Dr. Kate Boatright joins the podcast to discuss her recent article on veterinary school admissions and demographic trends.
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LINKS
The Next Generation of Veterinarians (Article): https://todaysveterinarypractice.com/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/the-next-generation-of-veterinarians/?oly_enc_id=5467B7086134E1Y
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys are Struggling and What We Can Do About It – https://amzn.to/3gNeG70
Pawsibilities Vet Med: https://www.pawsibilitiesvetmed.com/
Journey for Teams: https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/diversity-and-inclusion-veterinary-medicine/journey-teams
Blend: https://www.blend.vet/
Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
Links to Amazon.com are affiliate links and help support the show. (They’re also much smaller than normal links and easier to copy when typing up show notes!)
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Kate Boatright has been in small animal practice since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. After nearly 8 years of full time practice in both general practice and emergency clinics, she moved to part-time clinical work to pursue her passion for educating veterinary professionals as a freelance speaker and author. Dr. Boatright enjoys discussing mentorship, the unique challenges facing recent graduates, wellness, and the spectrum of care. She believes deeply in the role of organized veterinary medicine and holds leadership positions in the AVMA and her local and state VMAs. She is a former national officer of the VBMA and was a founding member of the VBMA Alumni. In her remaining time, she stays busy chasing her toddler, running, reading, and watching movies with her husband and cats.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Cone of Shame Veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I’m here with my friend Dr. Kate Boatright, and we were talking about a new article she put out recently looking at the demographics of vet medicine and where it’s going. She’s looking at demographic trends in veterinary school in the new class for veterinary school, and it’s fascinating stuff, guys. Enrollment for vet schools is going up, the vet schools are getting bigger, and we’ve got LMU putting out two classes a year coming up and getting started. We’ve got larger class sizes, we have got increasing diversity in our profession. Yay.
We have decreasing percentages of men in our profession. Ooh. We talk about the driving factors for those trends. We talk about what it looks like and where it goes in the future. We talk a bit about feminization of that medicine. We talk a bit about what’s going on in the education in general. We talk about a lower number of men graduating college, and what that means for vet schools and things like that. So it’s a sprawling demographic conversation as we look at medicine and the composition of medicine and where’s it going. So guys, I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Kate Boatright, how are you doing?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
I’m doing great. How are you Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I am doing pretty darn well, actually. So yeah, thanks so much for being here. It is a real thrill for me to have you here, because I remember when you were a baby vet student. When we met is when you were in vet school, you went to Penn, right? VMD?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’m a Pennwe.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I remember when we met. I’ve been thinking, I may need to stop saying that, because there’s more and more people now is like, “I remember you were in vet school.” And I’m like, “I don’t know if people like to be introduced that way.” I remember you from there, but you have gone on and already had a distinguished career pretty quickly. You are writing a lot. I see your name a lot. You write for dvm360, you’re doing some stuff, you have a regular thing at AAHA trends, I think. You do NEWStat, you write for today’s vet practice, is what we’re going to talk about today. I saw an article there that you did that I really liked, that I want to talk to you about. You’re just doing a lot of stuff. You’re doing some speaking stuff, I’m seeing you on some of the conference programs and things like that.
