Internationally, veterinary practices are struggling to attract and retain quality veterinarians, and New Zealand is no exception. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of young people wanting to be vets, but tertiary funding streams are bottlenecking supply. 

Thankfully, a number of new vet schools are popping up in places such as the USA and the UK, but the supply volume is unlikely to correct industry shortages in the next 5-10 years.  

New Zealand has a high dependency on international vets, with more than half of last year’s registrations being from overseas vets. 

To further aggravate the situation, the retention of young vets in practice is low, with many new vets (over 50%) leaving practice within six years. The reasons for this turnover are high workload, onerous rosters, compassion fatigue, customer stressors and resilience gaps.  

Most young veterinarians start their career as mixed vets, which enables them to work with two hugely different client types – companion owners (predominantly cats and dogs) and farm owners. Attracting vets to be farm animal specialists is also difficult, as most vet graduates do not have farming backgrounds, and their motivation to enter the career is seldom motivated by agriculture. 

The problem is, fortunately, well understood by bodies such as the New Zealand Veterinary Association, who has been proactive in battling the situation for many years. Some very encouraging “work-ons” include upskilling vet nurses and vet techs to do more tasks traditionally done by vets.  

Lobbying to increase the number of vet seats at Massey has also been successful, with a further 25 seats being added in 2023. To get better vet graduates, a pre-vet interview screen was started a few years ago, with this year’s graduates being the first year of screened industry entrants. The screening interviews are undertaken by industry experts and look for characteristics more likely to result in career longevity and success – e.g. resilience, communication, work ethic and emotional intelligence. 

The medium-term outlook in New Zealand is for a continued tight supply of quality vets, although hopefully new initiatives will ease the stress in the next five years. The structure of the business will, however, mean that we will always be reliant on young and developing vets. 

Fortunately, the primary industry is well known for supporting and developing young agribusiness professionals, and the farming clients at Vet Clinic Morrinsville are no exception. I thank you for your ongoing support for our young veterinarians - your contribution to their developing careers should never be underrated.