A Collaborative Effort To Recruit Students And Retain Food And Large Animal Veterinary Practitioners In Veterinary Shortage Situations

Kentucky and Alabama producers provide significant numbers of feeder and dairy cattle, sheep and goats and poultry to the food supply. Veterinarians provide the expertise needed to maintain a healthy herd or flock. However, the rural food/large animal veterinary shortage, addressed by USDA-VSGP, continues to grow. It is imperative that we find a way to 1) educate, support and recruit more students for careers in food/large animal veterinary medicine and 2) provide veterinary students ability and resources to practice food/large animal medicine in rural environments. The long-term goal of Auburn College of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Kentucky programmatic collaboration presented in this grant is to recruit, educate, support, and retain rural students to veterinary medicine who will return to their rural homes as food/large animal veterinarians addressing both the nationwide shortage and the Alabama-Kentucky specific shortage of food/large animal veterinarians. We will accomplish our long-term goal through programmatic efforts designed to meet 2 objectives: 1) identify, recruit, and retain students from counties in USDA Shortage Situations in Alabama and Kentucky successfully gain admission to a college of veterinary medicine, and 2) expand third or fourth- year CVM students to leadership and mentorship opportunities for students coming from Shortage Situations in Kentucky and Alabama. Specifically, we are proposing to create educational programs designed to educate rural high school students about careers in food/large animal veterinary practice, creating a new pipeline of students, while providing 3rd and 4th year veterinary students with soft skills necessary to enter the rural workforce. This