NAVEC is a coalition of clinic owners, veterinarians, and the people who depend on veterinary care — united by the pain this shortage has caused. Clinics that can't hire. Families that wait weeks for an appointment, or skip care they can't afford. Animals with no one left to treat them. We came together for one reason: this crisis was avoidable — and America has already solved it once before.
A free society does it through merit-based competition, through regulatory transparency that protects consumers while answering to the public good, and through the right to fair, merit-based professional licensing. When the need for a profession grows, supply is supposed to grow to meet it. That's how nearly every field in this country expands.
Veterinary medicine handed every gate to the profession — accreditation, testing, and licensure — to private organizations granted unchecked monopoly power, with no state oversight and no transparency. The mechanisms a free market would use to correct a shortage were simply switched off. So supply never rose to meet demand. It was never allowed to.
| Human medicine | Veterinary medicine | |
|---|---|---|
| Accreditation | Competing accreditors — supply rises to meet demand | A single private accreditor with multiple bottlenecks — supply capped below demand |
| The exam | Transparent, audited, accountable board exams — a merit gateway that protects the public without unfairly limiting licensure | ICVA's private monopoly over the NAVLE — no transparency, public accountability, or audit, and unanswered questions on quality and scoring; it can shut qualified candidates out of licensure |
| International talent | Efficient, merit-based pathways — about 25% of U.S. doctors are internationally trained | Redundant bottlenecks — only ~263 internationally trained vets licensed a year |
| The result | Supply meets the need | A deepening shortage |
Same pressures, different path. The difference is design — not talent, and not demand.
We don't have to invent the fix — we have to apply one that already works. Restore competition among accreditors, so new schools can open. Open the licensing exam to genuine merit and public accountability. Build credentialing pathways that match qualified veterinarians to the country's need. This isn't an experiment: the model is well tested and already implemented in human medicine and other professions. Veterinary medicine can apply it too.
The crisis has reached a breaking point. Every month it only deepens — and the harm compounds: clinics forced to close, preventable suffering, pets dying for want of care, and a growing danger to the nation's food supply. This is irreversible harm, and it is happening now.
And the ground is finally shifting. At both the federal and state level, antitrust authorities are increasingly unwilling to let private incumbents control who enters a profession — and the same scrutiny is reaching the state boards that hand off the public's authority and never supervise how it's used. Closed, unaccountable systems like these grow harder to defend every year — which is why reform isn't only necessary now. It's finally within reach.
Governance
NAVEC is in its founding stage. The organization was initially formed with a transitional organizing board for filing, banking, and startup compliance purposes.
NAVEC is now expanding to an independent governing board and advisory council composed of veterinary, animal welfare, nonprofit, legal, and public-interest leaders. We will publish the full board roster as independent directors are formally elected.
NAVEC has adopted conflict-of-interest and related-party transaction safeguards to ensure that organizational decisions are made in the public interest and not for private benefit.
We can solve the veterinary crisis together — but only if we come together and act.
Count me in →