Pets & Animals

(KDKA) When you go to the grocery store, how often do you think about the farm where the food came from?

There's a major shortage of veterinarians to treat farm animals in Pennsylvania, and while you might not think of the immediate relationship, it can have a serious impact on the food you eat.

Dr. Dave Medic treats dairy cows, beef cattle, horses and other farm animals everyday. He sees hundreds of animals a day and even more now because of a shortage of large animal veterinarians.

"I've done it for going on 35 years and I'm plugging away everyday," says Dr. Medic.

He says older veterinarians aren't being replaced in big enough numbers and his partner, Dr. Vanessa Philson is a rarity.

"I was raised on a dairy farm not too far from here so I've been around agriculture ever since I was little," says Dr. Philson. "My mom was a nurse, so it was kind of a combination of putting the two together."

Philson is among a dwindling number of people growing up on family farms. With fewer young people exposed to agriculture, fewer consider veterinarian careers treating large animals and food animals.

"When we recruit students to go into vet school, their understanding of animals is their pet, and so they're very attracted to that," says Dr. David Wolfgang, a professor at Penn State's Veterinarian Sciences.

Wolfgang works with Project Pa., a campaign to attract more large animal and food animal vets to the profession.

"Suddenly people woke up one day and said, 'Who's going to replace me? Where is the next generation?' Right now there is no next generation. The numbers coming in are very small."

The reasons are many, money is a big reason. When students graduate from veterinary school, the average debt is $106,000, and at the University of Pennsylvania, the only vet school in the state, it's $160,000.

The starting salary for a small animal vet is $61,000, but for a food animal vet it's $55,000 and for large animal medicine it's $40,000.

Wolfgang says he thinks debt forgiveness could help.

"Pennsylvania was early on one of first states to do that," he says. Problem is the amount of money that you can be forgiven has not been increased. The average award last year was $800 dollars."

Other reasons why vets aren't choosing large animal practice is because it's more dangerous and physically demanding than working with small animals. Also, some vets don't like that the animals they treat will be slaughtered.

But that's exactly why these veterinarians are so important, because the animals become the food we all eat.

"The academics and government realized now as far as food safety that we need more large animal veterinarians," adds Wolfgang. "We're supposedly the first responder and I suppose we are because we're the ones going to see the disease early on before it becomes a major problem."

A disease can infect any food animal accidentally or intentionally as a case of bioterrorism. If it's not caught early, it can be transferred to humans when they eat meat that came from the farm.

To recruit more large animal vets, schools are trying to increase their class sizes to graduate more vets overall, provide mentoring of large animal and food animal vets and to reach out to middle and high school student to get them interested in the career.

Their overriding message is that these vets are helping all people by helping treating animals on the farm. 

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Featured Slideshows On KDKA.com

• Christmas In The City: Trees Around Town
• '10 Worst Toys' From W.A.T.C.H.
• Forbes List Of Overpaid Hollywood Stars
• Sneak Peek At Macy's Holiday Windows
• Hot Holiday Toys Of 2009
• Injured Stars Of The 2009-10 NHL Season
• Twilight 'New Moon' Premiere
• Penguins 2009-10 Season In Pictures
• Steelers 2009 Season In Pictures
• More Slideshows