The following is a reprint from Drovers online Report dated April 8, 2020. Though it came from the Certified Angus Beef point of view, it provides food for thought for all cattle producers as the veterinary-client-patient-relationship“VCPR" becomes more important.
Treating a sick calf may can be a challenge with all the regulations
on shared-class antibiotics—unless you have a solid V-C-P-R.
“VCPR is a veterinary-client-patient-relationship. Each state has a
marginally different definition of what that means legally. For the most
part, it is the responsibility of the veterinarian into your operation
and then how you interact with your veterinarian in return,” says Keelan
Lewis, DVM, of Salt Creek Veterinary Hospital in Olney, Texas.
“So with the lack of medications being available over the counter
now, having that established VCPR is more and more important to the
producer,” she says.
Relationship goals must be clear and communicated: do you want a lot of contact, or just damage control?
“The concept of a VCPR being scary in my mind, is only if you do not
have a VCPR or you're not willing to look and reach out to have that
relationship with a veterinarian. So an example of that is constant
interaction with a veterinarian and persistent decision making back and
forth between the two of you for your operation. Look and find, and
search and define your goals and then interview and find a veterinarian
that fits that. And it is going to be a massive benefit,” Lewis says.
Your chosen area veterinarian may still be 60 miles from the
ranch—all the more reason to establish those professional relationships.
“There's actually a lot of discussion of whether there is a shortage
of food animal veterinarians or if there is a poor distribution of food
animal veterinarians. From a producer standpoint, a shortage of
veterinarians to me only means that you need to support your VCPR even
more thoroughly. So reach out to your existing veterinarians, describe
to them how your operation goals could help them build their practice
larger, help you have more availability to the veterinarian,” she
continues.
In the past, veterinarians were not as readily available, interactions were strictly business. But expectations are evolving.
“Newer generation of veterinarians and sometimes producers will
express this to me as a concern, is that they want to be more actively
involved in your operation, where they demand that in order to get
[inaudible 00:05:52] prescriptions. They want to help you on a day to
day basis. They want to know what you're doing is a benefit to
production. And if we can switch our mindset from having a VCPR as an
obstacle to having a VCPR as a benefit, then all of a sudden production
across the board has benefitted,” Lewis says.
To foster innovation, Lewis started a Producers Alliance at her practice to bring like-minded cattlemen together.
“So educationally, things that are of interest to them market wise,
feed wise, you know that group has reached out as far as to buy feed
together. They buy drugs together. We interact on a routine basis about
production goals across the whole group. They have put together calves
and sold calves together. So our clinic initiated that. The group of
producers as a whole have taken it way farther than we ever anticipated
it would go,” she says.
It starts with sorting out needs and goals for a cattle enterprise,
then finding the veterinarian who best fits into those plans.
