Loan repayment brightens recipients’ futures

AVMA/AVMF program helps five recent graduates

Dr. Austin Ayars had plenty of sleepless nights as a practice owner with $140,000 in student debt. He would lie awake worrying whether he would be able to pay the bills that month. Or he’d think about what would happen if he couldn’t meet his clients’ needs. He even considered the fact that if he died, his wife would receive half a million dollars and be relieved of his debt.

Dr. Ayars rests much easier now, thanks to the $100,000 in loan repayments he will receive from the AVMA/American Veterinary Medical Foundation Food Animal Veterinarian Recruitment and Retention Program. He is one of five winners announced Oct. 4.

FAVRRP, which launched in April, is an economic assistance program that provides student loan debt forgiveness to bring more veterinarians into food animal practice (see JAVMA, March 15, 2010, page 602).

“This year, the average debt for new graduates from veterinary school was over $130,000. This school loan forgiveness program will help support veterinarians who want to pursue a career in food animal medicine that might otherwise not be able to afford to work in underserved areas,” said Dr. Larry M. Kornegay, president of the AVMA.

According to a Food Supply Veterinary Medicine Coalition study, the demand for food animal veterinarians will increase 12 to 13 percent between 2004 and 2016. Conversely, the supply of such practitioners will fall short by 4 percent.

Specifically, a 3.5 percent shortage of dairy cattle practitioners is predicted, as is a 4.6 percent shortage of beef cattle practitioners, a 5 percent shortage of food supply veterinarians in academia, and a 5.3 percent shortage of veterinarians in federal food safety and food security. Read more..