Time to Act

The proposal to permit veterinary medicine students to practice before their fourth year is back for further comment. This is an opportunity to continue the campaign to require that owners be notified and provided the opportunity to give or withhold their consent for student practice. Considering what we saw the first time the subject was up for comment, I expect a highly organized campaign from the vet school to flood the Board with supportive comments. We need to be just as organized and committed to having our point of view heard. We may also be dealing with resistance from the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association, which opposed requiring owner consent the first time the issue came up. I contacted them about this on May 20 and have had no response, so draw your own conclusions. The comment period opened June 1 and will close July 1. Here’s the link where you can see what comments are already posted and make your own: http://townhall.virginia.gov/L/comments.cfm?stageid=7088 (I’ve had trouble with links in previous updates, and I can’t see whether or not they are going to work correctly until after the update goes out. If the entire link isn’t underlined, it won’t work, and you will have to copy and paste the address.) You should say whatever you believe on this subject, but just in case it helps you formulate what you want to say, you will find what I posted at the end of this message. In addition to continuing the push for owner consent, I also asked for change in the way veterinary practices are approved as preceptorship sites, as some of them are so poor that they likely do students (and their future clients and patients) more harm than good. And if you are totally opposed to student practice off campus, here’s a number for you: the vet school says that its teaching hospitals and large animal ambulatory field service treat 79,000 animals annually. With those numbers, why do students need to go off campus? I have confirmed with one of the Board staff that comments are accepted from out of state, although she thinks more weight is given to comments from Virginia residents, so feel free to comment regardless of where you live. And when you have done so, share, share, share! There is no such thing as too much public participation in the regulatory process – especially when the Board is biased in favor of comments from members of the profession and inclined to brush off those from the public. As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions: LeeHenkel01@gmail.com ************* Cannot Support Without Changes When this change was first proposed it was clear from vet student comments that they are not getting what they need from the program at VA Tech. I strongly support improving veterinary education, but I do not believe that this change will accomplish that goal. My first objection is that this change would permit students to practice as early as their first year of vet school. This is much too early. Practice before the start of the third year should be limited to observation only. Second, I cannot support any expansion of student practice in an off-campus setting until the Board takes steps to assure that those veterinary practices are at the upper end of the continuum relative to clinical competence, professional ethics, and teaching ability. 25% of the vet school’s list of approved practices in Virginia have one or more veterinarians who have been fined and/or reprimanded, some more than once, for infractions ranging from the “minor” issue of failing to obtain required continuing education to problems as major as permitting an unlicensed individual to perform surgery. This does not provide the quality of education which the students need, and their future clients and patients deserve. Last but definitely not least, I strongly object to this statement found at http://townhall.virginia.gov/L/GetFile.cfm?File=C:\TownHall\docroot\33\4277\7088\AgencyStatement_DHP_7088_v1.pdf: “The purpose of the regulatory action is to eliminate a burdensome restriction on the preceptorships for veterinary students in which they gain practical experience under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian. Currently, students are not allowed to be engaged in a preceptorship until their final year in veterinary college.” This implies that students have some right to have access to patients prior to their fourth year, and that this right is being improperly denied. THERE IS NO SUCH RIGHT. Student access to patients is a privilege, and one which should only be granted by the patient’s owner. Yet the owner's right to give or withhold consent is currently being violated because regulations permit veterinarians to use patients as teaching material without even informing the owner – much less obtaining their consent – unless they intend to go to the extreme of letting the student perform surgery unassisted. This is the true burden relative to student practice, and it is being borne by the patient and the owner, not the student. This absolutely must change, and as it applies to both veterinary medicine and veterinary technology students, before any other changes are made to student practice regulations.