Penn Vet: An Indispensable Partner to Pennsylvania
Since 1884, Penn Vet has educated veterinarians and served as a key partner to Pennsylvania, protecting the health of animals, humans and the environment. Our partnership is built upon four pillars: education and teaching, clinical services, diagnostic testing and disease surveillance, and research.
Educating an In-Demand Workforce While Improving Affordability and Access
Penn Vet is a vital workforce development tool for Pennsylvania at time when we need more veterinarians.
- An estimated two-thirds of all veterinarians in Pennsylvania are Penn Vet alums, who collectively practice in all 67 counties.
- Penn Vet has grown its class size by 27 percent since 2001 and graduates more students annually than the average of all other U.S. veterinary schools.
- Penn Vet accepted Pennsylvania-resident applicants at a rate more than twice that of out-of-state applicants.
- Penn Vet has reduced average student indebtedness nearly 22 percent since 2018, whereas the national average has increased 1.3 percent.
Without continued investments from Pennsylvania, students will face higher tuition and the prospect of more debt, limiting their career opportunities or making their dreams of becoming a veterinarian unattainable.
Providing Clinical Care
Penn Vet boasts one of the largest caseloads of any veterinary school in the U.S., giving our students unmatched hands-on learning opportunities.
- Penn Vet’s large-animal hospital provided care last year through 6,721 animal visits.
- Penn Vet’s faculty and students served more than 22,000 animals last year on farms throughout Pennsylvania, traveling 183,854 miles to do so.
- Penn Vet’s Ryan Hospital in Philadelphia handled 31,159 cases last year.
Without continued investments from Pennsylvania, those who love animals or depend on them for their livelihood will have less access to world-class care, and we all will be at risk of more infectious diseases.
Protecting Health with Testing & Surveillance
Penn Vet is a vital part of the state’s infrastructure to protect against potentially devastating infectious diseases—including those that may jump between animals and humans—and contaminants in the food supply.
- Penn Vet performed tests on nearly 143,000 samples last year for threats like avian influenza, Chronic Wasting Disease, and toxins in food animals that could jeopardize humans.
- Penn Vet maintains databases to track disease outbreaks among 114 million birds and 1.5 million pigs on farms.
- Penn Vet tests samples from horses at Pennsylvania’s racetracks to protect the health and safety of equine athletes and jockeys, while maintaining the industry’s integrity.
Without continued investments from Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth will lose vital surveillance tools that safeguard people and major industries from diseases that threaten our health and livelihood.
Innovative, World-class Research Advancing Animal and Human Health
Much of Penn Vet’s groundbreaking research is rooted in One Health—the idea that animal, human and environmental health are linked inextricably. This research offers tremendous translational benefits to humans and the environment.
- Penn Vet is identifying how humans are vulnerable to hemorrhagic viral infections, such as Ebola, and to better understand viral-host interactions, which could lead to treatments that target infection earlier.
- Penn Vet’s research on canine’s sense of smell allowed it to train dogs to detect Chronic Wasting Disease in deer feces, enabling more rapid interventions to contain the always-lethal disease.
- Leveraging Penn’s Nobel Prize-winning research on mRNA technology, Penn Vet helped develop a vaccine for H5N1, the devastating form of highly pathogenic avian influenza affecting poultry, dairy cows, and humans.
- Penn Vet’s Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security is researching opportunities to enhance the financial viability of Pennsylvania’s farms while protecting the environment.
Without continued investments from Pennsylvania, Penn Vet risks losing the people and infrastructure responsible for novel breakthroughs that industries and humans depend on to make a safer and brighter future.