On a farm in Schomberg, a rural Ontario village about an hour northwest of Toronto, Maggie Turner rests on a couch near the entrance to stables that smell of rain-soaked soil, hay and manure. In the background, the revving of ATVs and snorting of horses punctuates the hum of a giant fan that keeps the building cool.
Dr. Turner has been working in environments such as this for nearly 19 years as an equine veterinarian on the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area. Every day, she travels around in her trusty Toyota 4Runner that acts as a mobile clinic and comes fully loaded with unexpected tools of the trade such as Play-Doh and diapers – key to treating matters of the hoof.
A typical workday for Dr. Turner lasts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. But on-call hours on evenings and weekends mean maintaining a work-life balance is a challenge many equine veterinarians struggle with, leading to a high turnover rate for them and other professionals who work in rural communities.
“That’s one of the challenges people have, is they don’t think they can have a life and a family,” she said.
Veterinary care in rural Ontario has become increasingly strained over the years, with fewer veterinarians moving outside of cities or specializing in large or mixed-animal practice, which can care for companion animals and large ones. The profession is now working to change that, with the province’s only veterinary school introducing new seats and loan assistance exclusively for rural vets, and the regulator redefining the role of veterinary technicians, who assist vets, to broaden the scope of their practice and alleviate some stress on vets.
Altogether, these changes signify a larger cultural shift that many people in animal care say has been a long time coming.
Earlier this year, a striking example of the difficulties to meet demand for after-hours large animal care played out at the Ontario Veterinary College’s on-site clinic in Guelph. In one weekend, the clinic’s staff were run off their feet, treating 40 horses who came from all over the province and even south of the border, said Luis Gaitero, associate dean at OVC. Typically, these equine patients come from a mix of companion, race and show horse backgrounds, and some of them travel to Guelph when there’s a lack of available veterinary care in their area.
OVC’s clinic is one of a limited number of large animal clinics that still has the resources to staff a 24-hour operation, OVC Dean Jeff Wichtel said. Whereas one veterinary technician working alone is enough to handle a dog or cat, two to three are often needed to handle a horse because of the animal’s size.
Equine veterinarians, one of four specialty areas that students can choose at OVC, have one of the highest turnover rates when they get into the field. According to the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the attrition rate for equine vets is 50 per cent within five years, meaning half of those who enter the practice either shift to small animals or quit the industry entirely.
In Canada, Dr. Wichtel attributes the small number of students choosing rural and farm-based practices, in part, to their backgrounds.
“It used to be, back in the early part of the last century, that half or more of a population came from a farm. Now it’s a vanishingly small percentage,” he said.
To address this, the college will open 20 new spots for students looking to serve rural Ontario starting next year, through a partnership with Lakehead University, Dr. Wichtel said. Clinical facilities, a barn and specialized labs are being built at Lakehead, which didn’t previously have a vet school, using provincial government funding.
Dr. Wichtel hopes this initiative will double the number of students graduating who are interested in mixed animal practice. Currently, he estimates about 65 per cent of students in classes of just over 100 choose to stream small animal.
Separately, he said the province is also offering to repay up to $50,000 of loans to each student who takes a position treating food animals, such as pigs or cows, in an underserved area of the province, based on criteria the province has established. OVC is the only veterinary college in Ontario, and one of just five in Canada.
As well, in June the Ontario Legislature passed Bill 171, the Enhancing Professional Care for Animals Act. Its adoption marks the first time in 34 years that the governing act for veterinary medicine in the province is changing. Now, it’s up to the College of Veterinarians of Ontario (CVO) to hammer out the specifics of the new law and carry it through into action.
The act moves veterinary technicians from being regulated by the Ontario Association of Veterinary Technicians to being regulated by a new professional body that will also govern veterinarians, giving the technicians a more prominent seat at the table where industry decisions are made. The new regulating body, called the College of Veterinary Professionals, will replace the CVO and take regulating responsibilities away from the vet techs association.
Hailey Farkas, president of the Ontario Association of Veterinary Technicians, said her organization has been working toward this solution for the past 20 years. Ms. Farkas said she hopes the new act will allow vet techs to utilize the full extent of the skills they’re taught in school and broaden the scope of what they can do independently, alleviating some stress on veterinarians.
The new act also includes changes such as revamping the CVO’s system for managing complaints about its members, which can come from the public, media or other industry professionals. Jan Robinson, registrar and chief executive officer of the regulator, said the process will become more streamlined as a result and will hopefully relieve the backlog of COVID-19-era complaints the college is still going through.
While the collaboration between vets, technicians and other veterinary staff that’s emphasized in the new act may already be the way some clinics in the province operate, having this message come down from a governing body is important to implement uniform change and widen a discussion about the role of vet techs, Dr. Wichtel said.
“Veterinarians tend to be reluctant to delegate many important things because their attitude is almost ‘Under our licence, I’m responsible for what that technician does, so I’m going to be extremely conservative and cautious,’” he said.
Vet tech Fiona Way said she’s hopeful these changes will deter people in the industry from thinking of vet techs or assistants as support staff. Ms. Way has worked in the industry for nine years. She began her career in Ottawa, before moving to Guelph to work at OVC for nearly five years in the intensive care and anesthesia units. In 2021, she moved to Vancouver, where she works in an emergency department. She said techs and assistants are a huge part of the care an animal receives, since they often spend more time with a patient than the vet does.
“We’re a team. The doctors can’t do their job without me. I can’t do my job without the assistants. We all have to work together to accomplish the care that the pet needs,” she said.
