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Protecting Animal and Public Health: Homeland Security and the Federal Veterinarian Workforce, Testimony of Dr. Marguerite Pappaioanou
testimony 8 of 8
Title: Protecting Animal and Public Health: Homeland Security and the Federal Veterinarian Workforce, Testimony of Dr. Marguerite Pappaioanou
Date: February 26, 2009
Author: Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
Institution: Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
Bibliographic Entry: “Protecting Animal and Public Health: Homeland Security and the Federal Veterinarian Workforce.” February 26, 2009. Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia. Witness testimony of Dr. Marguerite Pappaioanou
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=c34dd856-a58a-4ab8-9588-258131fd817a (Accessed March 24, 2009)
Electronic Link: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/TestimonyPappaioanou20090226.pdf
Key Words: federal veterinarians, federal veterinary workforce, veterinary workforce, recruitment and retention issues, animal and public health, American Veterinary Medical Colleges, National Veterinary Medical Services Act
Summary of Key Points, Issues, Conclusions: Dr. Marguerite Pappaioanou’s testimony concentrated on two areas:
• The educational, recruiting and retention challenges facing the Federal veterinarian workforce
• Past efforts to improve the ability of the Federal veterinarian workforce to prevent and control diseases impacting on human, animal, and environmental health
On behalf of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, Dr. Pappaioanou asked Congress to consider the following actions to address the veterinarian workforce shortage putting U.S. public, animal, and environmental health at risk:
• Urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to include veterinarians in their planned strategic department-wide approach to assessing and meeting workforce needs.
• Provide meaningful financial resources to our US colleges of veterinary medicine in ways that will permit meaningful increases in class size sufficient to meet public and private veterinary workforce needs.
• Appropriation of much higher levels of funding to the National Veterinary Medical Services Act at levels that would allow repayment of a significant portion of debt loads accrued by veterinarians as a real incentive to attract veterinarians into working in underserved areas.
• Provide funding for scholarships to support veterinary medical students working toward a degree in public health, or joint post-doctoral masters or doctoral research degrees needed for careers in biomedical research.
• Enact legislation that would ensure that the personnel system grades, salaries, incentive and retention pay of veterinarians working in the federal government be significantly increased—to levels comparable to what veterinarians can earn in private clinical companion animal practice—in order to attract and retain our best and brightest veterinarians to federal service in protecting and promoting our nation’s public, animal, and environmental health.
Name of Researcher: Ashanti Z. Corey
Institution: Integrative Center for Homeland Security, Texas A&M University
Date Posted: April 2, 2009