Veterinarian Stephanie Kadasi pets one of her patients Thursday while waiting for the results of a blood pressure test during a shift at Feline Fine Cat Clinic in Bend.
Veterinarian Stephanie Kadasi checks the heart rate of a patient as it recovers from surgery Thursday at Feline Fine Cat Clinic in Bend.
Veterinarian Stephanie Kadasi looks over the charts of a patient Thursday while working at Feline Fine Cat Clinic in Bend.
Veterinarian Stephanie Kadasi pets one of her patients Thursday while waiting for the results of a blood pressure test during a shift at Feline Fine Cat Clinic in Bend.
Veterinarian Stephanie Kadasi checks the heart rate of a patient as it recovers from surgery Thursday at Feline Fine Cat Clinic in Bend.
Veterinarian Stephanie Kadasi looks over the charts of a patient Thursday while working at Feline Fine Cat Clinic in Bend.
For the past year, Dr. Crystal Bloodworth, the head veterinarian at the Humane Society of Central Oregon, has struggled to find veterinarians and certified veterinary technicians to provide adequate care to the many animals that come through the animal shelter’s doors.
Until recently, the humane society also ran the Bend Spay and Neuter Program to provide low-cost animal care including spay and neuter procedures. But it had to temporarily shut it down because of lack of staffing.
As a nonprofit, the humane society faces extra hurdles when it comes to attracting staff compared to some private practices that can offer higher wages. But across the board, the struggle to find qualified people is affecting the entire veterinary industry, causing what some in the field refer to as a crisis.
“At the shelter, having limited veterinary staff has limited our ability to provide care for the shelter animals as well,” Bloodworth said.
“We are doing the best we can with what we have.”
Bloodworth said she has been thinking outside the box when hiring. But she has been trying to hire a new veterinarian for so long she eventually took the job posting down. In the past year, she said, the organization got three applicants, all of whom ultimately chose other jobs.
“For those of us that are on the hiring end, it is like a buyer’s market versus a seller’s market,” Bloodworth said.
Another issue Bloodworth pointed out is the lack of veterinary schools in the United States. There simply are not enough schools to keep up with demand in the field, she said.
“Locally, we are pretty fortunate we have the (Central Oregon Community College) veterinary technician program,” Bloodworth said. “They do push out (certified veterinary technicians) every two years, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough for the need that is in our community.”
Bloodworth said the veterinary shortage has many causes, and she believes COVID-19 and the “Great Resignation” are factors at play. She also believes it is a problem that has been brewing for some time.
Facing the severe lack of veterinarians and veterinary technicians in the country is sobering for her organization and organizations like it, Bloodworth added, and competition for veterinary technicians graduating in Bend this spring will be fierce.
Beth Palmer, the vet tech program director at COCC, said the demand for certified technicians is huge. She herself has been a veterinary technician for at least 20 years, and for as long as she can remember there has been a shortage.
The program she runs is an intensive two-year program that teaches students some of the same knowledge and skills taught to veterinarians, with the exception of surgical procedures, but in a far shorter period of time.
“This isn’t a job that people can come off the street and say, ‘I want to be a vet tech’. Students really have to prepare for this. It is very stringent,” she said.
The program graduates a class of veterinary technicians every two years. This year after graduation, 14 new technicians will be on the job market, but the number is simply not enough to keep up with demand, Palmer said.
“We are investigating ways where we can make an annual program so we can start graduating students annually because that is the need in the community. There are probably six jobs per graduate this year, for these students.”
Palmer said the program will also begin admitting 24 students instead of 14.
“This is going to be a long-time shortage for veterinary professionals, I think,” Palmer said.
Dr. Heidi Houchen is president of the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association and the blood bank director at VCA Northwest Veterinary Specialists.
She’s been in the industry for 30 years, and said it’s always been difficult to find veterinary technicians.
The situation has become markedly worse given the shortage of veterinarians as well. She also said everything happening in human medicine is a mirror image in the veterinary profession, but with a lot less attention devoted to it.
“We are, statewide certainly, we are a reflection of the United States,” Houchen added of Oregon’s veterinary care crisis. “There is nothing going on in Oregon that isn’t going on nationally.”
Another issue in the industry that is compounded by staffing shortages is burnout and poor mental health. Veterinarians and technicians regularly leave the field altogether in search of less stressful and more lucrative jobs, which only intensifies the shortage.
Dr. Stephanie Kadasi graduated from veterinary school in 2015, and has dreamed of owning her own cat clinic for a long time. But coming out of school with over $200,000 in debt and having to start off her career working 80 hours a week made it difficult to plan for the future.
“If you are going to want to be a parent, what gets tough is all of your initial time is spent in school, stressed out, and broke when you are in your 20s,” Kadasi said. “By the time you graduate, you have no money, you’ve got all this debt, and you are stressed out and you are trying to figure out ‘how can I be a good doctor?’”
Kadasi is married to her spouse she met early in college, and has two children with a third on the way. She was able to partner with her father and open her own cat clinic, Feline Fine Cat Clinic on the south end of Bend.
In the end, while she loves what she does and wouldn’t change it for the world, she probably would have done something else if she could do it all over again.
“The financial aspect is tough, because you really aren’t rewarded with much and people say ‘oh are you just in it for the money?’ Well, no, but this is a really tough field in terms of the amount of mental and emotional bandwidth that is required on a daily basis,” Kadasi said.
Now, Kadasi is focused on staffing up her clinic, and is facing a lot of the same challenges faced by others in the field. She needs another veterinarian and a full staff of technicians and assistants, a daunting task given the current climate.
“If the right person comes along, we’ll offer them the world,” Kadasi added. We’ve already made it clear that we will feed our team before we feed ourselves essentially. Which I think a lot of practice owners will, especially those that have a positive work culture.”
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Joe Siess is a GA reporter for the Bulletin. Joe previously reported for the Klamath Falls Herald and News and the Malheur Enterprise. He was born and raised in the Kansas City area, and holds a master's in journalism from the University of Missouri.
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