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by bovinegambler
1352 days ago
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Hey, just by the way, it seems your characterization of the outcome with regards to vets at animal shelters is not correct. It's kind of the opposite. It starts on page 41 of the PDF (second link). The problem was: "Recent court decisions prevent the State Board of Veterinary
Medical Examiners from regulating shelter veterinarians or
veterinary medicine practiced in animal shelters." "Strictly interpreted, the statutory exemption means anyone who practices
veterinary medicine in the context of animal shelters and rescue groups is exempt
from the Veterinary Licensing Act, including standard of care measures and
use of controlled substances. The impact of the decisions is already having an
effect on the oversight and regulation of veterinary medicine in Texas, as the
agency has begun to close all complaints against shelter veterinarians, declaring
them non-jurisdictional based on the decisions.
Taken to the extreme and assuming the Act does not apply in the context of
shelter medicine, animal shelters and rescue groups would not need to hire
licensed veterinarians. If the Act does not apply to the care of these animals,
any person regardless of training, education, or qualification, and regardless of
their criminal or disciplinary history, would legally be able to practice veterinary
medicine on shelter and rescue animals." The recommendation from the Sunset Commission was therefore for the legislature to change the law to make sure veterinary medicine at rescue clinics WAS regulated. |
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1. Texas Vet Board sued a very well-known shelter vet in Texas to revoke her license. Without getting into too much detail, the crux of it was that they wanted to hold shelter vets, who are all on very limited budgets, to the same standards as private vets. The irony is that, if shelter vets can't meet those standards, the Texas Vet Board is OK with just euthanizing the animals. The irony was brutal: "We want you to be held at a certain standard to protect the animals, but if you can't hit that, just kill them."
2. The vet countersued, saying there is a specific carve out in law for owners to treat their own pets, and legally shelter pets have been relinquished and are owned by the shelter. She won this case.
3. During the Sunset Commission hearings, the panel went hard after the Vet Board, basically saying they were harassing shelter vets for the sole purpose of trying to protect their own power (similar to the "everyone who draws a map needs to be licensed" BS in this post), while meanwhile they had a severe problem with not tracking and handling substance abuse issues by some vets. 3 of the Vet Board members ended up resigning because the Commission basically said "you suck".
4. Now, the situation that remained after the court cases was, as you pointed out, there was no more regulation of shelter vets. I think a lot of folks, including shelter vets, think this is not ideal, but they are very wary of being regulated by a board with very different goals (which are, honestly, protect the fees that vets can charge) from the goals that shelter vets have. So there has been some discussion since then about what level of regulation is right for shelter vets.
FWIW the status quo has remained the same - shelters legally own the animals in their care, and thus, as owners, shelter vets are not regulated by the Vet Board for the care they give their animals.