Veterinary medicine in New York State: overview of distribution patterns

An understanding of the distributional patterns of Veterinary practitioners in New York State can assist in optimizing veterinary services and opportunities. Veterinarians have been arrayed by type of practice and location within counties and major land form regions. Relationships between the number of practitioners and human and animal populations have been examined in these areas and show the inadequacy of basing veterinary needs on human population data. In contrast, large animal numbers show a much closer correspondence to veterinary practitioners, with ranges of 3341 to 6561 animals being serviced per veterinarian in the large and mixed service fields (98% of these totals are food animals). Data on age composition and degree institution (in-state versus out-of-state) provide indications of the length of service, turnover rate and retention rate for practitioners trained in New York State. At present 60 percent of New York State practitioners received their education at Cornell and more than three quarters of the active total completed their education since 1950.