Federally employed veterinarians serve in a wide range of essential roles. Public veterinary practice takes many forms, and as such, the ways in which the work is conducted varies widely depending on the type of role being carried out. For example, there are some federal veterinarians whose regular duty station is out of their home. Examples of such include field veterinarians in APHIS Animal Care and APHIS Veterinary Services. For those veterinarians, adapting to the pandemic’s remote work environment was not as difficult. On the flip side, there are also many veterinarians who serve in essential roles which could not be conducted remotely. For those veterinarians, the past year has been all about adaptation and flexibility.

One of the essential roles that Federal Veterinarians play revolves around animal disease inspections. This includes food animals, livestock, wildlife, and laboratory animals. Much of this inspection work requires on-site inspection, documentation, and tracking- making it nearly impossible for this work to be conducted remotely. As such, throughout the pandemic, NAFV has worked very hard to ensure that veterinarians serving in those roles feel supported. Often, NAFV’s most important role has been to serve as a conduit between field and regional employees and headquarters here in Washington. Indeed, we take seriously our role as part of the feedback loop, ensuring that our members have an opportunity to provide feedback on how policies and initiatives affect their ability to perform their duties without fear of retribution.