USDA-NIFA Grant Supports AASV’s Participant-led, Early Career Swine Veterinarian Development Program

September 7, 2022 — Abbey Canon

The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has announced the awarding of an Education, Extension, and Training grant in the amount of $202,548 to the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. The grant will fund a participant-led, early-career swine veterinarian development program. It is one of 20 Veterinary Service Grants Program (VSGP) Awards intended to help mitigate food animal veterinary service shortages in the United States.

Although swine veterinarians are critical to maintaining a healthy, secure, and safe pork supply, many veterinary colleges in the United States have a limited swine caseload and curriculum. It is therefore difficult for veterinary students to obtain a comprehensive swine medicine education that addresses complex and regional food safety and animal welfare concerns and regulations. Without easily accessible and affordable post-graduate training opportunities, early career swine veterinarians may be predisposed to career burnout and leave food animal practice or the veterinary profession early. The AASV Early Career Committee identified the need for additional non-degree educational coursework and training for swine veterinarians early in their careers and applied for the grant to address the need.

The AASV and the Early Career Committee's goal is to create a practitioner-led, early-career swine veterinarian development program to provide participants with resources needed to encourage and ensure successful, lifelong careers as swine veterinarians and to cultivate new leaders in swine veterinary medicine. AASV will provide information and resources that support early career swine veterinarians, as identified by the program participants. AASV will deliver the coursework and training through educational modules administered to up to 25 AASV-member early-career swine veterinarians who are 1 to 5 years post-graduation, with preference given to current or previous Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program recipients or those serving in a USDA-NIFA-designated veterinary shortage situation.

This program is expected to directly address veterinary shortage situations by providing non-degree educational coursework and training to veterinarians who provide services to swine in at least 50% of their practice time.

The goals of the USDA-NIFA Veterinary Service Grants Program are to support food animal veterinary medicine through Education, Extension, and Training funds for accredited schools and organizations and through Rural Practice Enhancement funds for veterinary clinics that provide services in veterinary shortage situation areas. This program is designed to support education and extension activities that will enable veterinarians, veterinary students, and veterinary technicians to gain specialized food animal skills and practices. The 2014 Farm Bill authorized the establishment of the VSGP as a companion to the Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program to incentivize service in veterinary shortage situations. Ultimately, the VSGP will bolster the capacity of private veterinary practitioners to provide food animal medicine in rural veterinarian shortage locations.

Learn more about the AASV award HERE

Learn more about the VSGP and other awards at NIFA VSGP.

Interested in participating? Registration will open soon! Watch the AASV website and the e-letter for an announcement.

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Abbey Canon is the AASV Director of Public Health and Communications