00:00Hello and good evening, I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and reconsider what you know of the news of the day. Malaysia
00:20is facing a critical shortage of veterinarians. The Department of Veterinary Services recently
00:27reveals that the country has just over 2,500 active veterinarians. That's far short of
00:35what's needed to meet the growing demand from livestock farms to research labs and a booming
00:41pet care industry. So this shortfall is more than just a numbers problem. It's a question of
00:48national readiness in terms of public health, food safety and animal welfare. So what will it take
00:54to train, retain and recognize the veterinary workforce who play such a critical role in
01:02our food and health systems? Joining me on the show to discuss this further is Professor Dr.
01:06Go Yong-Ming, who's Dean of UPM's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Go, thank you so much
01:14for being on the show with me today. From your academic standpoint, can you talk to me a little
01:21bit about how serious the current shortage of veterinarians are in Malaysia? Where are the
01:27pressure points that are being felt the most here? Maybe, thank you for addressing, I mean,
01:33giving the intro to the topic. I guess before we even arrive at the shortage, we need to know
01:38how do we get here in the first place? You were right in saying that there are about 2,500 practicing
01:45vets now. Actually, in actual fact, in terms of number registered numbers, we have about 3,877 as of
01:53March 2025. That is based on data from Malaysian Veterinary Council. And it wasn't an issue before
01:59because most of the vets are actually involved in various sector. Because I like to take this
02:07opportunity as well to maybe to correct some perception of what the public has about veterinarians.
02:13Because people tend to associate the face of veterinarians with a companion animal practice,
02:17namely dogs and cats, where else in actual reality, they are playing big roles in food security,
02:24producing food animals, and then ensuring safe food. In fact, the very first heart transplant
02:35was done in an animal model back in 1997 in UPM using our faculty. And of course, you don't attempt it in
02:41human beings first. So those are among the roles that the vets have played. And previously,
02:47it wasn't it wasn't very much a shortage because we are talking about vets that has been actively
02:54supporting the food industry. Based on the slides, based on the data that we have, the food animal
03:01industry in Malaysia is worth about 34 billion ringgits as of 2021. And then the companion animal itself,
03:08comprising of pet services and pet food is about 2.5 billion. So we're taking 34 billion versus 2.5 billion.
03:17So in terms of importance, I think the value can translate itself. It is right that the Department of Veterinary Services mentioned that there's actually a shortage because right now,
03:27we are actually at a critical point whereby those who entered service in the 1980s, 1990s are retiring in droves now.
03:36And the demographics seems to be pointing to more vets going into a small animal practice or companion animal
03:43practice rather than the ever critical food animal practice, which is important for food security. And that's
03:50why I think Department of Veterinary Services is actually revealing that shortages saying that we are
03:58actually in critical need of vets. Like what I mentioned just now, those are the areas that the vets can
04:04actually participate. But since all areas are not growing at the even pace, as a matter of fact, I can
04:12even quote that for every single food veterinarian that we have in the field, there are at least 7.5
04:19practicing small animal veterinarian. Whereas if you look at the value industry, 2.5 billion for animal
04:26industry versus food sector and food sector is the one that provides us with meat, milk and eggs. So I guess
04:35it's even more critical now. Dr. Goh, what's causing this imbalance? Why are more vets choosing to enter
04:44small animal practice or companion animal practice as opposed to food animal practice? I think the trend
04:50is actually not only happening here in Malaysia, it happens everywhere to the point that USDA, US Department
04:56of Agriculture even have to offer loan waivers to practicing veterinarians in the US to go into food
05:02animal. There are multiple factors. One of the factors will be, well, it's always more exciting
05:09to work in an urban setting whereby we have clinics where you can still keep your good balance of quality
05:18of life. That means you are still engaged with the community around you rather than staring at farm
05:22animals in some wilderness area. It's not something that is used to be, I mean, something that is
05:29acceptable to everybody. And second thing is that I think gender also played a big role.
05:36If you look at the statistics now, they are about 43% of males versus 57% of females in the vet industry.
05:44If you look at historical data, if you look at historical data, that is what we get. 43%
05:49male, 57% of females. But if you look at current trends, in terms of enrollment, women outnumbered men
05:57three to one. That means 75% females. Now, this represents some kind of challenges. We know that in
06:05order to be active in the food animal industry, you cannot farm in urban areas because there are land
06:11codes prohibiting setting up farms and all kinds of things. So as a result, most farms will be established in
06:17suburban areas or in fringe. And because of that as well, well, farms are meant by mostly guys in the
06:27guise of foreign workers and so on and so forth. So any other person who wants to go into those kind
06:32of facilities will have to be of the same sex. So there will be some kind of, not to say deterrent,
06:38discouragement for the ladies to go into food animals. And no doubt there are still people, there are still
06:44ladies who are actually in the food animal sector, but the number is not that many. In fact, at the
06:50universities, when we are actually sending out students to do practical training, yeah, by the way,
06:55our students typically need to complete anything between 24 to 32 weeks of practical training throughout
07:01the five years training. We also need to consider all these aspects because they will be, they will be
07:06housed in proximity within the same farm as those foreign workers who are typically male. So that is
07:13also something that deters a lot of veterinarians from going into food animal practice.
