3 minute read
A Message from the President
Erica Wolbramsky, DVM
President, Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association
Vet Med beyond General practice
When the theme of Veterinary Medicine Beyond General Practice came up, I wasn’t sure I had anything to contribute. I’m a general practitioner. My days are spent seeing only cats and dogs in a small clinic. I am as close to the caricature of a vet as possible.
My day often starts by going through my inbox. I read over the histopathology from yesterday’s mass removal. I get the radiology report back on the limping dog. I check the referral reports of a Yorkie that saw a cardiologist and a pit bull that saw the dermatologist. I sign up for a CE about new advances in emergency medicine. Ten minutes into work, and my patients and I have been helped by half a dozen veterinary specialists. Then I call the owner of a pet I did a mass removal on and refer them to an oncologist for chemotherapy. They ask if I do that here. I say, no and that they need to see a specialist. The client is amazed that there are veterinarians who specialize in oncology.
Despite the well-known advances in specialization for human medicine, there is a prevailing notion that a vet is an all-in-one. As if being a veterinarian is one thing and we all do the same job each day in a standard offthe-rack veterinarian costume. It is the image of James Herriot seeing creatures great and small: down cow in the morning, vomiting dog in the afternoon.
While there are still vets who work this way, the tendency in all professions is toward specialization. As good of a vet as you may be, you cannot be all things to all patients. Specialization has allowed us to provide more advanced care for our patients and better work-life balance for ourselves. Compared to James Herriot, I am a specialist.
We as Pennsylvania veterinarians have a legacy in specialty practice. Mark Allam, VMD, Dean Emeritus of the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, is credited as the reason the American College of Veterinary Specialists formed. Dr. Allam assembled the organizing committee and served as the first ACVS Board of Regents chair as well as its first historian. The first elected president of the ACVS in 1966 was also a Pennsylvania veterinarian, Dr. Jacques Jenny, a professor of orthopedic surgery. These veterinarians envisioned a profession in which those with specific passions and talents could focus their energies and advance the profession. Without them, the landscape of veterinary specialty practice would not be the same.
The fact is that there are many ways to be a veterinarian. Let’s not forget the vets who work outside clinics or who don’t see patients. Vets who work in academia, politics, and research; manage companies; practice law; and countless others. Our fellow veterinarians are not letting the caricature of a veterinarian pigeonhole them. So, what is Veterinary Medicine Beyond General Practice? It is a constantly evolving, not easily defined, amalgamation of possibilities whose only bounds lie in the imaginations of its members.
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