HOW TO FIND A VETERINARIAN YOU CAN WORK WITH

 

John Deen

Department of Food Animal & Equine Medicine

College of Veterinary Medicine

North Carolina State University

Raleigh, NC 27606

 

During the past twenty years there has been a marked change in emphasis in veterinary education from that of producing a multi-species disease specialist to that of producing a generalist within a species. When the proceedings of the American Association of Swine Practitioners are reviewed, it can be seen that there has been a change of emphasis from that of diagnosis, vaccines, and antibiotics to a much wider range of topics, which include building design, employee initiative and finance. This development has not occurred because disease has decreased in importance. Instead, it has occurred because the importance of disease requires an approach that includes all aspects of disease control. This approach has often been called herd health or preventive health management.

 

This holistic approach inherently suggests that there is not one perfect veterinarian for all situations.  To address the different concerns of clients, there are a great number of skills being developed by different veterinarians. These include diagnostic testing, record analysis, disease surveillance, serologic screening, slaughter checks, residue testing, drug usage evaluation, breeding evaluation, boar testing, nutritional evaluation, environmental analysis, facility design analysis, personnel management, client education and financial analysis. Of course, of these skills exist in one veterinarian and neither should they. The skills that are developed by the veterinarian are those that are required by his or her clientele.

 

However, it should be recognized that many producers still expect veterinarians to operate in the classical " diagnose, treat, and leave " method of practice. When 300 farmers in Ontario were interviewed about their use of veterinarians, only 20% said that they used veterinarians on a regular prescheduled basis for the purpose of herd health. It was found that participants in herd health programs tended to use more capital and management intensive practices including weaning earlier, washing facilities, hand mating and running facilities all-in:all-out. Users of PHM were both younger and more educated than nonusers.

 

The other 80% of interviewed producers gave various reasons for their lack of usage of herd health, these are listed in Table 1. The general impression created from examining these answers is that veterinarians are still expected to operate in a classical "fire engine" approach. This may be due in part to the veterinarians lack of communication with the farmer and it may also due to the historic experiences of the farmer.

 

Table 1.  Reasons given for not using herd health services

 

Reason	Number	%
High cost	30	13.5
No problems	59	26.5
Government vets used	5	2.3
Only used for emergencies	30	13.5
Minimal disease herd	5	2.2
No swine vet available	18	8.1
Isolation preferred	12	5.4
Other reasons or no answer given	64	28.7
Total	227	100.0

 

There is often a conflict in a veterinary practice between the herd health approach and the fire engine approach.  It is often the fire engine practice that wins since it is the lack of a herd health program that drives it.  Thus, the level of herd health activity performed by your local veterinarian may not accurately represent his skills.

 

To understand and recognize the skills of your local swine veterinarians, there is a need for a good level of communication.  Hog farmers are much more likely to know the ranges of feed types available at the local feed mill than the rage of services available from a local veterinarian.  To correct this, make an appointment to meet your veterinarian at his office and discuss a herd health program.  Such a meeting serves the major purpose of evaluating the opportunity to develop a good level of empathy and communication.  Veterinarians must be willing and able to present their evaluations to farmers and conversely, farm managers must be willing to present their root concerns to their veterinarians.  Requests to veterinarians should progress from “my growing pigs have diarrhea, what sort of antibiotic should I use" to "I am concerned about the growth rates of my pigs, what shall we do" to "last year was a bad year, what should I do to improve my situation". This last question may fully tap the potential of the veterinarian, but also requires a high level of cooperation and trust between the farm manager and his adviser. A face-to-face meeting can begin to define whether that cooperation can exist. Rely on your instincts to evaluate whether you feel comfortable in developing an advisory relationship with this person. It is this relationship of cooperation and communication between the veterinarian and the farm manager that can fully use the development and the progress made in veterinary medicine.

 

    If the skills required or if a good level of empathy is not available from the local veterinarian some "shopping" may have to be performed to identify the correct veterinarian. Bringing in veterinarians from greater distances may mean increased costs for travel, especia1ly if no other farms in the area use his services. Use your local extension personnel as well as technical advisers to identify possible candidates to develop a herd health program on your farm. Take some time to discuss with these candidates the needs that you have and the abilities that they have.

 

It is my submission that the production of consistently healthy hogs demands the interaction of farmers with a herd health veterinarian.  This relationship is especially important in a rapidly changing industry.  Veterinarians are changing, as they must, to aid in this progress.