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Why are veterinarians leaving? Coastal Bend practitioners weigh in on employee shortage

"There’s definitely not a lot of vets out there right now," said Dr. Shayna Whitaker with Amos Rehabilitation Keep - ARK in Port Aransas.

PORT ARANSAS, Texas — The American Veterinary Medical Association is taking a hard look at why so many veterinarians are leaving the profession. 

While some believe it was the pet boom during the pandemic, others believe it was simply burn out. 

Dr. Shayna Whitaker with Amos Rehabilitation Keep - ARK in Port Aransas said that the facility has been trying to find another veterinarian for the past year.  

"If you look at any of your veterinarian job boards right now in Corpus, there’s probably 10 to 15 jobs right now just here in Corpus," Whitaker said. "I work part time at another veterinarian hospital and we can’t get a veterinarian.”

Whitaker added that she cant seem to figure out why vets are fleeing the profession.

"There’s definitely not a lot of vets out there right now," Whitaker said. "We’re definitely having a shortage of vets.”

Owner of the Island Vet Clinic, Dr. Bill McGee is a San Antonio veterinarian with over 35 years of experience. McGee also knows about the nationwide vet shortage and offered one big reason why they’re so scarce.

'It was really going on before COVID," McGee said. "But then COVID put us where we had to do things differently, and it made everything more difficult, just like it did for everybody else, you included. We had a lot of people burn out.”

Whatever the reasons are for the shortage, it’s going to be sometime before clinics can get more veterinarians on the job. 

Texas Tech recently opened its veterinary school in August. This means that it will take around four years before students can graduate and enter the field. Whitaker said that even after graduation, former students will choose larger cities to practice in. This is due to the fact that students will have a higher earning potential to pay back the loans they took out. 

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