Certification & Residency Training

Application Deadline December 31 for Retroactive Recognition as an ��TV Fellow

megan — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 17:18:55 +0000

Application Deadline December 31 for Retroactive Recognition as an ��TV Fellow megan Tue, 4 Nov 2025 - 10:18

The initial ��TV Fellowship Program Guidelines provided a time-limited opportunity for ��TV Diplomates to be considered for retroactive recognition as an ��TV Fellow. This is available to ��TV Diplomates who completed a program that might have qualified as an Approved Program prior to the launch of the ��TV program in 2023.

To be eligible for this distinction, a person must have completed their program during or after 2017. Their program will need to meet all the qualifications of an Approved Program, with supporting documentation to allow this determination.

Upon review and approval by the ��TV Fellowship Committee, a Diplomate who completed a program that is retroactively recognized, and who completed it during the allotted time, can earn the distinction of an ��TV Fellow and use the F��TV postnominal. The deadline for application for retroactive recognition as an ��TV Fellow is December 31, 2025.

Please visit the ��TV Fellowship Program page for more information and to access the online application.

��TV Residency Relocation Process Reminder

mjbarbick — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 18:30:25 +0000

��TV Residency Relocation Process Reminder mjbarbick Wed, 19 Jul 2023 - 11:30

Discuss potentially needing to relocate programs with your mentor if you are comfortable doing so. You can also reach out to your specialty ombudsperson and/or Finn Ruehrdanz, Senior Certification & Accreditation Specialist, for support in starting the conversation. Ombudspersons can be contacted at the email addresses below:
Identify a new mentor. Your mentor and Finn Ruehrdanz are all resources in helping you identify a new mentor.
Follow the detailed program relocation steps outlined here.

The ��TV Certification & Accreditation team are prepared to expedite relocations for anyone in unsafe situations. Please reach out to Finn at Finn@��TV.org if you have any questions or would like to discuss your options.

Need for Improved Oversight of Specialty Training Programs: Letter from ��TV Board of Regents to the AVMA

mjbarbick — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:25:12 +0000

Need for Improved Oversight of Specialty Training Programs: Letter from ��TV Board of Regents to the AVMA mjbarbick Mon, 17 Jul 2023 - 11:25

Dear ��TV Community,

Please find below a draft letter from the ��TV Board of Regents to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) regarding the need for improved oversight of specialty training programs. At this time, we would value any comments or input on the letter through ��TV360 or outreach to your specialty president.

See full-sized document

Background:

Over the last decade, serious challenges have emerged in our profession that are already impacting the availability and quality of patient care. If left unaddressed, these have the potential to deepen and threaten the future of veterinary specialty care. The challenges are multifactorial and interconnected but include a mismatch between available internship graduates and residency training programs, suboptimal wellness of intern and resident candidates, lack of diversity, a shortage of specialists and technicians, and lack of oversight to ensure that training programs meet specialty college requirements. Many of these concerns have been voiced by members on ��TV360. In addition, our residency training program oversight taskforce has gathered data on candidate experiences, and analysis of their results has revealed ongoing concerns that support the need for greater oversight.

The ��TV Board of Regents has been actively participating in summits on some these issues, including one on improving house officer wellbeing (co-organized by AAVMC, Mars, and UC Davis and held in Chicago on 12/1/2022), and a specialty veterinary medicine stakeholder summit, Collective Action to Address the Small Animal Veterinary Specialist Shortage (held in Washington DC on 3/8/2023). The ��TV leadership also recently spearheaded the foundation of a specialty college coalition group that has been meeting regularly to exchange ideas and experiences for the benefit of all specialty colleges.

