UC Davis Hopes Veterinary School Is on Mend After Cuts

In the realm of human medicine, there are several schools that can lay legitimate claim to being the best in the nation. In veterinary medicine, there is one: UC Davis.

Based on quality of faculty, research, students and instructional program, the veterinary school founded 50 years ago at the former University Farm is perennially listed by ranking agencies as tops in the nation, if not the world.

But the school suffered deep budget cuts that required slashing faculty and student enrollment in the early 1990s, when the UC system struggled with recessionary reductions in state support.

Two weeks ago, the American Veterinary Medical Assn. added insult to fiscal injury by giving the acclaimed school only a two-year accreditation because it has deferred making improvements in the aging and crowded Haring Hall, a half-century-old relic that serves as a major classroom and laboratory facility.

“It’s very embarrassing,” Bennie Osburn, the school’s dean, said of the limited accreditation. The school tried to stave off the bad publicity by appealing the decision of the association’s educational council, but was rejected.

Now help appears to be on the way.

A $50-million private fund-raising effort, the first in the school’s history, has been announced. The Legislature, in the session just past, restored a portion of the cuts made in the early 1990s.

Class sizes are being restored to pre-recession levels. UC system officials, chastened by the accreditation problem, are beginning to discuss putting a building for the veterinary school at the top of the UC capital project wish list.

And for the first time, the veterinary school is about to spread its instructional program and referral services to Southern California. (The school already has a center in the San Joaquin Valley.)

On Monday, Osburn will sign an agreement with UC San Diego that calls for more than 50 fourth-year veterinary students and residents to work and study on the Torrey Pines campus, starting next year. Further efforts are underway to strengthen ties between the veterinary school and the San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park and Sea World.

“We feel things are finally starting to happen here after some very tough years,” said Bradford Smith, an award-winning professor and director of the veterinary school’s teaching hospital, which treats 30,000 animals a year.

UC President Richard Atkinson this week is set to release a report indicating that there is a growing shortage of veterinarians both in California--particularly Los Angeles--and the nation. The shortage includes veterinarians who treat pets and those who treat livestock.

The report will precede an effort within the university hierarchy and state government to increase support for a school that began in 1948 with 48 young men studying livestock and has grown into a premier research and instructional program (in which 75% of the students are women).

Be it disease prevention for the dairy and beef industries, kidney dialysis and transplantation for cats, reconstructive surgery for racehorses, knee surgery for llamas, rescue of wild raptors or eye treatments for collies, Davis researchers are in the fore.

For every spot in the doctor of veterinary medicine program, there are 10 qualified applicants. So prized is a spot at Davis that many students with top-notch undergraduate records will make a second or third application rather than attend another of the nation’s 26 veterinary schools.

Nearly a quarter of Davis veterinary students were admitted on the second try, 3% after three or more tries.

Osburn and Smith suggest that the veterinary school may have been selected for deep cuts during the tough budget years precisely because of its achievements--in effect, becoming a victim of its own success.

“The veterinary school is one of the jewels in the university’s crown,” Smith said. “What that means is that when money is tight, it is difficult to keep supporting us, when other programs are still emerging . . . and may be seen as needing the money more than we do.”

The veterinary school was forced to trim its faculty by 38 (30%) over three years. The state cut back on instruction support by 23%.

The number of spots in the doctoral, master’s and residency programs was reduced. Tuition was raised $4,000, to $8,400 a year. Maintenance and expansion of buildings were largely deferred.

Haring Hall, built to serve classes of 50, is stretched to the limit to accommodate classes of 122.

The teaching hospital, now 28 years old, sees more animals in a month than were anticipated for a year when the facility was built.

Before the budget ax fell, the school had a first-year class of 130. That was pared to 102 as faculty were eliminated. This fall, the new class was 122; Osburn would like to see entering classes of 200.

“If you look at the state’s projected population growth, we’re going to need that many new veterinarians just to stay even,” said Osburn, a food safety and cattle expert. “We’re hearing continually from veterinary practitioners that they can’t find people to join their practices.”

According to the report done by Atkinson’s office, the nation has 21 veterinarians per 100,000 people. In California, however, the figure is 17 per 100,000, and in Los Angeles County, it is a mere nine per 100,000.

In a sign of optimism, the school is adding faculty, although it is still down 15 full-time positions. Fund-raising is reportedly going well; a wealthy alumnus gave $1.2 million, and two faculty members signed over patent rights to their diagnostic tests for cats, valued at more than $1 million.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” Smith said.