to contact if any questions - Thoughts on posting on social media on where to find resources on Animal Cruelty - Access to care and resources available for those in financial need for Veterinary Care - Discuss using the Illinois video for Narcan Handout - Discussed St. Louis County and City declaw banning ordinances and the control of non-veterinarians determining the practice of veterinary medicine. - Updates on Avian Influenza - Concerns with proper disposal of large animals - Five Freedoms - How to recruit and invite Veterinarians to join the Animal Welfare Committee Past topics and accomplishments: - Canine Narcan exposure handout and access to Narcan Kits - Discussion and education on Swine Ventilation shut down - Discussion on Gas Chamber euthanasia in animal shelters - Discussion on Horseracing integrity act and horse soring - Discussion on Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse and Burro Program - Pet Oxygen Mask program Peggy Callow, DVM, and Tom Lenz, DVM - Co-chairs

Early Career Task Force

Meeting held January 28, 2022 at MVMA Convention The name of our task force changed from Recent Graduate and Collegiate Task Force to Early Career Task Force in order to better reflect our focus on colleagues in the first 10 years of their veterinary career. The Early Career Task Force held its annual meeting Saturday night of convention. The evening event welcomed early career veterinarians and Dr. Blackwell for a discussion on mentorship, early career challenges and the future of our profession. Following that, we had our annual student mixer with the CVM students and a panel of early career veterinarians. The students expressed appreciation for the opportunity to talk with veterinarians who were “out in the real world” and they felt comfortable raising questions, discussing career challenges and networking with future colleagues. Going forward we plan to continue to support early career veterinarians and provide opportunities for them to be more involved in the MVMA. In particular, we plan to continue to host our events at conference. Additionally, we hope to continue to build relationships with the Power of Ten-ers as they look to spread their “ripple effect” into the MVMA and into our workforce. Lastly, after 6 years of service Dr. Sarah Meineka is passing on the torch as the chair of the Task Force. Thank you Dr. Meineka for everything you have done for the task force through the years! Dr. Brittany Kennedy and Dr. Natalie Branson are the new co-chairs of the Early Career Task Force. If you know of a new or soon to be new graduate whose talents and passion may benefit this cause please contact Brittany Kennedy at bkennedyvet@gmail.com. Brittany Kennedy, DVM, and Natalie Branson, DVM - Co-chairs

Equine Committee

The Equine Committee met at the MVMA Convention on January 27, 2022. We plan to have an MVMA Summer Equine Meeting this year after a few years off. Because the Allen family has decided to discontinue the memorial lecture we usually hold on Saturday, we are having discussions whether to have a one or two day seminar. The speakers for Sunday, June 26 will be Drs. Elizabeth Giuliano and Lynn Martin on the topic of Equine Ophthalmology. Further details will be announced as plans are finalized. After a another successful MVMA Fall Equine Dentistry Seminar and Wet Lab in September 2021, we have decided to hold another seminar on September 30 – October 2, 2022. As of the committee meeting, before the dates were announced, the seminar was full if everyone on the wait list is able to attend those dates. The format will be the same as the previous seminars and will be again held at the Longmeadow Rescue Ranch near Union, Missouri. The committee discussed scope of practice issues affecting equine veterinarians, particularly in the realm of equine dentistry and chiropractic. We also discussed a potential threat to the carriage horse industry in St. Louis by individuals who wish to eliminate it. The MVMA Equine Committee will continue to monitor legislation and issues that will affect the practice of equine veterinary medicine. Bruce Whittle, DVM, Chair

Emergency Management & Public Health Committee

The MVMA membership committee met on Saturday, January 27, at the 2022 MVMA Convention. Submitted by: Catherine M. Vogelweid, DVM PhD The Emergency Management & Public Health Committee met in person on January 27, 2022 during the MVMA convention. During the meeting, a summary of the July 10, 2021 training for the Missouri Volunteer Vet Corps, “Livestock Trailer Accident Response” was presented. This workshop was attended by approximately 20 veterinarians and first-responders from the Cole County Fire Protection District. The January meeting included an update from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services was presented by Dr. Vogelweid, as Molly Baker could not attend in-person due to Covid-19 restrictions. This update summarized Missouri’s annual cases of rabies, cases of tick-borne diseases and the current status of Covid-19 transmission in animals. The AVMA’s Veterinary FirstResponder Certificate Program was summarized for attendees, and contact information about the program was provided. Alignment with Strategic Goals of the MVMA was discussed in detail. A full report can be found on the committee page of the website: www.movma.org/page 39/. Cathy Vogelweid, DVM, Chair Legislative Committee