I wanted to get in with you and talk about this article. So it was in the October, Today’s Vet Practice, and it was called, The Next Generation of Veterinarians. This article is about enrollment in vet schools today, and changing demographic trends that we are seeing. And I actually thought it was really interesting. And so, what I want to do with you today, is just walk through what are we seeing from a diversity, equity and inclusion standpoint? What are we seeing as far as changing demographics in the vet school? Talk to me at a high level and then let’s start to drill down.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah, absolutely. The article focused on the AAVMC’s data report on the current demographics of the veterinary student population that was published, I think it was over last summer. And the big three trends that they highlighted were increasing enrollment, which is a good thing for our veterinary shortage right now. And then significant improvement in DEI, but a continued decline in our male student population. And I was able to talk to Dr. Lisa Greenhill over at AAVMC for the article, and she gave me a lot of the context of the data. I think I quoted her, the story the data tells, is the fun part.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Gotcha. Okay. Well, I’m going to let you take it from here. I’m interested in, when we talk about increased enrollment, how much enrollment are we talking about? So let me start with that before we dig into the story the data tell. What are we talking, is this a 5% increase? Is it a 20% increase? What scale of increased veterinarian production are we seeing now?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. The current in the incoming class, so this would be for the class of 2025 that we’re entering vet school this fall, we saw about, it was a little over 4%. I think it was 4.7% overall increased enrollment from the previous year. And one of the big drivers of that has been the opening of some new schools, so we’ve seen new schools pop up. We’re starting to see schools like Lincoln Memorial are introducing a second class in the calendar year, which is going to be another increase in our enrollment. I remember when I started vet school, there was a huge jump in enrollment around that time. So I started vet school back in 2009, and I remember that everybody was saying there was a veterinarian shortage.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I remember that.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, there has been a surplus. They were saying there has been a surplus.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ve never forgotten this. So I’ll tell you the story just real quick, because it has always affected my thinking ever since. So I graduated in 2008, and there was this anger about the surplus of veterinarians, and we are going to be swamped in veterinarians and nobody’s going to have a job, and veterinarians are going to work for peanuts, because there’s going to be so many of us. People were angry, and that was the defining narrative. It was everywhere. And then jump ahead about three, four, five years, I was watching Dani McVety lecture at a conference one time. It was a town forum type thing, so it was this open discussion. And someone from the audience was grilling Dani, who’s a good friend of mine, and grilling her.
And they were like, “With all of these veterinarians, and blah, blah, blah.” And Dani was the first person I ever heard just really pushed back. She’s the founder of Lap of Love Vet Hospice and they were growing really fast at the time. And she said, “Where are these veterinarians that you’re talking about, because I can’t find them. Because I would hire them, and they’re not there.” And there was murmuring in the room from people who were like, “I have also struggled to hire a veterinarian.” And that was, for me, was almost like, I just saw the tide turn in this room, and it never went back. And after that, the chorus just came up of, “We can’t get help.” But I say that, because the narrative people were so certain, and they were just like, “This is what it is.”
And then I saw it turn in that room and then it just ran away. And it’s funny, I’ve always remembered that, because you hear these things and people say, “Well that’s just what it is.” And I go, I’ve heard that story before, and sometimes that’s not what it is. And sometimes the idea changes really fast. And so, it’s just funny whenever people talk about doom and gloom, it was just funny that the doom and gloom was, there’s too many of us. And it immediately flipped in doom and gloom of, there’s not enough of us.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s also always been the question of, are there too many in one area versus another, both geographically and just practice area? I have a lot of friends from vet school who aren’t in practice anymore. And so, I think that’s been another trend that we’ve seen just in the overall veterinary population, is people who are still working as veterinarians but in different capacities. So I think it’ll be interesting to see where these vet students that are in school now, where they’re going to go. Are they going to end up in clinical practice? Are they going to end up out in industry or academia, or where they’re going to go?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I had a guest on a nutritionist just recently, and she was telling about being in general practice for a while and then ultimately feeling stuck and then doing a non-traditional residency. And now she works with Hills, and it’s just been… Yeah, I see a uptick in that. And I’m curious, I don’t know if you have data to support veterinarians working in larger numbers outside of practice or more non-traditional veterinary roles, but just anecdotally, I don’t know if it’s the circles that we run in, a lot of our friends do things that are not in the clinic anymore, or if that’s a more nationwide trend. I don’t know, do you have insight?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
I don’t know that I have specific data. I mean, obviously I hear lots of conversations about, “Hey, it’s really hard to hire.” I’ve been in multiple small animal and emergency hospitals that are struggling and short staffed, and I’m in a pretty rural area, so sometimes it’s hard to recruit. People don’t want to come live in the boondocks, Western Pennsylvania. But I think the people that I talk to either are moving out of practice or, like I did where I work part-time now in practice, and that was so that I could have more time to do all this other stuff that I do. So I think there’s a movement of that as well. The way I’ve heard it explained is, looking at veterinary working hours as opposed to just the number of veterinarians.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That makes sense. So we talked about increased enrollment. I think the LMU model of turning out multiple classes per year is really interesting. We’ve seen this in the Caribbean schools. I think some of the Caribbean schools were doing three classes a year.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Is that true? Okay. I thought that was at least true.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