07:18Right. Just very quickly, can I look at Malaysia's veterinary education system? When we look at the
07:24system as a whole, do we have the capacity to meet both current and future demand? Do we have enough,
07:30are we producing enough veterinary graduates to begin with?
07:33Okay. There are two schools producing veterinarians in the country, one in UPM, one in UMK. Our combined
07:39capacity per annum is actually about 150 to 160. We are actually rapidly increasing that to maybe about,
07:47at most maybe about 200 a year. But we also have to consider that there are only about 110 veterinary
07:53academics in the country with PhDs. And again, the factor of age also comes in, factor of age,
08:01factor of retirement. To be very frank, my faculty, the current veterinary faculty now, we have about
08:0871 staffs and about one third of them will be retiring, including myself, in the next 10 years.
08:14So we can actually increase the class sizes, but we have to think about how to sustain those class sizes
08:21when we do not have enough academy. And by the way, we also follow the medical teaching staff to student
08:27ratio. We do not exceed, we limit the students at eight students per teaching staff. So because of all
08:35those factors, it really restricts the number of students that can train. Not to mention, the veterinary
08:41program is actually a very expensive program, much more expensive than all other programs. On average,
08:46it costs the government about 97,000 ringgit per student per year to train a student. Why? Because
08:53you need to build hospitals, you need to bring them to the farms and so on and so forth. So it's much,
08:59much more expensive as compared to other professions. So all those are factors that contribute to the
09:05limited capacity that we have. Dr. Goh, you're raising all these points that I think as a layperson and the
09:11public, I think may not have realized. Talk to me a little bit about how you see the path going forward.
09:19I mean, what kinds of policies or academic reforms would you recommend for us to be able to attract and
09:26train and retain a whole new generation of not just veterinarians, practicing veterinarians in maybe food
09:34animal practice but also veterinary academics who are qualified to bring up a new generation of this
09:42workforce? Dr. Yeah, I guess if you look at the materials that I mentioned just now, I've
09:46supplied to, I've presented earlier, we are experiencing an annual attrition of maybe about 5% in terms of the
09:55tertiary teachers, teachers in universities. So that is actually something that is of a concern to
10:02retain them because it pays the wages actually much more better outside. This is actually the same
10:08trend that we are seeing in medical sector as well. And secondly, our new graduates, well, maybe it's a
10:15good thing, good thing as well. Well, our graduates are typically, will have typically secured their jobs
10:22maybe two semesters, up to two semesters before they graduate. So attracting them back to the university
10:28will be a challenge. So I guess we need to have multiple strategies, a short-term plan, medium-term
10:34and long-term. Short-term, I guess, in order to boost the amount of personnel that we need
10:42to be running the food security, I mean the food, the farms and so on and so forth, we need to make use of
10:47the pool of veterinary paraprofessionals. Because since there are reluctance of certain members,
10:55certain of the veterinary community to be at the farms, we need to use these veterinary paraprofessionals
11:02comprising of nutritionists, comprising of animal breeders, animal scientists, animal paraprofessionals to be
11:09there to make up the numbers. Because after all, only things that involve practicing rights involving
11:16drugs requires vets. The second thing is that there should be maybe a review on how we actually deploy
11:23our vets. There should be some kind of incentives like what the US Department of Agriculture is doing,
11:28maybe waiver of student loans to facilitate more to get into food animal practice. And I think recently
11:36what the Sarawakian government is actually attempting to do by establishing a new vets school in UPM
11:43Campus Sarawak, which has just been proclaimed by our Tuanku Chancellor on the 1st of July is actually
11:50a move in the right direction. Because that is actually bringing vets closer to the areas where
11:56food is going to be produced. So I think all those are integrated strategies that we need to look at
12:01the uh in the long in the medium and in longer term. But we cannot we can never escape from the fact
12:08that we need to do continuous capacity building by training more academics. We are actually welcoming
12:13new vet schools either from the public sector or from the private sector. In fact, we really need um I
12:20mean private investments in order to grow the profession. I think for so long the vet profession has been
12:25under-invested because well number one thing is that not many people are aware what vets are actually
12:30doing. I guess the times to change is actually now. Dr. Goh, thank you so much for such an enlightening
12:38explanation. I hadn't realized some of the challenges that um veterinary um veterinarians face um veterinary
12:46academics as well and also the importance of it for our our public health and food systems. Thank you so much
12:51for your insights. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with more on this topic. So stay
12:56tuned. We'll be right back.
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