As a last-century veterinary school graduate, I came of age as a general practitioner in the 1990s. I recall it as a time of remarkable innovation. When I entered the profession, we relied on paper records, wall-mounted rotary telephones, the Yellow Pages, postcard reminders, high vaccine prices, low exam fees, flea bombs and on-call shifts. The 1990s introduced the World Wide Web, electronic medical records, in-house diagnostics, wellness plans, new vaccines and parasiticides, pre-surgical labs, a new educational model at Western University, and specialties moving outside of teaching hospitals. The result? Better care delivered by remarkable veterinary professionals.
From my perspective, the advances of the 1990s were followed by a two-decade drought where little innovation took place. Incremental improvements occurred, to be sure, but nothing like what the profession saw when I first entered.
Now, it’s the 2020s. The drought is over! Innovation is back. Today’s profession enjoys the fruits of an ever-growing human-animal bond, increased pet numbers, longer pet lifespans, technological advancements, medical breakthroughs, outside investment and new thinking. As in the last century, remarkable veterinary professionals still deliver outstanding care.
Gazing Into the Rearview Mirror
As I reflect on the past few decades, I’ve seen us move from Yellow Pages to search engine optimization, from paper records to cloud-based electronic medical records, from a male-dominated profession to a female-dominated profession, from steroid/antibiotic shotgun combos to targeted therapeutics, from pain viewed as acceptable to prioritizing multimodal pain management, from reactive care to preventive care, from one-week vacations to four weeks of PTO, from general practices to specialties, from paper ledger books to electronic standard charts of account, from reminder postcards to online scheduling, from telephones to telemed, from independent to corporate, from pet food to nutritional therapy, from pets as animals to pets as family members. The list goes on. Is it all for the better? Mostly. Have we improved pet care and our colleagues’ quality of life over the decades? Largely, yes.
The changes that occurred over a relatively brief period are difficult to imagine until one takes a few minutes to reflect and look into the rearview mirror. But even more exciting is to refocus one’s eyes and look out the windshield. Things are evolving at an ever-increasing pace, and innovation is once again front and center.
The View Ahead
What can we watch for? Here are five areas to ponder.
1. TEAMS
Team-based care will become the norm. Veterinary professional associates and, someday, Ph.D. credentialed veterinary technicians will emerge, adding more rungs to the technician career ladder and more access to care for pet owners. We’ll see more credentialed technicians owning practices and more of them in roles outside of clinical practice. We might even see them with their own regulatory state boards, just as DVMs regulate DVMs, MDs regulate MDs, and RNs regulate RNs. Why can’t credentialed technicians regulate themselves? Think of a regulatory body with a practice act that describes qualifications for licensure, titles and scope of practice.
2. TECHNOLOGY
The promise of artificial intelligence will be realized in clinical decision support, diagnostics, medical record charting, scheduling, reminders, client communication and more. We’re already seeing gains in reduced medical team workloads, streamlined communication and enhanced access to care. Our profession has too much work to do and too few of us to do it all. The potential for ridding ourselves of daily repetitive and often mundane tasks is exciting. Imagine a pet care future that might not include a physical hospital. It’s a future with home diagnostics, AI medical copilots, remote monitoring, 3D-printed organs, personalized medications, robotic surgery, connected pets, predictive medicine and extended lifespans. Electrifying times await us.
3. MEDICINE
Recent therapeutic breakthroughs in treating diabetes, osteoarthritis, neoplastic conditions and allergic dermatitis foreshadow more exciting treatment modalities.
4. GOVERNMENT
Recently proposed legislation would allow up to $1,000 in FSA (flexible spending account) and HSA (health savings account) contributions for pet care or pet health insurance. Imagine the impact. Elected officials recognize the importance of pets as family members and the subsequent savings in human health costs. An economic study commissioned by the Human Animal Bond Research Institute found $22.7 billion in human health care savings associated with pet ownership. The future includes widespread recognition of the human-animal bond and its benefit to two-legged animals.
5. EDUCATION
I envisage new educational models focused on outcomes and enabled by a more progressive and flexible accrediting process. Online and asynchronous paths will be forged. Professional skills like communication, leadership and teamwork will be emphasized. Education will blur the line between teachers teaching and clinicians practicing, between didactic and clinical, and between academia and the workplace. We’ll no longer assume that only faculty can teach. All veterinary professionals will be recognized as educators/teachers for students and clients. As a past Council on Education site visitor, I recall our training on the 11 standards required for veterinary school accreditation. It was stressed that the standards are not prescriptive; schools only need to achieve the standard, and how they do it is up to them. That wise approach allows for innovation and continuous improvement. I’m thrilled to see the emergence of new veterinary schools challenging the status quo with innovative models. Today, more than ever, we must innovate the academic world to keep pace with rapid technological changes, increased demand for graduates and faculty shortages. New graduates will continue to excel and push the profession forward.
What’s Next?
With the end of a drought comes new growth and thrilling opportunities. We’ve entered an exciting age where innovation is back, the rate of change is accelerating, and the future is bright. Innovative approaches across our profession are driving our industry forward.
The drought is over. There’s never been a better time to be a veterinary professional.
What’s outside your windshield?
A THIRST FOR WATER
Wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, Chile’s Atacama Desert gets almost no rainfall. According to Guinness World Records, “The Atacama town of Arica … went from October 1903 to January 1918 without seeing a drop of rain.”