Osceola vet's story refutes stereotypes
Jennifer Boruch hasn’t forgotten the feedback she got from an eastern South Dakota veterinarian when she showed up as a new veterinary school graduate in the early 1990s.
After hours of waiting to talk about a job opening, this is what she heard: “I just want you to know I don’t plan to hire a female,” the male practitioner said. “The job is too hard. My body is breaking down.”
Boruch hasn’t forgotten her reaction either. “It was kind of hard to swallow in my first job interview.”
Flash forward to 2008 and you might say that Axtell native Boruch (pronounced Bo-ROOSH) has risen above some men’s presumptions about women’s ability to bestow medical attention on farm animals.
Based at Osceola, about 60 miles northwest of Lincoln, she’s been the only food-animal veterinarian whose practice is based in Polk County for the last five years.
“I’d be considered a mixed practice,” she said. “I basically have my work down to 50 percent large animals and 50 percent small animals.”
That means 50 percent pets, often referred to as companion animals, and 50 percent from a category dominated by cattle and hogs.
Boruch’s personal story could be considered a refuting of old stereotypes. But it’s drawn from a larger story, one with a much less triumphal tone for Nebraska and other states that depend heavily on livestock as an income source.
Early in 2008, there are 12 counties in Nebraska with no veterinarians, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Cherry County, one of the most prominent livestock counties in the nation, has more than 290,000 food animals and two veterinarians.
Among the most prominent contributing factors to worries about a shortage of practitioners in rural areas are retirement, the limited number of graduates entering the work force, and doubts among them about earning enough money in a sparsely populated setting to pay off school loans.
Bill would support rural vets
M.L. “Cap” Dierks, state senator and veterinarian from Ewing, owns a ranch in Wheeler County, one of the 12 Nebraska counties with no animal medicine professionals.
Dierks is trying to make a dent in this dilemma with a proposal that would pay up to four veterinary graduates each year up to $80,000 over four years to practice in a rural Nebraska setting.
Here and in other big livestock states, “we’re trying to make it so that we can get food-animal veterinarians in under-served areas of the nation,” he said.
As he and others rise to the challenge, there’s a gender factor in the mix.
When Dierks started veterinary school at Kansas State in 1961, there were no more than a half-dozen women among 400 students enrolled in the four-year program.
Some four decades later, women make up 80 percent of veterinary students nationally.
As Nebraska, which has no veterinary school of its own, switches its alignment from Kansas State to Iowa State for veterinary classes, 17 of the 25 Nebraska slots in the classes of 2011 and 2012 are women.
For the classes of 2009 and 2010, it’s 18 of 25.
And for every Jennifer Boruch, there are many more women interested in treating companion animals exclusively — dogs, cats and other pets — in more populated places.
How many other women does she know that are sole practitioners in rural areas in Nebraska? “There’s one, maybe two I can think of in the state like myself.”
Does this say anything about women’s abilities to tend to farm animals?
“I don’t believe that,” she said, “because when I was growing up, I was around livestock in 4-H and I broke my own 4-H calves” so she could lead them around a show ring.
There are all kinds of men of varying veterinary backgrounds in Nebraska, including Dierks, who are ready to agree with her.
Plenty of room for women vets
Ron Wallman, president of the 630-member Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association, and David Hardin, head of the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, are among those who see plenty of room for women to fit in as animal doctors on farms and ranches.
In fact, said Hardin, many of them already do in western Nebraska practices where multiple partners attend to the needs of feedlot cattle. "These women out in rural practices, it's been accepted now," he said.
Wallman offered his opinion as he left his Seward office to answer a call to deliver a calf.
"They're very capable," he said of his women counterparts, "but it is a fact of life that they do tend more toward companion animals as a career.”
Gender influences are certainly not the only way to define a supply-demand problem in places far removed from Lincoln and Omaha.
"The bottom line is that there is a shortage in general," Wallman said. "We're graduating the same number of veterinarians today as in 1975. And obviously, the population has changed and there are far more companion animals than there were in 1975.”
Hardin said a recent study conducted by Kansas State researchers suggests that the annual supply of new graduates falls short of overall demand by 4 to 5 percent.
However, “that's expected to grow over the next decade to where it could reach as much as 35 percent.”
Part of the rural piece of the puzzle is that populations of people have declined even when the populations of livestock have not. As stores and houses stand empty, smaller communities lose their appeal to young professionals.