I’m pretty sure it is. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. So it’s not unheard of. It’s not unprecedented. It’s unprecedented to see a school in the United States doing it, but there seems to be a demand.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. Well, I think a big limiting factor is just the size of the school building and the space. I was reading an article recently where LMU announced its increased extra class, and they built their school to accommodate that. They’ve got the space to put people. I remember, at Penn there are three large lecture halls, so there is one for first year, second year and third year. You’d have to create new space if you were going to add another class, and I think that’s the case in a lot of the older schools.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Have you ever been to LMU? Have you been out there?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
I haven’t. I haven’t. One of my goals is to get to all the vet schools, so they are on my list, but I have not made it yet.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. So I’ve been to Penn a number of times, obviously. And Penn, for those people who haven’t been there, it’s in downtown Philadelphia. It is in a develop city. How do you expand Penn? I have no idea. You would have to acquire some real estate that already exists that someone else vacated, and they would have to be ready to leave. I don’t know how you grow Penn. However, LMU is in the middle of nowhere. And I say that with love, it is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, it’s right on the line of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky. It’s up in that really rural mountainous area. I think it’s Cumberland Gap area. The hiking and backpacking is gorgeous. It is just absolutely pristine, beautiful. I want to go up there, I want to spend time up there and just walk around, because I love being outside.
That said, there’s stuff in there, I mean, I’ve been up there a number of times, and I really like it, but they have room to expand, is a generous way to say it, a 100%. There is very little holding them back from just expanding their facilities. And so, that’s where they are. The other thing is, they have a mindset to expand and they’re willing to expand. So I went up there a couple of years ago, and I’ll never forget, it was when LMU was just getting going. And I went up there, and they had been in practice for two years, so they only had first and second year students.
And I remember getting the tour and walking around the school. And Kate, there were big sections of the school where the rooms were empty except they had purchased everything they needed, and it was all piled in the middle of the room and wrapped in plastic. And half the school was just empty rooms with chairs and tables and microscopes wrapped in plastic. It was the oddest thing. It was like someone was setting up a laboratory like some science fiction place. Anyway, but they were in it and they were like, “Yeah, we’re doing this now with the expectation that people will be here.” And they have just continued to grow. That school in general has continued to grow. So anyway, they’re just doing interesting, innovative things, two classes a year.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ll be interested to see what it looks like. Let’s talk about the demographic shift. So we’re talking about enrollment and where that’s coming from. Tell me the story of demographics in vet medicine.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. I think that we’re all pretty aware. I could remember being on the floor of the ABA House of Delegates back in, I think it would’ve been 2021, the first time we met back in person, and watching the video that was released from the Diversify VetMed, those groups, the Multicultural Vet Med Association, I think was spearheaded, and just watching that video of the experiences that people in vet med had, had of being excluded, racism, all of those things.
And I grew up in a pretty diverse area in Pittsburgh. My mom is a minister, and her whole life has been about anti-racism. I grew up in an interracial church. And so, that really spoke to me. And so, I very closely followed the story of improving diversity in vet med. And I think we’re starting to finally see a lot of that work really paying off. And that’s not work that started in 2021, that started well, well before. And so, it’s exciting to see that we’ve had this big increase. I believe it was about 23% of the student body now comes from what has been historically underrepresented backgrounds.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Wow, that’s amazing. That is amazing. Honestly, that feels really rapid, which is great. I know a lot of the groundwork have been laid for a long time, but really, it’s only been probably the Multicultural VetMed Association came onto my radar. I remember it as pre pandemic, but not very pre pandemic that I became aware of those guys and what they were doing. They seemed to have made a significant impact, and that’s a 23% increase. It’s pretty incredible.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah, it might have been the 2020 Summer Delegates meeting, but it was within the last couple years. And just the amazing impact that we’ve seen and the profession really coming together and saying, “Yes, this is important. We need to address this.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to hop in really quick and give a quick plug. The Uncharted Veterinary Conference is coming in April. Guys, I founded the Uncharted Veterinary Conference in 2017. It is a one-of-a-kind conference. It is all about business. It is about internal communications working effectively inside your practice. If you’re a leader, that means you can be a medical director, it means you can be an associate vet who really wants to work well with your technicians, it means you can be a head technician, a head CSR, you can be a practice owner, a practice manager, multi-site manager, multi-site medical director. We work with a lot of those people. This is all about building systems, setting expectations to work effectively with your people.
