VET SHORTAGE

requested for the school. Our hope is that many of these Clemson Vet School graduates will stay in the Palmetto State to work. We also believe there should be incentives for the graduates to work in municipal shelters, rural communities and not-for-profit facilities. (A teaching hospital will not be included in the design of the Vet School, with students doing clinical learning by practicing with vet offices across the state, as is done in human medicine.)

Other Vet Shortage Solutions

IN FEBRUARY, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY’S BOARD OF TRUSTEES VOTED TO MOVE FORWARD WITH PLANS FOR WHAT WOULD BE THE FIRST VETERINARY SCHOOL IN THE STATE! IT WOULD BE BUILT ON A 30-ACRE SITE NEAR THE T. ED GARRISON LIVESTOCK ARENA. WITH HALF OF THE COUNTIES IN SOUTH CAROLINA REPORTING NO VETS OR VET TECHS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES, CLEMSON ACKNOWLEDGED THIS CRISIS AS ONE OF THE REASONS TO TAKE ACTION.

The South Carolina Animal Legislative Coalition (SCALC) expressed concerns about the statewide veterinary shortage at a committee meeting of the South Carolina Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners in late 2021. Leaders of the South Carolina Association of Veterinarians (SCAV) requested data to show there actually is a shortage of veterinarians.

The Shortage Was Predicted

All the way back in 2006, the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges predicted a shortage of 15,000 veterinarians in the nation within 20 years. The 2021 Veterinary Care Accessibility Project (AccessToVetCare.org) data stated:

• Nearly 50% of SC counties (22) fall into the bottom 25th percentile, some with no vet or vet techs. (Their data partners are AVMA, the CDC, and the US Census Bureau.)

Even before COVID, SC ranked 46th out of 50 states in the number of veterinarians per thousand in population.

VET SCHOOL: LONG-TERM SOLUTION?

Within weeks of SCALC going public with concerns about the vet shortage, representatives from Pawmetto Lifeline, including myself and Chair Emeritus Deloris Mungo, who is also a member of the LLR Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, sat down with Senator Danny Verdin III to discuss the possibility of South Carolina having a Veterinary School as one of the long-term solutions for the vet shortage. Senator Verdin was engaging and supportive and suggested that he talk to Senator Harvey Peeler who had advocated for a vet school in the 1980s.

We were pleased to see that $10 million was allocated in the State budget for a vet school at Clemson in 2022 and in 2023 an additional $45 million has been

A short-term solution the SC Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners supports is amending the current regulations relative to supervision levels when it comes to how animals can be medically treated. We are also advocating for the Rabies Control Act to be amended so certified or trained technicians and aides can give rabies vaccinations under the indirect supervision of a vet.

Supervision levels for animal medical care are stricter than the statutes for human medical care. For example, a pharmacy tech can give a human a COVID-19 vaccination without a doctor present, but a vet tech cannot give a pet a vaccination without a vet first seeing the pet before the vaccination is given and providing direct supervision.

The chances of a pet having a reaction to a vaccine is minimal, yet the chances of a pet that is not vaccinated getting rabies, distemper or parvo can be high, and most often it is fatal. Once pets are no longer vaccinated, we also run the risk of a public health crisis.

A huge thank you to Senator Peeler and Senator Verdin for putting real solutions in place to address access to care for pets in SC which in turn is better for pet owners and our community.

Denise Wilkinson is the CEO of Pawmetto Lifeline and the Chair of SCALC.