Problems Associated with the Education of VPA’s
Due to the passage of Colorado Proposition 129 in November, 2024, the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences was tasked with developing a program to educate the position of mid-level practitioner in veterinary medicine.
They have developed a program, which is to be a Master’s degree program in veterinary clinical care (MSB VCC) according to an article in the May 2025 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. This position is now referred to as a Veterinary Professional Associate or VPA. Applicants must have attained a bachelor’s degree that includes 20 credit hours in communication, math, biology, chemistry, physics, and anatomy and physiology. The MSB VCC program requires students to complete five semesters; the first three are on-line and consist of clinical anatomy and principles of surgery. The article points out that a typical medical curriculum would include hands-on laboratories, but in this case would not. In the fourth semester students would receive hands-on training in a laboratory classroom, and then it would be followed by a fifth semester of clinical training practicum with an approved community partner. It is primarily aimed to educate about dog and cat problems and procedures and not large animals.
I have real concerns about this program. Who will be the participants in this program? What has been their ultimate goal in their education prior to entering the program? Will being at the level of a VPA be sufficient for their career? Will they be paid a sufficient salary as a return-on-investment in time and money to obtain this degree? Does the program exclude well-qualified veterinarian-level applicants and take only those that they think will never be able to be accepted into the veterinary professional program? Veterinary Technicians have a far better education than the requirements set for applicants, why are they excluded from applying?
I suspect those applying to the program will be students that have been rejected, and their ultimate goal was to become a veterinarian. Since only about 6% of the applicants are accepted that leaves a tremendous number of students that did not get in. Do students not accepted into the DVM program apply for the Master’s program thinking this might be a stepping stone to getting in to veterinary school?
In my Veterinary Technology Program we had a number of my graduates that realized that being a veterinary technician was not good enough, and they wanted more. So they applied and got accepted into vet school, some with a bachelor’s degree and some without. We used to ask our applicants in their interview if they wanted to be veterinary technicians or veterinarians. We had a few students that answered they only wanted to be a veterinary technician, then at the midway point or upon graduation we found out they had applied to vet school, were admitted, and left our program. The upper management of our college and myself took a dim view at the possible dishonesty by these applicants. We were in the business a supplying a workforce of veterinary technicians and now we would be graduating less than we had anticipated.
Also for veterinary technicians there is no upward mobility in job responsibility and job satisfaction, but since most programs only grant Associate’s degrees they would be excluded from satisfying the entry requirements. Based on the admission requirements to enter the professional DVM program at CSU there is no listed requirement of having achieved a Bachelor’s degree. But there is this requirement to enter the Master’s degree program. This does not seem right.
Could the College of Veterinary Medicine legally exclude students in the Master’s degree program or their graduates from applying to vet school, and wouldn’t this education be a great pre-professional education in preparation for veterinary school?
This sort of defeats the purpose of having this level of worker in veterinary medicine if many desire and go on to become veterinarians.