The Veterinary Specialist Faculty Shortage - It Is Not All About the Numbers - special issue: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Specialty Veterinary Medicine

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Aran

The current shortage of veterinary specialist faculty is amplified by demographic shifts in pet-owning communities that reshape how high-quality pet healthcare is defined culturally. Achieving effective teaching and learning within this evolving standard of culturally appropriate veterinary care requires a paradigm shift in veterinary medical education, supported by stronger representation among veterinary specialists. Expanding specialty training capacity and strengthening diversity across specialist communities are critical. Meaningful opportunities exist across the full pathway to specialist careers, but sustained engagement from current specialists is essential to success.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Background

Workforce demand and access to care

Faculty workforce gap and growth projections

Clinical specialist shortages and hiring competition

Public health, animal welfare, and economic implications

Veterinary Ophthalmology SPECIAL ISSUE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Specialty Veterinary Medicine The Veterinary Specialist Faculty Shortage: It Is Not All About the Numbers James W. Lloyd1,2,3 | Lisa M. Greenhill4 1Animal Health Economics LLC, Sears, Michigan, USA | 2College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA | 3College of Veterinary Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA | 4American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, Washington, DC, USA Correspondence: James W. Lloyd ([james.lloyd@animalhealtheconomics.com](james.lloyd@animalhealtheconomics.com)) Received: 21 March 2025 | Revised: 16 May 2025 | Accepted: 19 May 2025 Keywords: access to care | demographics | high-quality care | marginalized communities | representation | veterinary career pipeline ABSTRACT The current shortage of veterinary specialist faculty is compounded by ongoing demographic trends in the pet-owning community that are redefining the concept of high-quality pet healthcare on a cultural basis. To achieve effective teaching and learning in the context of this evolving standard of culturally appropriate veterinary care will require a paradigm shift in veterinary medical education. Accomplishing this shift will be more likely with enhanced representation among veterinary specialists so that the demographics of the specialist community more closely reflect the emerging demographics of the pet-owning community. In going forward, expanding the capacity of specialty training programs will be critical, as will enhancing the diversity of the veterinary specialty communities. Opportunities for positive impact exist at many points along the long and complex pathway to careers as a veterinary specialist, but active engagement of current specialists will be crucial to success. 1 | Background Capacity in the veterinary medical profession is currently insufficient to meet demand for veterinary services in the United States [1–4] . This gap is most frequently experienced as inadequate access to care in the companion animal, food animal, and equine practice sectors, and has been a key factor in the rapidly rising costs of veterinary healthcare. Although seemingly acute, the shortage is not new [5], and expansion of educational programs to train more veterinarians and veterinary nurses/technicians is well underway [4] . Student enrollments across US colleges and schools of veterinary medicine have been on the upswing for quite some time, with the number of first-year students increasing at a rate of about 3% annually between 2013 and 2023 [6] . The need for faculty has increased accordingly, and academic veterinary medicine is now facing a critical workforce shortage as a consequence. In the fall of 2022, AAVMC's US member institutions reported 403 FTE of funded, unfilled faculty positions [7]. By the fall of 2023, this number had grown by 18% to 474 FTE, which represents a full 10.0% of the total veterinary faculty workforce [8] . This issue is most acute among the clinical faculty, where a widespread shortage of veterinary specialists is known to exist. In a recent study of four different specialty colleges, it was found that the total number of open specialist jobs at only five corporate practices exceeded the number of available candidates (final-year residents) by as much as 4× [3] . Note that the study did not include any academic employers and only considered a total of five employers in the private sector. Compounding the current academic workforce shortage, at least 10 more colleges/schools are currently being launched in response to the broad-based shortage of veterinarians [4] . Because each of these institutions will require (conservatively) a total of 50 faculty, the overall academic workforce shortage stands to increase to a total of nearly 1000 faculty by 2030. Clearly, the This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Att

FAQs

Why is the veterinary specialist faculty shortage more than a numbers issue?

The shortage interacts with demographic trends in pet-owning communities that redefine culturally appropriate expectations for high-quality care. The result is a need for educational and representation changes beyond simply increasing headcount.

What teaching and learning shift is proposed to address culturally appropriate veterinary care?

The text argues for a paradigm shift in veterinary medical education that supports effective teaching and learning under the evolving standard of culturally appropriate care, enabled by enhanced representation among specialists.

What broader consequences does the faculty shortage have beyond education?

The shortage threatens the ability to meet societal needs, including public health implications from zoonotic disease control, animal welfare outcomes related to morbidity and mortality, and economic implications for livestock productivity and product safety.

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Aran