Rethinking veterinary education

Veterinarians make a critically important contribution to society. They care for the health and welfare of companion animals, livestock, performance animals such as horses, laboratory animals and wildlife. They help to ensure livestock production systems are efficient yet maintain high welfare standards. Vets also play vital roles in defending Australasia's high biosecurity status, protecting public health, assuring food safety, and conserving wildlife species. Yet there is an emerging critical shortage of veterinarians to fill these roles in Australia and New Zealand, a situation that...  [+] Show more

Veterinarians make a critically important contribution to society. They care for the health and welfare of companion animals, livestock, performance animals such as horses, laboratory animals and wildlife. They help to ensure livestock production systems are efficient yet maintain high welfare standards. Vets also play vital roles in defending Australasia's high biosecurity status, protecting public health, assuring food safety, and conserving wildlife species. Yet there is an emerging critical shortage of veterinarians to fill these roles in Australia and New Zealand, a situation that is causing profound pressure on animal owners, veterinary employers, new graduates and the universities and veterinary schools that educate them.

Veterinary Schools of Australia and New Zealand (VSANZ) comprises the eight veterinary schools of Australia and New Zealand, who work together to advance veterinary education and research in the region. VSANZ commissioned a comprehensive review of veterinary education in Australia and New Zealand to address the following questions: (1) What are the key skills, knowledge and attributes that veterinarians will need in the next decade? How can accrediting bodies, the profession, Australasian universities and governments work more effectively together to ensure that students leave veterinary schools equipped with transferable competencies needed for long and successful careers as veterinarians, as well as take account of the continued financial pressures faced by universities to sustain high-quality veterinary science programs? (2) Looking ten years out, what are the key challenges and opportunities that veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand face in terms of their responsibilities to educate and train their future veterinary workforces? What needs to change to ensure the schools can address the identified challenges and take advantage of the opportunities over the next decade? (3) How strong is the research performance of Australasian veterinary schools in the global context? What is the nexus between a veterinary school's research capability and its capacity to educate veterinarians suited to the modern workforce? What could be done to optimise the education/research mix of veterinary schools?; The report presents the findings in the following sections: (1) Changing needs for veterinarians in Australia; (2) Regulatory framework for veterinarians and their education; (3) Veterinary education provision and funding in Australasia; (4) The changing path through university to the workforce; (5) Strategic structural reform for financial sustainability; (6) Increasing government support for veterinary education; (7) Transition to the workforce; and (8) Future veterinary research and postgraduate education. The report also makes 25 recommendations, addressed variously at veterinary schools themselves, their universities, accrediting bodies, veterinary professional associations, and governments.

Edited excerpts from publisher's website and publications.