Remarks prepared for Dr. Barbara J. Masters, Administrator, FSIS, at the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Annual Convention, Event 2425, July 18, 2006, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Slides to accompany this presentation (PDF Only)
What Public Practice Organizations Are Doing to Attract and Retain Veterinarians
(Slide 1)
Good afternoon. Well, we’re almost there at the end of today’s program. I’m certainly glad you could join us for this important session on what the public sector is doing to attract the "best and the brightest" veterinarians and further their career growth.
(Slide 2)
As you heard this morning, FSIS is a public health agency and the largest employer of veterinarians in the federal government – approximately 1,000, which is about 12% of FSIS’ total workforce. Veterinarians in FSIS serve vital roles in protecting public health by conducting, for example, ante and post mortem diagnosis, conducting epidemiological investigations, designing new
approaches to improve inspection systems and procedures, evaluating federal and state inspection programs and conducting on-site audits of other nations’ food regulatory inspection systems to determine whether they are eligible to export to the United States.
FSIS is just one agency out of vast network of federal and state government offices that utilize veterinarians’ skills and expertise. Besides the food safety aspect, I mentioned this morning that the public service sector needs veterinarians to counter and prevent bioterrorism and the spread of foreign animal diseases. And disaster recovery and biomedical research are also areas
where the public needs our expertise.
The Demand for Veterinarians
(Slide 3)
As you have heard today from the Food Supply Animal Coalition and the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, the supply of veterinarians may not meet the public sector demands. An individual with a veterinary degree has earned a golden opportunity to a vast and multi-pronged career highway. Quite simply, our options abound, and to many others, we’re in a most enviable
position.
However, we in federal and state governments in partnership with veterinary school faculty need to do everything possible to encourage veterinarians, veterinary and pre-veterinary students to seriously consider a career path that will lead to a rewarding future in public practice. The goal of my presentation is to describe the exciting best practices in public sector
organizations to attract and retain the best and brightest veterinarians.
In addition, the public sector demands for food safety, epidemiology, public health and ensuring security in a post 9/11 counter-terrorism world present increasingly more exciting opportunities for veterinarians. I truly believe public practice is not the job is was 20 years ago.
My Experience
I remember being faced with these options as a young graduate from Mississippi State University’s veterinary medical school. And quite frankly, I don’t recall anyone even mentioning public practice. I will say the public sector needs are greater and significantly more inviting than when I graduated.
After working in industry for a while, I made a decision to follow the public service sector career path and have not once regretted that choice. No faculty – but a public practice colleague told me – your career can be whatever you make of it. So I stress mentoring. My own career path has taken me from a more technical start to the current policy-making position. The skills I
learned in veterinary medical school have been tremendously utilized and continually honed through 17 years of public service.
Acknowledging the Realities and Presenting the Goal
(Slide 4)
As I mentioned this morning, I know, initially, the compensation of a public sector job might not seem as appealing as a private practice for recent graduates. We’re very cognizant of this and have been working to address it.
We’re offering a different job than many of you think of when you think of FSIS.
I want to focus the rest of my discussion on the overall benefits that the federal government offers, and since I’m with FSIS, I’ll provide you with a little more detail on what our agency is doing to attract and keep veterinarians. FSIS is just one of many agencies in the federal and state government that offers enormous career opportunities for veterinarians. I urge you to
find out more from other agencies, and I’ll provide a list of Web sites at the end to help you in your search. The agencies are all represented here.
I believe you’ll see that the overall benefits of working in the public sector are comparable to those in the private sector, and even surpass them in many cases. So, whether you’re a recent veterinary school graduate looking for a job or someone looking for a career change, my goal this afternoon is to provide you with enough information so you’ll seriously consider public
practice as a viable career choice.
I also challenge faculty in the room to ensure this information gets back to students! You are their role models and mentors. We tell our student interns "even if you don’t work for us – if you become an FSIS ambassador – our money was well spent." We ask them to do brown bag lunches, etc.
Salaries/Grades/Benefits
(Slide 5)
As alluded to earlier, when considering whether to go into private or public sector practice, starting salaries are a dominate driver in the decision-making process. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s statistics, the average starting salary for a veterinarian in private practice dealing predominately with small animals was $50,878 in 2004. And as you see in this chart,
that was the top end of the starting salaries. The lowest average starting salary for veterinarians in private practice was $38,628 for equines.
