Shortage of Food Supply Veterinarians

摘要

Over the past 15 years, veterinary medicine, previously a male-dominated profession has experienced a significant increase in the number of women applying for veteri-nary colleges. Today approximately 85% of veterinary students are female. Parallel to this development, there has been a decline in the number of graduates entering food supply veterinary medicine careers. More and more food animal veterinarians, foremost in rural areas, are complaining about their problems in recruiting young professionals for their practice. Feminization as well as the shortage of food animal veterinarians is an international phenomenon. In veterinary practice and scientific literature it has been discussed if these two trends are related. Mainly in Australia, Canada and the USA extensive research has been conducted about this subject. In Germany there is a significant lack of scientific data about this topic. In addition to the feminization as possible cause for the shortage of food animal veterinarians, the poor image of food animal practice has been discussed.The objective of this study was to investigate if female veterinary students make their career choices based on different influences and interests compared to male stu-dents, to identify the demands and prospects of today’s students concerning their professional career and if there are deviations between the students’ prospects and the daily work routine of young professionals. To determine these factors and their influence, I conducted a survey in 2007/2008 amongst 1.498 first- and fifth-year stu-dents, including all German veterinary faculties (response rate 80,3%). To compare the prospects of the students with the work routine of professionals I conducted a second survey amongst 810 young professionals from all over Germany (response rate 54,8%).The collected data showed that male students were more likely to favour a career in food animal practice (23,4%) than female students (12,0%). Students from rural ar-eas were more often committed to food animal practice (55,6%) than students with urban background (18,1%). Moreover, analyses revealed strong species-specific associations between students´ employment preferences and the kinds of animals they or their families had owned or kept. Students who had owned exclusively com-panion animals displayed a strong bias toward employment in small animal practice (expected frequency 130,9, observed frequency 172). However, students who had owned food animals exclusively or together with horses and/or small animals showed an increased preference for food animal practice (expected frequency 12,5, observed frequency 26). Major differences concerning the students’ occupational image and the work routine of young professionals were evident regarding working hours and potential earnings. An equal number of students agreed with the statement that in small animal (45,6%) and food animal (42,0%) practice the earnings were good, whereas only 16,0% of the small animal veterinarians and 39,7% of the food animal veterinarians agreed to that statement. Among other things, strong accordance between the two groups has been found concerning the statement that work in food animal practice would be hard, physically demanding, and dirty.The findings indicate that the factors background (rural or urban), gender and kept animals have influence on the choice of a career path after veterinary college. Fur-thermore the findings point out that the prospects of veterinary students for the most part concur with the vocational reality of food animal practitioners. This indicates that existing structures in food animal practice are unattractive for young veterinarians.