They can seem increasingly isolated to both men and women graduates who have other career opportunities.
Rod Moxley, a professor of veterinary science at UNL, said the vast reaches of Cherry County, where the only two veterinarians work from Valentine offices, might be a case in point.
"In places as remotely populated as Cherry County, where things are really spread out, you need support from a community when you set up a business like this," Moxley said.
"If you yourself have a family, you all need to eat. There needs to be grocery stores nearby, there needs to be banks. And some of these factors make it very difficult to set up a practice in such a remote place.”
Gary Rupp, director of UNL's Great Plains Veterinary Education Center near Clay Center, said students who come from agricultural backgrounds are often the ones who feel most comfortable in something similar.
“I think the real emphasis is that there are fewer veterinarians willing to go out in rural areas and deal with livestock that have sound livestock backgrounds and an interest in working with livestock producers.”
The background definitely matters, Rupp said. “Interest alone doesn't cut it.”
The center where Rupp works gives students hands-on training working with cattle and other livestock.
Rupp was one of seven researchers involved with a study published in 2007 in an American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges journal.
It used survey responses from 416 veterinarians in private practice in Nebraska to delve into the factors they weighed in deciding on type of practice and community size.
Among its findings:
-- The average age of male veterinarians in the state was 48.2, suggesting a retirement bubble is building. The average age of women was 37.7.
-- Seventy-one percent of all female veterinarians were in practices that dealt mostly or entirely with companion animals.
-- The top reason given for choosing careers that did not include food animals was "better working conditions and lifestyle in companion-animal practice."
But the study concluded with reference to the values that all students bring with them as students in veterinary schools.
"It should be possible for veterinary medical colleges to incorporate the background characteristics that are consistent with these values . . . to address the shortages of food-animal and rural veterinarians without violating laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity and religion."
Ryan Loseke, Columbus veterinarian and chair of the Nebraska Cattlemen's Animal Health and Nutrition Committee, said his wife and veterinary partner, June, is an example of a woman who fits into a food-animal practice.
Loseke said the bigger incomes that go with living in bigger cities aren't for all men — or all women.
Students need to know that there's an enjoyable way of life waiting in rural communities. "The financial incentives may not be as great," he said, "but if you enjoy what you do, that's the best payment you can have."
Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or at ahovey@journalstar.com
After hours of waiting to talk about a job opening, this is what she heard: “I just want you to know I don’t plan to hire a female,” the male practitioner said. “The job is too hard. My body is breaking down.”
Boruch hasn’t forgotten her reaction either. “It was kind of hard to swallow in my first job interview.”
Flash forward to 2008 and you might say that Axtell native Boruch (pronounced Bo-ROOSH) has risen above some men’s presumptions about women’s ability to bestow medical attention on farm animals.
Based at Osceola, about 60 miles northwest of Lincoln, she’s been the only food-animal veterinarian whose practice is based in Polk County for the last five years.
“I’d be considered a mixed practice,” she said. “I basically have my work down to 50 percent large animals and 50 percent small animals.”
That means 50 percent pets, often referred to as companion animals, and 50 percent from a category dominated by cattle and hogs.
Boruch’s personal story could be considered a refuting of old stereotypes. But it’s drawn from a larger story, one with a much less triumphal tone for Nebraska and other states that depend heavily on livestock as an income source.
Early in 2008, there are 12 counties in Nebraska with no veterinarians, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Cherry County, one of the most prominent livestock counties in the nation, has more than 290,000 food animals and two veterinarians.
Among the most prominent contributing factors to worries about a shortage of practitioners in rural areas are retirement, the limited number of graduates entering the work force, and doubts among them about earning enough money in a sparsely populated setting to pay off school loans.
Bill would support rural vets
M.L. “Cap” Dierks, state senator and veterinarian from Ewing, owns a ranch in Wheeler County, one of the 12 Nebraska counties with no animal medicine professionals.
Dierks is trying to make a dent in this dilemma with a proposal that would pay up to four veterinary graduates each year up to $80,000 over four years to practice in a rural Nebraska setting.
Here and in other big livestock states, “we’re trying to make it so that we can get food-animal veterinarians in under-served areas of the nation,” he said.
As he and others rise to the challenge, there’s a gender factor in the mix.
When Dierks started veterinary school at Kansas State in 1961, there were no more than a half-dozen women among 400 students enrolled in the four-year program.
