Veterinary Medicine|Professional Insight
The Veterinary Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now
Is Veterinary medicine ready for a mid-level practitioner?
Picture for a moment, a world in which veterinary medicine takes a step closer to human medicine. Instead of calling your vet’s office and being set up for vaccines with your veterinarian, you are instead set up with a veterinary nurse practitioner — or VNP let’s say.
With burnout in the field becoming an increasingly publicized situation, many wonder if implementing a midlevel practitioner (MLP) is the solution to alleviating some of the profession’s woes. The burning question now is whether or not this is a good idea.
First, what is a VNP or MLP? Simply, with additional certification, a veterinary technician could conceivably expand their scope of practice. This would allow them to begin seeing and treating general appointments. It could empower them to see routine examinations to update vaccines, treat ear infections, diagnose basic skin conditions, etc. This would be a role more similar to a Nurse Practitioner’s or Physician Assistant’s.
This role could potentially mitigate the volume accumulating on the veterinarians in a practice and allow the more specialized skills of the veterinarian to…
