Spencer,
Thanks for your interest. Sadly, here’s the answer http://www.justvetdata.com/polarization_in_veterinary_profession

A common sentiment- I certainly feel the same way. What has your response been?

Ummm… that’s five words.

Scott, I think Carl spoke my mind on schools pretty well (good job, Carl). Only I would include Ross and Western as schools that do as good a job educating as any other. I think they all need to do a better job getting more cases into students’ hands, and getting students into more settings- research labs, wildlife medicine, regulatory medicine, epidemiology.

Like Carl, my primary observation about the schools is that they are not financially sustainable. Like Carl, I think we’re going to lose a lot of them. There will be schools that simply will not be able to change enough fast enough. By change I mean figure out a way to get away from reliance on unlimited tuition. That has to be done in a way that benefits the public, the animal and the client, and then the veterinarian. They market doesn’t exist to serve providers. Providers exist to serve the market. Right now no one is well served by the structure of the veterinary educational system, Scott. Not limited to the schools- it’s the whole system. The schools alone didn’t cause this and they cannot solve it by themselves, anymore than the AVMA, or corporates, or nonprofits, or private practice. Heads up, Carl? Distributive model is extensively used in medical education, and engineering. Another headsup? Herding together works best against certain types of threats. Stampede is actually more effective at the herd level when taken by surprise or threatened by multiple predators.

Food for thought to go with that drink…

Carl, love to see you write an article describing your vision for a new organization.

That is awesome Amanda!

Yes and yes, Brendan. We are behind the times, absolutely. The technical capability- the software and skills- to have the answers we need from the data we already generate is available to anyone, free. Getting all the organizations to make their data available…’nother story entirely! Are other fields equally behind? Yes and no. The Physician masterfile is comprehensive, but has its own issues. And I’m not aware of any similar comprehensive data base for other professions. One issue that exists in all fields is an unwillingess to collect objective life event data- when people marry, have kids, move, buy a house, buy or start a business, divorce, retire, die. Those ar ethe true indices that tell us what effect our vocation, profession, career, job is truly having on us, compared to other paths we could have taken.