Does your dog care what color or sex his doctor is? I didn’t think so.
But according to this troubled, even alarmed, report in JAVMA News, the journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the profession of veterinary medicine is in deep doo-doo. It is too white, and becoming too female.
The U.S. veterinary profession is facing critical workforce issues that will heavily influence the role of veterinary medicine in society.
The numbers are telling. Data indicate fewer men are choosing jobs in veterinary medicine; most veterinary graduates are forgoing food animal medicine and nontraditional career fields such as biomedical research to work as companion animal practitioners; and minority veterinarians remain a small part of a profession that’s looking less and less like the society it serves.
In short, the veterinary profession is on track to becoming a mostly female profession that has limited itself to a narrow scope of service.
I will, with great self-restraint, refrain from doing more than simply observing that it might not be so bad that veterinarians don’t look like those they serve. What I will not do, however, is refrain from asking what possible difference it makes if veterinary medicine remains or becomes “too” white and female.
If there are any barriers to entry that bar any qualified person who wants to become a vet from becoming one, by all means they should be removed if possible. If veterinary schools are discriminating against men and minorities, they should stop, or be made to stop. But beyond that, who cares — why should anyone care? do dogs and cats and cows and pigs care? — what color or sex their doctors are?
The article goes on to say this:
[quote]“Minority students are less likely to go to a school where the other students don’t look like them,” Dr. Darden said.[/quote]
It seems that according to Dr. Darden, the minority students aren’t too fond of diversity either.
I found the article interesting because of everything that it did not want to talk about. For vets, they lump Asains in with minorities for diversity purposes but medical schools do not. Also, going to Vet school is a pay your own way proposition. That will leave out many blacks and hispanics who can get free rides to medical/dental/medical professional school.
Also, most vet schools are at state universities and at the Ag schools that traditionally have more white students. How many blacks want to spend four years going to Texas A&M, Washington State or UC-Davis.
And last, the pet culture in the U.S. is a white, suburban culture. How many Asian-Americans are out walking their dog early in the morning. If you go to a dog show or an equestrian event, you quickly realize why going to Vet school is a “White” thing.
Superdestroyer,
Shame on you. The reason there are so many “Whites” at dog shows is because of slavery, oppression, and the discrimination against dog-loving “Blacks” for over 400 years now. You should know that (and feel guilty about it).
The only way to fix this horrendous situation is to build a critical mass of “Blacks” and other (favored) minorities at Vet schools. This will help the “White” students at those schools see that there are “Black” people in the world. Then, those “White” students will graduate and accept “Blacks” at dog shows.
Just to answer your inital question. Dogs may not care about your race or color, but they do care very much how you smell.
If we want vets to look like those we serve, does this mean enticing Chelsea Clinton and female Kennedys into equine veterinary medicine?
The pets don’t care but their owners do.
If you are black and the vet is white how is a bro going to fully understand his instructions and recommendations? You can’t relate!
Then he hands you some instructions written in words rappers don’t use. Utterly worthless!
Same thing with that drug label and dosage nonsense! They ain’t never tested them drugs on ghetto dogs! You know that and I know that.
So how your pet gonna get a fair deal?
All fun aside now.
At the rates vets charge in my neighborhood I hope they are in plenty of doo-doo with every rights org. on the planet. And alarmed too.
If few minorities are becoming vets then unfair barriers may, or may not, exist. I can’t know.
The matter will be addressed, JAVMA is on the alert.
On this end, I can tell you that Ingrid the cat is upset and feels harrassed because she is generally treated by someone who is non-feline American.
I noticed you capitalized “White” & did not capitalize black – these postings are Racist & Culturally Insensitive against Black Afrikans
And last, the pet culture in the U.S. is a white, suburban culture. How many Asian-Americans are out walking their dog early in the morning. If you go to a dog show or an equestrian event, you quickly realize why going to Vet school is a “White” thing.
Would it be politically incorrect to insert a joke here about the rumored diet of certain Asian communities?
David,
To beat you to the joke: What do you call a Filipino with ten dogs? A Rancher.
Yesterday, I saw three vehicles with dog cages in the back: Two volvo station wagons and a Lexus SUV. Not exactly a cross section. Also, if there is a push for a no-leash dog park in a town, that will tell you where there is a neighbhorhood that has been taken over by affluent gays and/or yuppies.
One of the problems hinted at in the article is while many vets are employed at packing plants, feed lots, and other parts of the meat industry, rich, white girls who want to be a vet because of the family dog will not want to do those jobs. It seems to me that an important diversity push would be to get more men (of any color) into Vet school.
FreeMan,
Do you lack the ability to distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters?
The major point of the article is that few women are willing to work in food animal safety or as large animal practitioners, preferring instead to be small animal vets. In my city the women vets do not take emergency calls on weekends even for pets from their own practices.