Guys, Uncharted is a pure mentorship conference. That means that we come together and there is a lot of discussion. We create a significant percentage of the schedule, the agenda at the event, which means we are going to talk about the things that you are interested in. It is always, as I said, business communication focused, but lots of freedom inside that to make sure that you get to talk about what you want to talk about. We really prioritize people being able to have one-on-one conversations to pick people’s brains, to get advice from people who have wrestled with the problems that they are currently wrestling with. We make all that stuff happen.
If you want to come to a conference where you do not sit and get lectured at, but you work on your own practice, your own challenges, your own growth and development, that’s what Uncharted is. Take a chance, give us a look, come and check it out. It is in April. I’ll put a link in the show notes for registration. Ask anybody who’s been, it’s something special. All right, let’s get back into this episode.
What’s actually driving it? I mean, it’s one thing to say, “Hey, we would like to increase diversity.” And I think that’s the first step. The first step is awareness, and the second step is, what are we actually going to do about it? So tell me about that.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. So I think that, like I said, this is coming from years of work from a lot of people who recognize the lack of diversity a lot earlier than it was a widespread conversation. And it’s about intentionally mentoring students who are coming from underrepresented backgrounds, making sure that they’re even just aware of this as a profession. I think about, we know that there’s a lot of pets who don’t receive veterinary care, and that whole access to veterinary care conversation. And a lot of those are in lower income communities, in more rural communities. And I think there’s a big overlap between that where people aren’t seeing veterinarians who look like them.
And so, getting out into elementary schools and middle schools and high schools and colleges, and just the more that we expose the profession to the public and with a focus on those from underrepresented backgrounds. And there’s some great work from Possibilities, VetMed, and there’s BlendVet and Journey for Teams from AVMA, all these groups are really working hard to improve diversity and having that exposure in the pipeline.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So Positivity Vet, BlendVet, and what was the last group?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Possibilities, Blend, and then AVMA just launched, it’s called Journey for Teams, which is a DEI training program for vet clinics. They launched this summer.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, so I’ll put links to all three of those in the show notes for people who want to check it out and learn more. Is there anything you were surprised by? Is there anything, I don’t know, that that seemed counterintuitive to you as you looked at the changing demographics in the vet schools?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
The biggest surprise to me wasn’t necessarily that we’re seeing a decrease in male veterinarian students, but in talking to Dr. Greenhill and understanding the larger picture of men in higher education, was really eye-opening for me. Historically, for years, we’ve been seeing a decrease in male enrollment. I remember when I was a kid and I said I wanted to be a veterinarian at five, like most of us, my mom was very intentional about making sure that she only took our pets to veterinarians who were female, because she wanted me to see females in veterinary medicine, because when she was a child and said, “I want to be a veterinarian”, everyone said, “You can’t, you’re a woman. Women aren’t in vet med.” And this was in the late ’50s, early ’60s. And so, she went into a completely different profession that was male dominated, which was ministry.
But for her, it was was really important that I saw that from the beginning. I always knew that I wanted to do it and I had that support. By the time I entered school, it had definitely flipped, and women were in the majority at that point, and that trend has just continued where you watch the women increasing and the men decreasing. But when you actually look at the applicant pool, I think it was something like 12% of the applicants were male, but 18% of the class is, so there is an advantage there for men in that population.
