Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** professional veterinarian…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** professional veterinarian organizations across the nation are focusing on the challenge of recruitment and retention of professionals due to many factors, the main reasons being identified as 1. Work-life balance and 2. Lack of professional support. These factors are hitting large animal medicine harder as fewer veterinarians are graduating with the intent to practice food animal medicine. According to the USDA, in 2023 the shortage of food animal veterinarians had reached an all-time high. In gainesville, florida, a group of women are combating this issue by supporting each other in these challenges by stretching the model ofsolo mobile practice. With cooperation and innovation, quality-of-life issues have improved, but the current exigency is unsustainable. The strain has grown as other local clinicians have discontinuedproviding emergency care to their own patients leading to an increase in non-client emergencies. The FL-241 area has been identified specifically as lacking in emergency food animal care.hoofand horn veterinary and acupuncture services (h & HVS) proposes this emergency personnel project (EPP) supporting shortage region FL-241 will grow food animal coverage and decrease animal suffering.h & HVS EPP's goal is to create a self-sustaining emergencylarge animal veterinary service. Thiswill result in better support of our local underserved community and provide a model for more sustainable large animal practice. We will reach these goals by providing emergency care to cows, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, llamas and alpacas within the FL-241 region while monitoring the number of animals impacted and cost of the program. We will then share this information with other practitioners and professional organization in hopes of catalyzing change within the large animal veterinary profession. H & HVS EPP will immediately affect the quality of life of animals and producers within our shortage region and plan to affect agriculture as a whole by creating a more sustainable model for food animal veterinary medicine.