LAWTON Okla_ There are a lot
of animals that need medical attention and not enough veterinarians to treat
them in our rural areas.
Small southwest
Oklahoma
towns are desperately seeking vets, but young veterinarians fresh out of school
complain that they can't find work. We've found that it all comes down to
money.
The average vet
school student leaves with over $130,000 worth of debt, so they want to head to
the big city to make the big bucks, leaving rural vet clinics and animals to
suffer.
Dr. Holly Wilson
from the Beavers Animal
Hospital in Lawton said this is not a new problem. She
said in the vet world, this issue has been a topic of conversation since 2007.
Around that time, the cost of education sky-rocketed and new vets started to
seek employment where they knew they'd get a bigger paycheck. Agriculturally
driven communities are depending on farmers to tend to animals' health needs, and
Wilson said sometimes
that's just not enough.
It's not Comanche County that's the problem. They have
plenty of veterinarians to go around. The rural areas have the highest
population of large animals with medical needs. Dr. Holly Wilson said rural
vets are in high demand.
"Anytime they
go rural though, you're going to be working on lots of large animals," Wilson said. "There lies
less money and harder work. The large animals are just harder to deal
with."
More work for
less pay is not exactly what a vet school grad wants to hear when $100,000
worth of debt is weighing on them. However, their reservations about heading to
the county to put their degree to work are hitting rural clinics and their
animals where it hurts. The veterinarians are taking the biggest hit.
"A lot of
them are aging," Wilson
said. "I came into this practice the same sort of way. I came into someone who
was ready to retire. He worked here a few years, and then he retired. You're
not getting that now. You're not getting those young people that want to take
over those practices. The money is not there, and the work is much harder.
They're faced with having to continue to work when they're well ready to
retire."
Without enough
vets willing to work on large animals at reasonable prices, many of them are
left untreated. In southwest Oklahoma,
rearing cattle and horses is all about money.
"They're
not pets," Wilson
said. "They're in it to make money and turn a profit as well."
Having a heart
for animals is what got Dr. Wilson
into the business in the first place. She was raised in a rural area, running
cattle and tending to her animals. She encourages young vets to give rural a
chance.
"It's just
as rewarding to me, if not more," Wilson
said. "When you work on those large animals, and you get those results you
want, like delivering a baby calf into this world, it's just very
rewarding!"
Dr. Wilson said that while she understands where these recent grads are
coming from, she said that any job is better than no job at all, especially
when the need is so great.
