Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the national shortage of large animal vets and the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine’s response to the problem.

Both faculty and students in the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine are trying to help young people see the rewards of practicing large animal medicine and are encouraging them to remain in Iowa while doing so.

Patrick Halbur, professor and chairman of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine, said the vet school was taking several steps to promote large, food or mixed animal medicine, including pushing for legislation that would forgive student loan debt if a graduate remained in Iowa to practice large animal medicine for a certain number of years.

“Our challenge will be keeping our [mixed animal or food vets] in Iowa,” Halbur said. “Other states recruit our college extensively.”

Another measure the college is directly responsible for is giving students with no farm background a chance to see and understand the food production chain.

“Students need to understand basic animal husbandry and production,” Halbur said.

Halbur said that new summer programs, Swine Production Immersive Knowledge Experience (SPIKE) and Dairy Production Immersive Knowledge Experience (D-PIKE), were designed to let students spend a summer working on farms in rural communities, learning animal husbandry and production techniques and networking with other students and rural professionals.

Students ranging from undergraduate juniors and seniors to third-year vet students participated during the programs’ inaugural 10-week runs during summer 2006, said Locke Karriker, assistant professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine.

“Our target group ideally would be students who are accepted to veterinary school in that first summer before they get here,” Karriker said, adding that if space were available, interested members of earlier or later classes would still be welcome. The program is intended to help facilitate students’ decision-making processes and encourage them to approach subsequent animal science and veterinary classes with production animal questions in mind.

Halbur said the Veterinary Student Mixed Animal Recruitment Team, or V-SMART, was also doing excellent work in reaching out to potential students as early as junior high and promoting interest in large, mixed and food animal medicine.

“The best people for recruiting are students recruiting other students,” Halbur said. “It’s been very effective.”

Brent Volker, junior in veterinary medicine and president of V-SMART, said the student-initiated nature of V-SMART was crucial in its ability to reach out and relate to potential future mixed animal veterinarians.

“We recently went through it; it’s fresh in our minds,” Volker said.

V-SMART not only conducts presentations and demonstration labs with students and members of Future Farmers of America and 4-H clubs, but also sends multimedia DVDs to audiences the group cannot address in person. Often, local vets are also involved in the presentations to give more insight and perspective.

Volker originally came to Iowa State as an undergraduate chemical engineering major, but switched early to dairy science. He said his lifelong farm background helped influence his vet school goals, and the opportunities ISU Vet Med provides for farm exposure are very valuable.

Volker assisted with last summer’s D-PIKE program and saw firsthand the huge amount of practical knowledge students learned while working on the farms.

“By the end of the 10 weeks, I was amazed to see the progress they had made,” Volker said. “You can’t replace physically being on the dairy farm.”

Volker said though it would be a few years before the group’s influence on the field’s popularity could be accurately determined, he felt the group was sure to make a difference.

“Last year we talked to over 2,000 high school students,” Volker said. “If we reach one of out every hundred students, that’s 20 students right there. We have to be making some impact.”