Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to veterinary education. As the public health situation worsened, veterinary colleges and schools across North America adapted rapidly to continue teaching and mentoring their students. This required a close examination of veterinary curriculums to prioritize efforts to adequately prepare future veterinarians for their careers. As part of the examination, the appropriate role of swine veterinary medicine in modern curricula needed to be defined and updated. As a new normality emerges, it is critically important that both a basic understanding of swine medicine, as well as opportunities for advanced swine learning and clinical skill development, remain available and accessible for all veterinary students.

When considering the impact of the modern swine industry, the increasing development of localized small-scale agriculture, and the growing number of pet pigs, veterinary colleges have a duty to ensure that students are exposed to topics in swine health, management, and production as they prepare their graduates for lifetime careers in veterinary medicine. Despite the growing need for swine veterinary services, an ongoing analysis spearheaded by the American Association of Swine Veterinarians Collegiate Activities Committee (AASV-CAC), which represents a significant proportion of the swine-focused veterinary college faculty across North America, has raised concern over significant gaps and discrepancies in the levels of swine-related lectures, laboratories, and rotations offered at AVMA-accredited veterinary colleges.

While it remains true that a relatively small proportion of veterinary graduates focus on swine, numerous veterinary domains such as population medicine, food safety, animal welfare, and public health, which are cornerstones of swine practice, remain pertinent to all veterinarians. Swine case studies provide exemplary opportunities to introduce veterinary students to concepts and skills that have broader application in veterinary medicine. The purpose of this commentary is to describe the experiences of the AASV-CAC, outline the disadvantages of a veterinary education lacking swine medicine curriculum, and introduce the investigative approach that the AASV-CAC is undertaking to better understand the state of swine veterinary education in North America. We would also like to invite the greater veterinary community to engage and collaborate with the AASV-CAC to determine the most appropriate path forward.

Current State of Swine Medicine Education in North America

The process of curriculum refinement represents a continuous challenge for Colleges and Schools of Veterinary Medicine. Even when not dealing with the challenge of a global pandemic, Veterinary Colleges and Schools must maintain the high standards needed for their accreditation and are continuously modifying their curricula to ensure that their graduates are prepared to integrate into modern veterinary practice. This requires frequent prioritization of the topics and clinical skills that are taught to future veterinarians and realignment to the realities of current veterinary practice. As new scientific discoveries and technologies arise and animal industry standards evolve, it is inevitable that topics once considered mainstays of veterinary education are not allocated the same attention they once were and are slowly pushed toward the curricular fringes before being phased out entirely.

For many years now, such has been the fate of topics related to swine medicine when evaluated by veterinary curriculum committees. As curricula increasingly represent the needs of a companion animal practitioner, food animals, including swine, receive less attention. This has resulted not only in a reduced number of dedicated swine hours in modern teaching curricula, but also a dwindling number of veterinary colleges where students can gain meaningful hands-on swine experience. The results of this process are predictable, as one only needs to look around at the AASV Annual Meeting to realize that apart from the occasional alumnus from a nontraditional swine school, the majority of the next generation of swine veterinarians hail from a select handful of veterinary colleges.

Given the increased consolidation and integration of the modern swine industry, it is unsurprising that the veterinary colleges that retain substantial swine-teaching resources are located in states with significant swine populations. While this has resulted in a few noteworthy veterinary colleges where a world-class swine-focused veterinary curriculum can be offered, the contrasting reality is that the vast majority of newly minted veterinarians in North America have little to no swine exposure during their time in school. This has important implications for how modern pork production is perceived and understood by the greater veterinary community, prompting the need to seriously consider the role of swine education as a crucial part of the twenty-first century veterinary curricula.

Importance of Swine Education

The global and pervasive impact of modern swine farming and pork production should motivate veterinary colleges and schools to both provide resources for veterinarians wishing to specialize in swine medicine and production and also ensure that all veterinarians are equipped with enough baseline swine knowledge to accurately advocate for pigs within their communities. Pork is the most consumed animal protein in the world, and swine production is intimately tied to billions of human lives as a source of food, income, and well-being. Despite this, the health and welfare of the nearly 90 million pigs spread across the US and Canada are overseen by a relatively small contingent of veterinarians (AVMA membership records only food animal–exclusive [n = 2,105] or food animal–predominant [3,369/95,858] veterinarians; AASV statistics show 402 swine practitioners out of 921 US members in 2021).¹ The US swine industry itself produces an estimated 2.2 million metric tons of pork and pork products on an annual basis, worth approximately $23.4 billion in output. Nearly 26% of all pork and pork products produced in the US are exported to other countries, and the industry directly supports an estimated 550,000 jobs nationally.² As the global swine industry continues to grow, adapt, and rise to the many challenges of today and tomorrow, the ongoing guidance of veterinarians is critical in the areas of food safety, animal health, and welfare.

Even if students are not preparing for a career as a swine veterinarian, it remains fundamental that all veterinarians have a basic understanding of swine medicine and clinical skills. Need and opportunity for veterinarians to serve swine clients exist within the growing pet pig population, as well as the resurgent niche of small-scale “backyard” and “farm-to-fork” farming operations. Many potential swine clients in these sectors report difficulty finding veterinary services and report that many companion and mixed-animal practitioners do not feel they have sufficient “pig knowledge” to offer service. The result of this gap in veterinary knowledge and confidence is poorer animal health and welfare, lost economic opportunity, and increased risk to public health.

Swine veterinary medicine offers learning relevance beyond the direct practice of swine medicine across the greater scope of veterinary medicine. Specifically, population medicine, including biosecurity, disease elimination and eradication protocols, and development of diagnostic programs for herd health, is applicable to a wide variety of species and veterinary practices. Swine also play an important role in the advancement of scientific knowledge and medical practice, often serving as comparative species in biomedical research trials, and contribute lifesaving products such as heart valves, hormones, and other tissues to human patients. In the realm of public health and food safety, examples include an understanding of zoonotic diseases such as influenza, as well as the principles of judicious antibiotic usage. Knowledge of these topics brings great value to all veterinarians and should be expectations of both swine veterinarians and their colleagues throughout the profession.

How Can AVMA Help?

The polarization and consolidation of swine veterinary education resources should be concerning to the AVMA membership and broader veterinary community. Licensure for all species places the veterinarian, in the eye of the public, as an expert in all animal-related topics including swine production. As such, exposure to swine should be widely available during the DVM curriculum. With limited swine opportunities available at a majority of North American veterinary colleges, many potential swine veterinarians are far less likely to gain the exposure, experiences, and professional connections necessary to create an interest in and successfully join the swine industry. If consolidation continues as trending, more and more students will be excluded from access to swine opportunities, and the gap between food animal veterinarians and their companion animal colleagues will widen, creating a disconnected misunderstanding of each other’s work and potentially mistrust.

In the interest of ensuring that swine education remains a fundamental piece of modern veterinary education, the AASV-CAC has established a working group to investigate the state of swine veterinary education in the US and Canada. This group of swine educators have developed a survey to collect quantitative data related to swine educational opportunities available to DVM students. This survey instrument will be sent to identified AASV liaisons within each of the AVMA-accredited Veterinary Colleges in the US and Canada. The intended result of this effort will be to produce a quantitative and qualitative analysis of swine educational opportunities in North America, as well as a more substantive discussion on challenges and opportunities identified in the survey. Spontaneous commentaries are welcome, so feel free to email aasv@aasv.org to share your perspective or to set up a meeting.