There is a shortage of veterinarians, especially large animal and food animal veterinarians in rural Colorado.
We live on a cow calf operation in northeastern Colorado, and we utilize our veterinarian for tasks like ultrasound for determining pregnancy in cows, administering Bangs vaccinations and the accompanying tattoo and tags for heifers prior to breeding, bull breeding soundness exams, and the occasional cesarean section. These tasks all involve copious amounts of manure and various other fluids in large quantities.
The weather rarely cooperates and there are solid reasons why a portion of a reproductive soundness exam involves checking for scrotal frostbite damage. It takes a special individual to dedicate their lives — and major student loan balances — to working in extreme weather conditions with large animals that are uncooperative, unruly, nonverbal, and often less than impressed by the efforts of those around them.
Despite the obvious glamour, margins are thin for livestock producers and veterinary practitioners aren’t billing insurance companies and receiving big bucks from drug companies or spending off-call weekends in the islands. There is a shortage of large animal veterinarians in rural Colorado because it’s a difficult profession that is expensive to enter and filled with challenges ranging from mental health to labor shortages.
Rep. Karen McCormick is a 40-year veterinary practitioner. Her background is in small animal medicine, but she understands the challenges for veterinarians in places like Last Chance and Olney Springs. Rep. McCormick introduced two pieces of legislation that sailed through the House Ag Committee due in no small part to her meticulous process and knowledge. The first bill, HB24-1047 allows veterinary technicians to take on additional tasks under either the direct or indirect supervision of a licensed veterinarian. In the small animal space, this could look like removing a single root tooth and the accompanying gingival sutures. In the large animal space, this may be pregnancy checking. The bill creates a clear path forward for veterinarians to better utilize their techs, create more job satisfaction for talented and driven techs, and free up time for other tasks and patients.
The second bill, HB24-1048 creates a way forward for telehealth visits for patients that have been seen initially by the veterinarian, meaning there is a veterinary patient client relationship (VPCR). The key component is the continued adherence to the FDA’s requirement for a VPCR.
There have been murmurings about forgoing the requirement of the VPCR and allowing corporations to swoop in and begin prescribing veterinary medications to animals they’ve never seen. It is happening via legislation all across the country.
It is, of course, a boon to corporations who have an eye for profits. However, it’s a deal breaker for Rep. McCormick and other veterinarians who support this bill. McCormick’s heart and focus is on quality animal care by licensed veterinarians with a VPCR. If the bill is allowed to be weakened by the removal of the VPCR, it is no longer a benefit, but a liability to veterinarians and such a change or the threat of a veto without such a change is reckless.
A second bill that ought to raise the hackles of anyone who values local control is a draft bill that will likely be introduced by Sen. Chris Hansen. It appears to be a bill to ensure the Front Range has a bounty of the “green” energy they’ve been promised by steamrolling rural communities. It is akin to wanting to build transmission lines/wind turbines/prairie dog rescues/etc. “out there” because no one is out there anyway or it’s “just open land.”
The draft calls for a “fair and consistent approach to siting and permitting.” If “fair and consistent” is taken from the hands of local leadership and granted, for example, to the Colorado Energy Office, fair becomes a four-letter f word of another sort. The land grab is thinly veiled at best, with lines in the draft like “a county with an existing zoning ordinance in conflict with this Section shall amend that zoning ordinance to be in compliance with this Section within 120 days after the effective date” and “a local unit of government may implement a temporary moratorium on the development of energy facilities for no longer than 6 months while the local unity of government develops a renewable energy ordinance in compliance with the Section.”
This is a complete theft of local control, granting the power of making local decisions regarding commercial solar or wind energy facility siting to an entity with no skin in the game, no investment in the community, and with the goal of serving the Front Range, rural private property owners be damned.
A vote for this bill when introduced, is a vote against private property rights and rural Colorado. Again.
— Rachel Gabel is a longtime agriculture writer and the assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine.
