2,000 years of veterinary medicine

Obi Veterinary Education is a proudly Canadian company, which means we are subject to Daylight Savings Time*. If you also turned your clocks back one hour last night , we hope you enjoyed that extra hour of sleep. Try not to let it bother you that it's going to get dark before you start making dinner.If you don't participate in DST, congratulations on living in the future. Today we're attempting to cover over 2,000 years of veterinary medicine. From some weird and wonderful medieval cures to today's economic situation:

📈 An Economist's View of the Profession
💰 Clinic Consolidations Continue
🧠 Dr. Appleby on AI (again)
⚔️ Vet Med in the Medieval Ages
👀 ICYMI: Ophthalmology Certificate Now Available!

*yes, we know not all of Canada participates in DST. But we do, and we're totallynot bitter about it or anything either.

📈 An Economist's View of the Profession

Speaking at the AVMA Veterinary Business and Economic Forum held in late October, Dana Peterson, chief economist for the nonprofit The Conference Board shared some insights into how the current economy could impact the veterinary profession. By now you've probably heard that all signs are pointing toward a coming recession. It's a vastly complicated manner, but here's our best two-second primer: Inflation has been rising due to strong demand for goods and housing, factory closures abroad, supply chain bottlenecks, and commodity price spikes (due to ongoing wars and the previously mentioned factory and supply chain issues). In order to combat rising inflation, Federal Banks have been increasing interest rates aggressively. First, the good news from Peterson: “People adopted animals during the pandemic, and they need to continue to take care of those animals, so there’s still demand for veterinary services." She added that although household spending on veterinary care dropped between 2018 and 2020, it then climbed 5% between 2020 and 2022. Ok, so if the demand for our services will remain constant, what's the issue?

Labour shortages

Veterinary medicine is already in a workforce crisis. We don't need to belabour the point as we all experience it every day. But the demand for our services is greater than our ability to provide it. We aren't graduating enough vets each year to fill the gap and those who quit during the pandemic or have 'quiet quitted' over the last year don't seem to be coming back. “Their participation rate collapsed during the pandemic and has not recovered,” Peterson said. “It looks like it won’t, which isn’t a surprise because many people are retiring, and those retirements are contributing to labor shortages.”

Rising Costs

Rising inflation means everything will cost more. We've seen increases in clinic costs including medical supplies, lab testing fees and advanced pharmaceuticals which has been passed on to clients in the form of rising veterinary care costs. Pet owners may be asked to pay more at the vet, and can also expect to pay more for pet food and other basic pet essentials. We can only assume this will mean more angry clients.

At the end of the day, it seems the current economic situation is going to get worse before it gets better. If you're a clinic owner with strong feelings about this or have had a first-hand experience with rising costs - let us know by replying to this email.

💰 Clinic Consolidations Continue

Just a quick note here to keep you up to date on the latest round of U.S. veterinary consolidations. AmeriVet Veterinary Partners has added another 14 new veterinary practices via acquisition of Northeast Veterinary Partners. Perhaps of note, this is the first time that AmeriVet has acquired another veterinary consolidator - a trend we're likely to see increase as the bigger players in the market continue to snap up their smaller competitors.

There isn't much more to say, other than the Great Consolidation continues.

Obi co-founder and veterinary radiologist, Dr. Ryan Appleby joined the JAVMA Veterinary Vertex podcast to discuss the role of artificial intelligence in veterinary medicine, with a focus on its applications and controversy in diagnostic imaging.

If you've been with Weekend Rounds since the beginning, you'll know that AI in veterinary medicine is often the topic du jour, and we'll take every chance we can get to discuss it. We hope you find the applications of AI as fascinating, exciting and worrisome as we do.

Check out the full podcast on your favorite app, or the link above.

⚔️ Vet Med in the Medieval Ages

An interesting article in Smithsonian Magazine on veterinary medicine in the Medieval Ages caught our eye this week. We've included a few highlights below, but strongly recommend you check out the full article.

Until recently, veterinary historians largely ignored the practices of medieval vets, instead tracing the profession’s rise to Claude Bourgelat’s establishment of a veterinary medicine school in France in 1761. However, historians and scholars are beginning to see how early veterinary care can be traced back to the Medieval Ages through magic, religion, and science.

Magic was an accepted part of every day life and that included the recommendations received when caring for animals. Natural Magic focused on possessing the hidden properties of ingredients such as pulverized viper or green meadow frog to treat illnesses of all kinds. Other times, horse owners were advised to dive into medieval alchemy by sewing sheets of lead and tin into a horse’s forehead. And it wouldn't be Medieval Magic without mention of astrology. Some caregivers believed that the alignment of the stars would indicate what surgeries to perform and when, which led to diagrams such as the Zodiac horse seen above.

When magic failed, caregivers would call on religion and the power of the supernatural to treat their animals. Invoking the power of Christian saints and holy figures was a practice endorsed by church authorities. And when the going got tough, Medieval Christians would visit the shrine of a saint to a elicit miraculous healing.

We've come a long way since trying to use children's urine to curse a horse's itchy feet.

👀 Ophthalmology has arrived!

Do you find ophthalmology to be challenging? We've got great news for you... Dr. Amber Labelle’s new certificate makes understanding corneal diseases easy. If you have any patients with eyes we highly recommend you add it to your course library before prices increase at the end of the year!