AN equine veterinary association recently ran a campaign with the tagline ‘Don’t break your vet’. The focus was on the high rate of physical injury suffered by equine vets and ways in which owners might teach horses to be quiet, relaxed and safe for injections, examinations and other veterinary procedures. But vets can be broken in other ways too.

Common ground at a recent international meeting of equine veterinary associations was a growing crisis in recruitment and retention – we are not attracting enough new vets to the equine ranks and we are failing to hold on to those we have. In future we may not have sufficient resources to service the needs of our horses and those who own them – to the obvious detriment of the industries/sports of which we are part, but also the welfare of the horses at their heart. This urgently needs to be thought through thoroughly.

New vet school

Regarding recruitment: we have only one vet school (UCD) on the island of Ireland; it has a fixed capacity and finite resources; and currently there are more Irish vet students training abroad than here. During the past year three universities (in the Mid-West, North-West and South-East) have explored the idea of opening a new vet school, compiling the detail needed to make submissions to government for financial support.

At ‘The Ploughing’ recently, Minister Harris (responsible for further and higher education) was reported as saying that he ‘personally thinks that we should see at least two proceed’. I say: there is no sense in training more vets if we aren’t keeping them on the field serving industry’s key needs.

On retention: work-life balance is cited as a key reason to leave large animal, including equine, vet practice: what my generation of equine vets accepted as ‘normal’ is far less likely to be considered acceptable now. We currently have an ethical obligation (as determined by our regulator) to provide a 24 hour out-of-hours (O-O-H) service to animals under our care in the ownership of bona fide clients of the practice. Not so in some other countries.

At the meeting referenced above, a private equine vet from the US described how they turn off the practice phones O-O-Hs and clients phone a ‘triage system that they pay for privately’; only after demonstrating that theirs is a genuine emergency are they directed onward for veterinary care. Colleagues from Scandinavian countries described how non-specialist state-employed vets provide O-O-H cover across all species. With all due respect to my colleagues employed in the state veterinary service, I can’t see this model being welcomed or considered acceptable to the high-end equine industry here. But there urgently needs to be a real conversation about O-O-H provision: who provides it, who needs it, who funds it?

Young vets

Loyalty is priceless and trust is both hard won but easily lost. Many young vets are motivated to work with horses but get disheartened at the lack of appreciation, intolerance of genuine mistakes, disloyalty and intense pressure to turn-up and perform ‘yesterday’ but accept payment ‘tomorrow’.

The fees due for work done in spring/summer are often only settled out of clients’ autumn/winter sales revenue; even sometimes only as more work is put on the slate the following season.

This system fails when clients fall on hard times; bad debts destroy trust and whole businesses.

Vets provide an essential service; we need to look after them particularly in their early careers; we then need to ensure they remain fulfilled in equine practice; otherwise we’ll be lamenting their loss. Any business contracting in size or scale prioritises customers that are loyal and pay their bills before time. If you have an equine vet that you trust, I suggest that you don’t break (with) them but instead value them, or otherwise be prepared for the effect this has on your own business.