Summary

  • VCA Animal Hospitals joins AAHA Veterinary Visionaries™ as a founding member to help care for the future of veterinary medicine by addressing systemic challenges

  • In line with Mental Health Awareness Month, the inaugural Veterinary Visionaries event invites anyone to submit ideas on sustainable changes to support professionals’ mental health & well-being  

LOS ANGELES – VCA Animal Hospitals has joined Veterinary Visionaries™ as a founding member, supporting the collaboration among veterinary organizations, academics, companies and veterinary hospital networks as the group seeks new ways to address systemic challenges in the field. Veterinary Visionaries recently launched its first concept-solving event, running May 1 through 27, 2022 to address complex issues affecting veterinary teams around mental health and well-being. 

 

“Today’s profession looks a lot different from my first experiences in my dad’s animal hospital as a kid. We’ve improved the way we practice medicine, and we’ve adapted to care for more pets. Our work has real joy and reward. Equally, we’re experiencing challenges that we urgently need to solve – like how do we best care for each other, and how do we make the profession attractive to future talent,” said Todd Lavender, DVM, President, VCA Animal Hospitals. “We’re proud to join Veterinary Visionaries and collaborate on putting ideas into action to support veterinary professionals – present and future – everywhere.”

 

Veterinary Visionaries is a collaboration launched by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) that brings together more than 50 organizations and the first concept-solving event launched this month aims to address this question: How might we build systemic solutions and support for veterinary teams to continuously improve mental well-being? 

 

"Veterinary Visionaries was founded to bring veterinary associations’ and higher-education organizations’ collective memberships together to share ideas, co-create solutions, and unify our profession’s approach to solving shared challenges," said Garth Jordan, CEO of the AAHA and a founding member of Veterinary Visionaries. "We quickly identified mental health as a major challenge in our field, and one that deserves more than a fragmented approach to solve. If we all get into the same space to collectively pool our thoughts, we’ll ideate powerful solutions that can greatly enhance the field and those who contribute to it."


At the event’s conclusion, a panel of mental health and veterinary professionals will evaluate all submissions based on criteria of feasibility, activation logistics, and cost. Cash awards will be presented to the top four innovators, which will be announced on July 1, 2022. Based on the winning idea, an appropriate committee will be convened to build an action plan.

 

To learn more about VCA Animal Hospitals, visit www.vcahospitals.com.

 

To learn more about Veterinary Visionaries and submit ideas, visit veterinaryvisionaries.org.

 

About Veterinary Visionaries
Established in 2021, Veterinary Visionaries is a collaboration of veterinary associations and higher education organizations bringing their collective memberships together to share ideas, co-create solutions, and unify the professions' approach to solving shared challenges. Learn more at www.veterinaryvisionaries.org.