But when we look at just the undergraduate student population, it’s also female dominated, so we’re already pulling from a pool that is female dominated. So it’s not so much that vet med is trying to push men out or anything. I think we absolutely need men in our profession. It’s another component of diversity, is that gender component. And they’ve only recently started tracking non-binary and other identifications, so there isn’t as much data on that. But I just think it was really fascinating to me, looking at the broader picture of men in education, I think was one of the really eye-opening things for me.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that’s fascinating. There’s, I think it’s the book, it’s called Crisis of Men and Boys. It’s a new book that came out fairly recently. I’ll put a link in the show notes, but it’s gotten a lot of my attention recently. It’s talking about education in men in America. And as we look along, there’s fewer and fewer men who graduate from high school than they used to be. Women graduate from high school at much higher rates. Women are much more likely to be high school valedictorian. Women are much more likely to go to college. Women are much more likely to finish college and they’re more likely to finish college at the top of their class, which obviously sets women up to be much more likely to go into that school, because that school is competitive, it is academically rigorous, is attractive to the strongest students who feel like, “Yeah, I can handle that.”
And so, I do think that we’re a part of this much larger trend, but I do think it’s interesting to us to think about what that means for diversity to have so few men in the profession. I mean, I think about 12% applicants are male, and 50, what, 48% of the population is male? Something like that. Basically 50% of the population is male. That is incredible. And then, one of the things I also think is really interesting, is when you talk to the economist about what feminization of a profession looks like and how that tends to go, and we look at other professions that have skewed to a predominantly female ratio. There are a number of things that come along with that, just that trend in an industry. And you say, “Well, we tend to see lower salaries, and we tend to see things like that.” And again, I do not like that, and that is not a fun story and I don’t want us to be a part of that story. That’s broken.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. And salaries are implicated as being part of the reason that we see that differential, is that if you were pulling from, we’ve got a smaller pool of men in the STEM majors and they tend to gravitate towards those majors and those disciplines that have higher starting salaries. And unfortunately, Vet Med is not one of them.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
So that is definitely part of the conversation, is how the starting salary impacts the choice of career.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, I think that’s true. I think that there’s a reality and a perception too around the financial security that comes from veterinary medicine. And I think that, that’s one of the things the profession need to keep working on. I want people to look at vet medicine and say, “Yes, if I went there, I would be able to support my family. I would be able to pay my bills.” It don’t think any of us are trying to get rich, but we would like to feel like we’re financially stable. I think the debt problem in vet medicine has hurt us as far as attracting applicants who say, “Well, yeah, I want to have a profession that I know that I’ll be able to send my kids to college.” And I think that those are real realities as you look at where we are. And well, they’re all interconnected, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to attract men back to our profession if we don’t affect the economics of what it means to be a veterinarian.
And maybe that’s a cynical view. Maybe that’s not remotely true. I tend to think it probably is. I don’t know. Where do you think this all goes, Kate? When you look in your crystal ball and you look ahead five years, 10 years, I mean really, yeah, what do you see? I mean, I’m not going to ask you to say we’re going to be this percent underrepresented minorities or this percent male, but I mean, overall trends, is there anything to make us think that…? First of all, I feel good about the increase in diversity that we’re seeing in our profession. I like it. It’s going to be a long road, it’s going to be continuous work, but hey-
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Hard work.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… it feels good to look around… Yeah, it’s going to be hard work, but it does feel good to look around and say, we’re putting one foot in front of the other. I think people have good hearts and they’re doing the work. And I think people generally see the value in increasing diversity in our profession. I felt that most people have been like, “Yeah, we’ve got work to do in this area”, and there’s a lot of benefits for our profession to have this and there’s a lot of benefits for pet owners for us to increase diversity. And so, I’ve been really happy to actually see people put their money where their mouth is and do the work and not just talk about it. So I’m very proud of our profession that way. Yeah, I hope that we continue to see that going. I wonder what’s going to happen with the gender ratio in our profession. I don’t know. What are your thoughts?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
I mean, I think definitely the economics of just where we are right now is a big part of that conversation. And I am far from an economist, but we’ve seen declines in undergraduate enrollment, and unfortunately the people who are most affected by that are our first generation students, our underrepresented backgrounds, our lower income families. And so, I hope that we do continue to see that growth in diversity. And I certainly hope we don’t backslide, but I do worry that with the current economics of undergraduate education that, that’s something we have to be aware of, because no, you don’t have to finish, get your bachelor’s degree to get into vet school, but you at least have to have the classes done.
