Veterinarians are in short supply, but still popular career says local vet

Adding that the pet adoption craze over the last year might be part of it, but they have had trouble filling vet positions for quite some time.

The main demand has been for the small companion animal practice.

“One of the reasons that we feel here in Medicine Hat we might have a harder time attracting vets as opposed to the larger centres like Calgary and Edmonton is that we don’t have emergency clinics down here. And so we do have to do our own emergency call service. Where in Calgary at 5 o’clock they can go home and direct everything to an emergency clinic.”

Mason says veterinarian is still a very popular career, and all the positions at the vet schools are filled.

“There are only so many seats available at each of the vet colleges across Canada and without government funding to increase the number of seats, they can only take and get in so many students. So they can only graduate so many students per year, which hasn’t changed a lot over the years.”

Dr. Mason says they are still accepting new clients, but there might be a couple of weeks to wait before they get in to see the vet. Sometimes they only have 2-3 vets on any given day.

She reminds clients to be patient, and they do take urgent cases as needed.

by Chantal Wagner

Veterinarians are in short supply, but still popular career says local vet

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