Would a midlevel practitioner sign a non-compete? 🤔

Happy New Year !Over the holidays, we hope you were able to find some time to take care of yourself and recharge your batteries. The Weekend Rounds team took a few weeks off to see family (mission accomplished), try our very best to relax (a work in progress), and set a new year's resolution to drink more water and stop working through lunch (we'll see).But now that the calendar has flipped to 2023 - it's the year of the Rabbit by the way - we're ready to hit the ground running with a jam-packed edition of the newsletter and big plans to provide the very best on-demand continuing education on Obi Veterinary Education. If you're one of our new members, welcome to  Weekend Rounds, our Sunday newsletter which brings you everything you need to know about the veterinary profession and its intersection with the wider world. We're so glad you're along for the ride. Let's start off on the right foot with the latest in veterinary news and from around the animal kingdom:🎉 Celebrating Obi Members⏸️ Pushing pause on the midlevel practitioner🤔 Will the non-compete come to an end?💉 The latest treatments and diagnostics🚀 Quick hits

🎉 Celebrating Obi Members

Let's start the year off right and celebrate the past wins. Here is what Obi members accomplished in 2022:300 of the most active members watched over 10,000 microlessonsMembers completed over 500 hours of RACE-approved CEMembers enjoyed over 10 hours of new lessons in Ophthalmology, Radiology and Cardiology A portion of proceeds from our Black Friday sale were donated to Not One More VetIt bring us so much joy to see Obi members feel confident at work and level up the care they're providing to patients. That's why we're going big in 2023...  we'll be releasing new certificates and introducing a site-wide subscription so you can access all that Obi has to offer at your fingertips. More details to come, but for now just keep doing what you're doing! We can't wait to see what we accomplish together in 2023!

⏸️ Pushing pause on the midlevel practitioner

Among the ideas to support the veterinary profession, especially with a staffing shortage, has been the midlevel practitioner.  This position has been one proposed method to allow veterinary practices to see more patients and support the staffing needs.   However, the AVMA House of Delegates, recently rejected the proposal at their most recent forum.  Instead, the consensus is that "time and effort should be spent on resources, tools, and programs designed to retain veterinarians and credentialed veterinary technicians; further develop veterinary technician specialties; help veterinary practices operate at optimum efficiency; and effectively collaborate—within practice teams and across the profession—to meet clients’ needs for high-quality veterinary services. "Among the reasons that the proposal was rejected, the House of Delegates expressed concerns that the midlevel practitioner would not meets goals of bringing practitioners to rural areas, would require additional support staff already in short supply, and would require faculty, also in short supply, to teach in programs for this new role. What do you think?  Reply to this email to let us know your thoughts.  Did the AVMA get it right?

💉 The latest treatments and diagnostics

Treatments and Diagnostics

December was an interesting month for breakthroughs in veterinary treatment and diagnostics. As the AVMA reported, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first oral treatment for cats with diabetes mellitus.

Otherwise healthy cats who have not been treated with insulin can now receive Bexacat - an inhibitor of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2, the first SGLT2 inhibitor approved by the FDA for any nonhuman animal species. The active ingredient, Bexagliflozin, prevents a cat’s kidneys from reabsorbing glucose into the blood, causing excess glucose to be passed out in the urine and resulting in lowered blood glucose. 

Plus, Companion Animal Health showcased a new product, the HT Vista, which helps veterinarians identify malignant cancer early, without invasive biopsies. The company suggests this will significantly improve the survival rate for many patients. At VMX in Orlando, Dr. Mike Petty (below) demonstrated how the medical imaging technology uses non-invasive Heat Diffusion Imaging (HDI) and an AI-based algorithm that recognizes cancerous cells by their unique dynamic heat-flow properties, with a reported 97% accuracy. 

Dr. Mike Petty, DVM, MAV, CCRT, CVPP, tests for cancer with the new non-invasive, patented HT Vista device that uses heat to detect the presence of cancer cells.

🤔 Will the non-compete come to an end?

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a rule to ban non-competes in contracts. While not specific to veterinary medicine, the rule, if passed, will have profound implications for the veterinary profession as on-compete clauses are common across veterinary medicine. Paul Diaz, an outspoken critic of the veterinary non-compete

, has made it his mission to call out what he considers the "hypocrisy" of veterinary corporate leaders who talk about supporting the wellbeing of the veterinary profession, but keep non-compete clauses in contracts.

Our take:

 We're not a fan of the non-compete clause. If clinics want to retain people, treat them well.

38

Veterinarians in South Carolina removed 38(!!) hair ties from a cats stomach. The cat was brought to the hospital due to lethargy and lack of appetite and required surgery after radiographs showed the unusual hair ties in her stomach. 

🚀 Quick hits

Here are some stories we're following this week from around the veterinary world and animal kingdom:

Hiring and Retention Trends for 2023 [AAHA]Using CSI skills to catch Poachers [The Guardian]MedPALM: Google's answer to ChatGPT for medical questions [MarkTechPost]DogeCoin Meme Dog ill with Cancer [Business Insider]DCM and dog food – is the saga over or just getting started? [Medium]Weird things animals were caught doing in 2022 [Business Insider]Famous animals who died in 2022 [NBC]