(Slide 6)
Let’s say someone coming out of veterinary school takes an entry-level position at a GS-11 level in the federal government. Their base pay would be $46,189. This doesn’t include the locality pay which is additional money added to ensure that salaries are commensurate with the cost of living in each area of the country.
(Slide 7)
This also doesn’t take into consideration the fringe benefits, which account for an additional 32.85 % that the government pays, but not taken out of the employee’s direct paycheck. This includes 24% for civilian retirement, 5.7% for insurance and healthcare, 1.45% for Medicare, and 1.7% for miscellaneous benefits.
The fringe benefits also include 10 paid federal holidays and opportunities for flexible work schedules.
(Slide 8)
And let’s not forget about government retirement benefits, such as the Federal Employee Retirement System and thrift savings. The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a retirement savings and investment plan for federal employees. The TSP offers Federal employees the same type of savings and tax benefits that
many private corporations offer their employees under"401(k)" plans. And just like many similar "401(k)" plans employees are able to receive matching funds from the government of up to 6% of an employee’s annual income. This chart demonstrates the TSP earnings growth potential for an employee who earns $30,000 per year every year throughout their federal career. This chart doesn’t
even factor in pay raises and increased grades and steps.
If you’re going into private practice on your own, then there is a substantial financial investment in equipment, office space and staff. Those of you who have already done this can attest to this I’m sure. However, in the public sector, you’ll have no start-up equipment purchases. The government provides everything you need to perform your duties.
One of the primary advantages of working in the public sector is job stability. There are no term contracts you’ll have to enter into, and promotions are based on performance and merit of work. And from the perspective of job flexibility, in private practice you practice medicine, in public practice you have multiple agencies, and within FSIS alone there are inplant jobs,
supervisory jobs, lab jobs, policy jobs and food defense jobs, just to name a few.
What FSIS is Doing to Attract Veterinarians
(Slide 9)
Previously, upon graduation from an accredited veterinary medical college, the entry-level position for a public health veterinarian was a GS-9 level that has 10 steps of pay grades. And, if you graduated in the top 25% of your veterinary class or had one year of professional experience, then you may have qualified for the GS-11 grade.
(Slide 10)
However, given the critical shortage of veterinarians in FSIS, in April we received an exemption to hire entry-level candidates at the GS-11 level. This means that their starting salary will be $46,189. In addition, we’re offering significant signing bonuses and covering moving expenses in certain locations.
One exciting strategy we’re currently implementing is to re-classify all GS-11 PHVs to GS-12s. This plan includes sending many of our field veterinarians to Enforcement and Investigations Analysis Officer training, and then arranging their work assignments to include at least a quarter of their time conducting expanded public health assurance duties. We’ll soon have a larger
cadre of trained public health veterinarians who will conduct expanded critical public health assurance duties. In simple terms, this allows them to evaluate the design of food safety systems, including before, during and after slaughter.
(Slide 11 and 12)
Since there are so many career options at FSIS, we developed a veterinary public health officer life cycle model to highlight some positions, the approximate years of experience that might be needed to move up to the next level of responsibility and then correlate these to professional development needed for growth in leadership, science and management.
Training
(Slide 13)
Training is emphasized throughout a career with FSIS. All newly hired field veterinarians who will be assigned to slaughter and processing facilities will receive nine weeks of a public health-focused veterinary educational program. The class is conducted through classroom training and on-the-job mentoring programs, which will continue throughout the first year of employment. This
training and mentoring combination provides a strong foundation in the art and science of practicing public health assurance in FSIS by integrating scientific and technical principles.
(Slide 14)
With the possibility of the introduction of a foreign animal disease in the United States, natural or intentional, public sector veterinarians become our first lines of defense. USDA conducts Foreign Animal Disease training either in house or at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s facility in Plum Island, New York. This intensive two-week course develops foreign
animal disease diagnosticians, who will be called upon to investigate a potential foreign or emerging animal disease. This course also covers global impact and trade considerations. We work closely with APHIS who has responsibility for FAD, but FSIS is the first line of defense since we do ante mortem on all animals at slaughter houses.
