We have many opportunities as veterinarians, community leaders, and association members to speak up as the expert in the room. Many others who are not close to our level of experience or education crave the ability to be heard, while some simply want to be seen and have nothing intelligent to say. If we choose to shy away from a necessary debate, important facts may be overlooked or worse, false information may influence an important decision. Influence does not need to be mean spirited or even confrontational. The opposite could be true in that speaking up to your own experiences and knowledge could be easy. You are the only true expert of your own experiences.
My challenge to AASV members this JSHAP issue is to think through your own experiences and education to prepare for critical conversations. Your investment in veterinary education can only be fully appreciated when you speak up and share. It seems the voices who would choose to minimize our value or attempt to overpower our influence are also gaining confidence. You are the expert to speak to what you see and what you know. You are also the trusted advocate for the pig. Prepare for those opportunities and speak up when you can.
Production, operations, and biosecurity
Many of our farmer clients and production teams hire us to be the voice of reason and guide difficult strategies for the health improvement of large populations of pigs. There are pig owners who make decisions based more on personal bias and history than on current scientific knowledge and real-time diagnostic facts. If you are the veterinarian placed in this debate, it can be uncomfortable to speak up. Driving the discussion to hear out the known facts, or clear and present danger, could save pigs.
Veterinary school rarely teaches us these types of conversations. I encourage you to network and find peers already sharing these challenges. The AASV Annual Meeting is famous for hallway talk. Leading up to the Annual Meeting, I have always enjoyed making a long list of people I want to find and conversations I needed to have. During the meeting it is like a game of hide-and-seek to find everyone on my list. I really like the opportunity to learn from peers in the veterinary community. We simply cannot afford to make all the same mistakes ourselves.
Advocacy and public policy
Even less formal education is focused on advocacy and public policy. We are invited to participate through the association and industry networks. The National Pork Producers Council and American Veterinary Medical Association both hold training programs for veterinarians to become more experienced in sharing their messages in support of our industry. I highly recommend these programs to any members interested in learning how decisions are really being made in government.
We have recently learned with public attention on animal euthanasia and gestation sow housing that the message making it to the public may not be the fact-based message we would like to hear. We must learn how to best prepare and present messages about the great work we are doing for the animals in our care.
Association committees and meetings
The place where most of us are comfortable speaking our mind is in the association board room, committee room, or association meeting. We have a strong fellowship among our members. We welcome opinions and invite our members to be actively involved. If you have not joined a committee, please do so. If you are currently on a committee, please consider running for the board or searching for a special project. We are a small association and require everyone to do their part.
Committee work is easily outlined on the AASV website. If there is a topic of strong interest to you, please dive into the discussions and work on building the association to further develop the membership. We will only continue to grow our influence with our clients as we tackle tough challenges and set ambitious goals. By bringing forward these challenges to the meetings and driving discussion as an association, we will be able to provide leadership to advance the education, research, and service opportunities for members of the AASV.
Please speak up! We are a small but mighty group, your input is welcome.
William L Hollis, DVM
AASV President