And so, making sure that, that’s remaining accessible, I think, is big. I hope that we are able to get a little more of an equal balance between male and female students, but we talked about the landscape of that already, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if that trend continues. I’m sure at some point it stabilizes out. I doubt we’re going to get to the point where there’s no men coming in.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I don’t think so.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
But certainly, it’ll be interesting to see where it all ends in the end.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, yeah, and it’s a work in progress. I’ll tell you, I look at my crystal ball, which is highly unreliable. It’s been proven to be in the last few years.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
I’m still waiting for mine. Mine hasn’t come yet.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It got lost. Supposed to get lost in the mail. It’s probably the best thing when that happens. But I see a path in the future that’s more attractive for technicians. I really do, because when you look at the cost of going to college, and people are starting to have real questions about, what’s the return on investment on a college education? And then you look at the debt load and vet school, I think that if technicians become more empowered and we leverage our technicians better and we compensate our technicians better, I think that, that technician certification, the associates degrees, things where you can do a shorter program, a lower cost to get your credentials, now the compensation has to come around to make that worthwhile, but I think it’s a whole lot. It makes more economic sense to have more support staff, more para professionals that are well trained and well compensated, than it does to keep growing veterinarians, which is a long, super expensive path.
So I suspect that we’ll continue to see, I hope we’ll continue to see more certified credentialed technicians and we’ll be using them more, and they’ll be better compensated. I think when we look at the vet schools, I’m optimistic with the rising salaries for veterinarians right now. So starting salaries of vets have gone up. There’s been a lot of change, and I hope that, that will continue on. It definitely makes the debt more palatable when vets have more earning power and are starting at higher salaries. So that helps.
But I don’t know, Kate. I don’t see the debt problem going away, I’m not seeing anything really effective. There was a student loan forgiveness program that came out that felt like a drop in the bucket to me, without really addressing the underlying problem. So yeah, I look at those economics and I go, I don’t know what we’re going to do about making veterinary medicine more attractive to be a stronger magnet. But I really think, that’s my goal is, if we can make this profession financially attractive to people, I think we sort a lot of problems out. I think we have to continue to fight against the debt problem and we have to keep working for doctor and support staff compensation, and balance that with keeping care affordable, but I am optimistic.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Right, absolutely. I agree. I think definitely, I love working with students and mentoring and seeing them grow. And I work with a lot of pre-vet students and watching them get into vet school. I now have some that have graduated that I wrote recommendation letters for, which makes me feel super old. And I realize I’m still very early in my career, but it’s exciting to see that changing landscape. And yeah, I think like said, the big challenge is going to be making it an attractive profession and a solvent profession, while still keeping our care the way it is for all of our patients.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. There’s a shared glory in writing a rec letter for somebody who gets into vet school in there.
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah, it really is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s just like, I get the [inaudible 00:31:00] in their glow. I love it. I’m like, “I know I didn’t really do anything.” He like, “You did all the work, but I wrote a nice note that went with you, and so I’m going to…” Exactly right. Exactly right. So that always makes me feel good. Kate Boatright, thanks so much for being here. Where can people find you? Where can they read your writing and keep up with what you’re doing?
Dr. Kate Boatright:
Yeah. I am on Instagram. It’s @writetheboat, it’s W-R-I-T-E, the boat. I am on Facebook and LinkedIn at Kate Boatright. And then I do have a website, www.writetheboat.com. Again, it’s W-R-I-T-E, the boat. And that’s where all of my upcoming speaking, all of my articles are archived there. And soon we’ll be launching a mentorship program for practices through there.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Very great. Very great. Well, congratulations, Kate. Thanks so much for being here. Guys, thanks for tuning in. You guys take care of yourself, we’ll talk to you next week. And that is our show. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks to Kate Boatright for being here. As always, if you enjoyed the show, there’s nothing else you could do that would help me more than just sharing it with your friends. I love when people write honest reviews. Wherever you get your podcast, Apple Podcast is a big place that people look when they’re looking for a podcast, so that helps a lot. But honestly, just if you think it’s good, send it to other people who might also think it’s good. I’d super appreciate it. Anyway guys, that’s what I got. Take care of yourselves. Be well. Talk to you later. Bye.
