Georgia DVMs fear escalating technician shortage

Atlanta, Ga. — The end of a state clause that eased licensing requirements for veterinary technicians could cause more staff shortages for Georgia DVMs.

Part of the Georgia Veterinary Practice Act, the grandfather clause allows anyone with at least five years' experience assisting a licensed veterinarian — from July 1993 through June 2008 — to take the state's veterinary technician exam to become licensed. But in July 2009, that provision ends, and practitioners fear it will worsen the current technician shortage, says Kevin Chapman, DVM and Georgia Veterinary Medical Association (GVMA) director of public relations. The need for technicians is greater now than ever, he says, since specific technician duties were included in the practice act in October 2006.

Those duties include:

• Application of some treatments, drugs, medication and immunological agents through parenteral, oral and injectable routes

• Routine laboratory procedures and blood collection

• Intravenous catheterizations

• Radiography

• Resuscitative procedures

• Application of tourniquets or pressure bandages to control hemorrhage.

The GVMA hopes the definitive tasks will "increase the prestige of the position," eventually leading to a strengthened desire to pursue the technician field, Chapman says.

In the meantime, many DVMs have been forced to improvise in order to provide proper care in their clinics.

"A lot of us are practicing outside the law, not because we want to, but because we have to," Chapman adds.