The April 2026 edition of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA Vol. 264, #4) caught my attention with 4 articles and an author's response to an article. In this podcast, I use the information gathered from them to suggest that many new veterinary graduates are a combination of the following:

They may be focusing more on acceptance from their peers over competent patient care (acceptance by their veterinary team).
They may be reading published scientific articles that are partly generated by artificial intelligence hallucinations (manufactured falsehoods).
They may be carrying a larger educational debt load (struggling financially).
They are in a profession with declining patient visits and increased care costs (decreasing practice income).
They are struggling to provide affordable patient care within clients' financial means, which may fall short of the gold standard of care they were taught in school (an affordable spectrum of care).

These five points raised in the journal are not being adequately addressed because mentors are retiring or dying without passing on time-proven care that many clients expect and can afford. The remaining practice owners hiring new graduates are caught between rising practice costs, declining income, and a wave of younger people with one eye on the patient and the other on a sense of self-worth they are told is tied to their ability to get along with their teammates.

The crisis in veterinary care for horses is much more than increasing a new graduate's salary. It is a lack of good horsemanship skills, along with a spectrum of care choices that help horse owners address their horse's problem. However, horse owners also have an obligation to ensure they can support the care of all animals entrusted to them, not just financially, but also with the knowledge to prevent illness and injuries.

#horses #veterinary #horseteeth #horsecare #equinedentistry

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Geoff Tucker is a veterinarian and horseman who has worked with horses since 1973. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University in 1984. Over the years, Geoff went from mucking stalls as a farmhand to starting his own equine practice. This journey helped him learn how to blend medical care with good horsemanship.

Geoff believes in doing what is best for the horse and also in working with the horse. While at Cornell, he started the Cornell Student Horseman's Association, which organized talks with local experts, a knowledge competition called the Intercollegiate Horse Bowl, and Foal Watch at the Equine Research Park to help with live foal deliveries. Wanting to educate horse owners even more, Geoff also launched the first "I Love New York Horse Symposium," which drew 500 people from across the northeast.

Geoff also spent time working at the Equine Isolation Lab with respected colleagues, including Dr. Coggins, whose name is on the well-known test. He worked both part-time and full-time at Cornell's Equine Research Park.

On graduation day in 1984, while his classmates celebrated, Geoff drove his fully stocked vet truck to his first call—a sick foal. This marked the beginning of The Finger Lakes Equine Practice, which still operates today. Geoff sold the practice in 1996, worked for a short time at another clinic near Albany, NY, and then started The Equine Practice, focusing on equine dentistry. He continues this work from his base in South Florida.

Geoff worked on his first horse's teeth in 1983, when his mentor showed him how to place his hand inside a horse's mouth without medication and rasp off the offending sharp points. He was hooked from the start and made dentistry a key part of his practice. Since then, he has examined the mouths of over 84,000 horses across the United States - yes, he's been counting.