The ��TV Board of Regents recently drafted the attached letter to the AVMA regarding the urgent need for improved oversight of graduate veterinary medical training programs. The letter has been shared with leaders of other groups, including the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians (AAVC), the Veterinary Specialty Organizations Committee (VSOC), the specialty coalition group, and, at the recent ��TV Forum, our volunteer committee leaders. The AAVC leadership expressed strong support for the letter, as they also have been working with the AVMA to urge such action. Our goal is to send a single formal communication to the AVMA, ideally co-signed by other organizations, to convince them that a roundtable is needed to explore this possibility in more depth.

We envision the oversight body would be composed of representatives from different specialty colleges who would work to support specialty colleges in their requirements, similar to the AVMA Council on Education, rather than stipulating activities that conflict with training program goals. Training program requirements at the specialty college level would continue to be reviewed by VSOC to ensure programs meet rigorous standards.

More detailed information on background and the goals of such a body is outlined in the letter.

Warm regards,

Jane Sykes, BVSc (Hons), PhD, MBA, D��TV (SAIM)

Chair, ��TV Board of Regents

Support Statement for AAVMC Veterinary Intern and Resident Wellbeing Guidelines

mjbarbick — Fri, 12 May 2023 18:12:47 +0000

Support Statement for AAVMC Veterinary Intern and Resident Wellbeing Guidelines mjbarbick Fri, 12 May 2023 - 11:12

Dear ��TV Community,

In October 2022, the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges published guidelines for training institutions to improve intern and resident wellbeing. These guidelines are summarized below. The recommendations fall under four categories:

Address organizational culture, through:
- Leadership and supervisor development
- Addressing conflict in the workplace
- Active dismantling of problematic power dynamics/structures
- Establishment of a house officer training program advisory committee/oversight group
- Use of change management strategies to implement initiatives
Promote and allow for health and wellbeing, by:
- Addressing barriers to access of health and wellbeing resources
- Considering the need for offerings such childcare and protected time off, in addition to programs in direct support of physical and mental health
Align supporting policies and systems, by:
- Limiting financial distress
- Creating scheduling flexibility
- Limiting duty hours to 60 hours averaged over 4 weeks
- Redesigning workflow
Enhance mentorship, by:
- Developing and sustaining quality mentors
- Incorporating structured feedback and evaluation

The ��TV continues to prioritize efforts to improve Candidate wellbeing and supports the efforts of AAVMC to encourage implementation of such guidelines. Implementation of the guidelines will take time for some programs, and, given current conditions, adoption of some recommendations may not be possible. As such, we encourage training programs to aspire to work towards aligning with the recommendations as much as possible. We also firmly believe that successful implementation of such guidelines will, by necessity, simultaneously benefit the wellbeing of all team members involved in training program delivery, including supervising Diplomates and practice staff.

In addition to encouraging the adoption of these guidelines, we are continuing our focus on identifying and implementing support and resources for Candidates, such as:

Distributing the new bi-monthly Candidate Connection newsletter that includes resources tailored to the unique needs of Candidates.
Planning for new wellbeing programming such as debt counseling assistance and access to support groups.
Developing a DEI blueprint that will allow the ��TV to better address equity and inclusion issues affecting Candidate wellbeing.
Developing new programming to help Ombuds representatives and program administrators support the success of their residents.

The AAVMC guidelines also contain links to useful resources that could benefit the wellbeing of all members of a practice or institution. We hope you find these resources useful.

Thank you for considering the recommendations and for each of your individual efforts to improve the wellbeing of the entire ��TV Community.

Certification & Residency Training

Application Deadline December 31 for Retroactive Recognition as an ����TV Fellow

Related Articles

����TV Residency Relocation Process Reminder

Need for Improved Oversight of Specialty Training Programs: Letter from ����TV Board of Regents to the AVMA

Background:

Support Statement for AAVMC Veterinary Intern and Resident Wellbeing Guidelines

Application Deadline December 31 for Retroactive Recognition as an ��TV Fellow

��TV Residency Relocation Process Reminder

Need for Improved Oversight of Specialty Training Programs: Letter from ��TV Board of Regents to the AVMA