Episode Details

The April 2026 edition of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA Vol. 264, #4) caught my attention with 4 articles and an author's response to an article. In this podcast, I use the information gathered from them to suggest that many new veterinary graduates are a combination of the following:

• They may be focusing more on acceptance from their peers over competent patient care (acceptance by their veterinary team).

• They may be reading published scientific articles that are partly generated by artificial intelligence hallucinations (manufactured falsehoods).

• They may be carrying a larger educational debt load (struggling financially).

• They are in a profession with declining patient visits and increased care costs (decreasing practice income).

• They are struggling to provide affordable patient care within clients' financial means, which may fall short of the gold standard of care they were taught in school (an affordable spectrum of care).

These five points raised in the journal are not being adequately addressed because mentors are retiring or dying without passing on time-proven care that many clients expect and can afford. The remaining practice owners hiring new graduates are caught between rising practice costs, declining income, and a wave of younger people with one eye on the patient and the other on a sense of self-worth they are told is tied to their ability to get along with their teammates.

The crisis in veterinary care for horses is much more than increasing a new graduate's salary. It is a lack of good horsemanship skills, along with a spectrum of care choices that help horse owners address their horse's problem. However, horse owners also have an obligation to ensure they can support