(Slide 15)
Some government agencies even offer tuition reimbursement for veterinarians seeking advanced degrees and board certification.
In 2005, FSIS concluded the first phase of its Veterinary Student Employment Program. FSIS funded the 16-week program and hired 24 veterinary student employees at the end of the program. The agency committed approximately $450,000 to hire, train and pay for the housing and travel of the students, who were all in their first or second year of college. FSIS recruited the students
from 28 U.S. colleges of veterinary medicine.
The students were asked to commit a minimum of 10 full-time weeks of employment. The overall goal of the program is for students to complete 16 full-time weeks of employment, or 640 hours, prior to obtaining their DVM degree. Completing 16 full-time weeks can be accomplished during school breaks such as summers and holidays. Once they’ve graduated, students can be
noncompetitively selected for any job in FSIS for which they qualify. FSIS also offers recruitment incentives for critical vacancies, including hiring bonuses of $9,000 to $12,000, and repayment of student loans up to $10,000 per year.
David Smith – An Example of an Intern
One of our recent interns, David Smith, earned a DVM (from Mississippi State University) as well as a Masters of Science in Veterinary Science with a concentration in Food Safety. David actually had the opportunity to intern in two different program areas – one in our Policy Division (OPPED) and the other in our Office of International Affairs. He and Tyler McAlpin, who I
mentioned this morning, were the first two students we tried on a "DC track" and we are pleased to have recruited both to permanent positions!
During his internship David traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana to collect samples from poultry slaughter establishments that were affected by Hurricane Katrina in order to evaluate microbial controls and to identify factors that may hinder controls in the future. He also had an opportunity to see how FSIS works with other countries to keep trade markets open and the impact of
foreign animal diseases and global measures taken to prevent the spread of these diseases.
We’re very pleased that David has chosen a career with FSIS. He will start working full-time in our International Affairs Office next Monday (July 24th), and one of his important responsibilities is to perform equivalence reviews on foreign inspection systems, including research on whether exporting countries have diseases of public health concern with respect to meat
and poultry products. We know that David has embarked on a challenging and rewarding career with FSIS. Our challenge to Dr. Hoblet is to keep up the great success.
Incentives
(Slide 16 and 17)
A number of government agencies, including FSIS, may offer some of the following incentives to veterinarians:
- Paid student externships (including housing).
- Non-paid volunteer experiences with agencies and special projects.
- Job placement services or recruiters to assist personally with finding a position.
- Signing bonuses and pay for moving household goods to jobs with special needs.
- The opportunity to work at or near home at officially recognized satellite offices or approved home offices.
- Paid advanced degrees and/or board certifications.
- Automatic advancement to the next pay step or grade with satisfactory performance.
- Bonuses for outstanding performance.
- Non-monetary awards for special projects and efforts over and beyond the norm.
Closing
(Slide 18)
Our veterinary education and experiences have provided us with a foundation that is valued and greatly utilized in the government. Veterinarians in public practice are leaders who work with other public health professionals.
For example, FSIS’ veterinarians have participated in a food safety assessment that influenced the establishment’s approach as well as the National Turkey Federation’s and the National Chicken Council’s approach to addressing the control of Salmonella. This food safety assessment also played a role in influencing national policy and guidance given to enforcement,
investigations and analysis officers. It could in turn have a true impact on reducing Salmonellosis in humans.
If you want to make a difference in the world, federal and state agencies need your talent and expertise. We are looking for veterinarians to become executive leaders, international liaisons and program managers. There are many benefits and surprising perks for those who are willing to serve the American people.
(Slide 19)
Federal agencies that offer exciting opportunities for veterinarians include, but are not limited to:
Check out their Web sites to obtain further information on the types of jobs and incentives they offer. State government agencies also provide many opportunities, so if you’re interested in a particular state, find out more from its agriculture or public health department.
Thank you for your time today and I hope this discussion has provided you with enough material to pique your interest in a possible public service career. If you have any questions, then I’ll be happy to take them for you now. I also want to thank the speakers and most especially Bonnie Buntain for organizing the session and for her work year round as our chief public health
veterinarian. Also visit all the agencies’ booths at the convention hall to learn more information.
(Slide 20) |