Some four decades later, women make up 80 percent of veterinary students nationally.
As Nebraska, which has no veterinary school of its own, switches its alignment from Kansas State to Iowa State for veterinary classes, 17 of the 25 Nebraska slots in the classes of 2011 and 2012 are women.
For the classes of 2009 and 2010, it’s 18 of 25.
And for every Jennifer Boruch, there are many more women interested in treating companion animals exclusively — dogs, cats and other pets — in more populated places.
How many other women does she know that are sole practitioners in rural areas in Nebraska? “There’s one, maybe two I can think of in the state like myself.”
Does this say anything about women’s abilities to tend to farm animals?
“I don’t believe that,” she said, “because when I was growing up, I was around livestock in 4-H and I broke my own 4-H calves” so she could lead them around a show ring.
There are all kinds of men of varying veterinary backgrounds in Nebraska, including Dierks, who are ready to agree with her.
Plenty of room for women vets
Ron Wallman, president of the 630-member Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association, and David Hardin, head of the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, are among those who see plenty of room for women to fit in as animal doctors on farms and ranches.
In fact, said Hardin, many of them already do in western Nebraska practices where multiple partners attend to the needs of feedlot cattle. "These women out in rural practices, it's been accepted now," he said.
Wallman offered his opinion as he left his Seward office to answer a call to deliver a calf.
"They're very capable," he said of his women counterparts, "but it is a fact of life that they do tend more toward companion animals as a career.”
Gender influences are certainly not the only way to define a supply-demand problem in places far removed from Lincoln and Omaha.
"The bottom line is that there is a shortage in general," Wallman said. "We're graduating the same number of veterinarians today as in 1975. And obviously, the population has changed and there are far more companion animals than there were in 1975.”
Hardin said a recent study conducted by Kansas State researchers suggests that the annual supply of new graduates falls short of overall demand by 4 to 5 percent.
However, “that's expected to grow over the next decade to where it could reach as much as 35 percent.”
Part of the rural piece of the puzzle is that populations of people have declined even when the populations of livestock have not. As stores and houses stand empty, smaller communities lose their appeal to young professionals.
They can seem increasingly isolated to both men and women graduates who have other career opportunities.
Rod Moxley, a professor of veterinary science at UNL, said the vast reaches of Cherry County, where the only two veterinarians work from Valentine offices, might be a case in point.
"In places as remotely populated as Cherry County, where things are really spread out, you need support from a community when you set up a business like this," Moxley said.
"If you yourself have a family, you all need to eat. There needs to be grocery stores nearby, there needs to be banks. And some of these factors make it very difficult to set up a practice in such a remote place.”
Gary Rupp, director of UNL's Great Plains Veterinary Education Center near Clay Center, said students who come from agricultural backgrounds are often the ones who feel most comfortable in something similar.
“I think the real emphasis is that there are fewer veterinarians willing to go out in rural areas and deal with livestock that have sound livestock backgrounds and an interest in working with livestock producers.”
The background definitely matters, Rupp said. “Interest alone doesn't cut it.”
The center where Rupp works gives students hands-on training working with cattle and other livestock.
Rupp was one of seven researchers involved with a study published in 2007 in an American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges journal.
It used survey responses from 416 veterinarians in private practice in Nebraska to delve into the factors they weighed in deciding on type of practice and community size.
Among its findings:
-- The average age of male veterinarians in the state was 48.2, suggesting a retirement bubble is building. The average age of women was 37.7.
-- Seventy-one percent of all female veterinarians were in practices that dealt mostly or entirely with companion animals.
-- The top reason given for choosing careers that did not include food animals was "better working conditions and lifestyle in companion-animal practice."
But the study concluded with reference to the values that all students bring with them as students in veterinary schools.
"It should be possible for veterinary medical colleges to incorporate the background characteristics that are consistent with these values . . . to address the shortages of food-animal and rural veterinarians without violating laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity and religion."
Ryan Loseke, Columbus veterinarian and chair of the Nebraska Cattlemen's Animal Health and Nutrition Committee, said his wife and veterinary partner, June, is an example of a woman who fits into a food-animal practice.
Loseke said the bigger incomes that go with living in bigger cities aren't for all men — or all women.
Students need to know that there's an enjoyable way of life waiting in rural communities. "The financial incentives may not be as great," he said, "but if you enjoy what you do, that's the best payment you can have."
Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or at ahovey@journalstar.com
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