At our January convention and meeting, the Legislative committee discussed multiple pre-filed bills for the 2022 Legislative session as well as several topics that we suspected a bill to surface given the recent political climate and trends. We were able to relish in the success of our efforts to exclude veterinarians from the cumbersome burden of reporting use of controlled drugs to a centralized

database (which was signed into law last year). For the 2022 session, our main focus are bills that we “actively” support or oppose. The first area of emphasis is a bill that centers on the regulation of veterinary medicine by local municipalities. The MVMA has worked with our legislative consultants and some friendly legislators to introduce a bill in the House and the Senate that specifies that no local municipality can define the scope of veterinary practice differently from what statewide laws regulate and control (as defined in Missouri Chapter 340). A recurrent topic that we are actively opposing is a bill that would allow for the creation of an “Animal Chiropractic Practitioner” wherein a human chiropractor could work on animals without any veterinary oversight assuming they attended a few week course at one of a few schools. The MVMA is working to educate our legislature about the dangers to both human and animal health without veterinary oversight if this bill would be accepted. Several of the bills that are making progress this year are repeat topics that we continue to hold the same position on such as supporting a bill that would prohibit breed specific bans, another that would protect veterinarians if involved in suspected animal neglect cases, and many others that are too numerous to list in this short correspondence. March 1st, we had a successful “Veterinary Day at the Capitol” with good attendance and the ability to meet some key legislators to discuss some of the above topics face to face. The legislative session has proven to be a very unique one and is set for a whirlwind of action the last few weeks of the session given the apparent lack of progress in the first half, and thus it was very important for us to speak our minds and get in front of some of these folks. As always, we appreciate your input on any legislative topics and especially ask you to let us know of any personal connections you may have with someone in state government. Cliff Miller, DVM, Chair

Membership Committee

The membership committee met at the MVMA Annual Convention in Columbia, Mo. to review past actions and discuss plans for the future. Our committee has evolved from the task Force created in 2016 into a standing committee for membership since 2019. We have concentrated our efforts primarily as defined in the MVMA Strategic Plan under Goal 3, action step 7,which reads: “To encourage and engage broad-based membership by identifying the needs of various types of members and create membership value to meet those needs.” In the last year-and-a-half we have created a university membership through the efforts of Dean Henry, the executive board and the membership committee. For the first time ever, all veterinarians who are employed at the college are now members of the MVMA! Primarily through the efforts of the MVMA office staff, we have expanded the data-base to better identify where our members work, their specialty, number of vets in the practice that are members, and other demographics of our members. We have learned from this information this last year that we now have more female members than male in our association for the first time! The fastest growing segment of practice ownership is the Corporate Veterinary Consolidators. (NVA,VCA.Vetcor, etc.) We now have committee members assigned to the seven different types of membership we have identified ( Private practice, Corporate start-up, corporate vet consolidators, university, specialty/referral, industry, and non-profit), to call members to identify the needs of each type practice so we can create value in being a member of MVMA. The membership committee plans to meet on Zoom in April after the close of the business and membership year to evaluate the number and discuss results of needs assessment. We will also meet again at the annual convention in January. Six of the nine districts participate in the MVMA District Meeting Service Program. KCVMA and GSLVMA continue to plan their own district meetings and dues collection. WCVMA plans their meetings as well. Our membership is constantly changing and must be proactive in identifying those changes and meeting the needs of a changing profession. We welcome you to come join our committee as we study our diversified profession! Mel Falk, DVM, Chair

Missouri Stocker-Feeder Quality Assurance Program

The Missouri Stocker Feeder Quality Assurance Program (MSFQAP) Committee met at the 2022 MVMA Convention. The MSFQAP program had intended to implement a new requirement for all participants in the program (veterinarians and producers) to have current Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) training. However, some changes in the BQA program recently have eliminated the option for in person training, and at least for the time being this training will only be available online. This creates some logistical challenges in requiring the training of all participants including some of our participants who are Amish. We intend to open a dialogue with the Missouri Beef Industry Council who oversees the BQA program to have a plan for addressing these issues before we roll out this new requirement. Respectfully Submitted, Dr. Dan Tappmeyer, Chair

Rural Veterinary Task Force

The Rural Veterinary Task force met at the the 2022 MVMA Convention to continue its work to address the shortage of rural veterinarians. One of the issues previously identified by the committee is there is a perception the quality of life of a rural veterinarian is lower than their urban/suburban small animal counterparts, and this is dissuading new graduates from pursuing this area of practice. To delve into this issue the committee launched a Quality-of-Life survey across all MVMA Veterinarians and the results of this survey were reviewed at our meeting. Our survey showed, although rural veterinarians where slightly less satisfied with their income, the satisfaction with their job and career choice were statistically the same as their urban/suburban counterparts and in fact slightly higher numerically. This trend held up similarly when the survey’s 105 participants were divided by practice type (companion, equine, food animal exclusive, and mixed). In fact, 89% of food animal exclusive and mixed animal veterinarians report they are either satisfied or very satisfied with their career choice. Our next steps will be working with the College of Veterinary medicine to try and make students aware of these findings with the hope more students will consider rural practice. One of the main points the committee made from its onset is in order to recruit veterinarians to rural practice, we need to help rural practices be successful so they are appealing places for veterinarians to go. Many veterinarians are familiar with the “Vital Statistics” series of books compiled by the American Animal Hospital Association which provide a number of economic indicators and references on compensation, benefits, and pricing. Unfortunately, this information only covers companion animal practices. Our committee felt strongly that this type of information would be extremely beneficial if available for mixed/large animal practices as well. The MVMA has untaken compiling several of these metrics which will include mixed/large animal practices. In addition this data should provide additional metrics for companion animal practices which are more specific to practices in the state of Missouri. Dan Tappmeyer, DVM and Cliff Miller, DVM - Co-chairs