A single trade association controls both who graduates from a U.S. veterinary school and who enters from abroad. No other major profession concentrates that much power in one private body.
Every veterinarian who treats your animals has passed through a credentialing system most people never see: accreditation of their school, a national licensing exam, and state licensure. When that system works, it ensures competence. When it's controlled by a single private interest, it can quietly throttle the supply of veterinarians — and that's what's happening now.
The domestic door. U.S. veterinary schools are accredited by one body: a council of the AVMA, the trade association of practicing veterinarians. There is no competing accreditor to appeal to. Human medicine, by contrast, has two competing accreditors, which is part of why it opens new schools far faster.
The international door. Veterinarians trained abroad must pass through the AVMA's own credentialing program. So the same private trade association controls both the domestic pipeline and the international one. In human medicine these functions are separate and independent — the body that certifies internationally trained doctors has no connection to the one that accredits U.S. schools. Veterinary medicine fused them, handing one organization both keys.
The contrast at the international door is stark. An internationally trained physician today can qualify by passing standardized written exams offered worldwide, and at 23 states — plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands — now allow qualifying internationally trained physicians to reach full licensure without repeating accredited North American residency training, with another 18 considering it. An internationally trained veterinarian faces a four-step process run by the AVMA that ends in a three-day, hands-on surgery and anesthesia exam — offered at just two sites in the entire country, with about 248 seats a year, at a fee that recently jumped to $12,804. No U.S.-trained veterinarian ever takes that hands-on exam; graduates of accredited schools are simply presumed competent.
When one organization controls every credentialing gate and also represents the practitioners who benefit from scarcity, the incentive runs toward keeping numbers low. Fewer credentialed veterinarians means longer waits and higher bills — the everyday symptoms of a supply that's managed rather than met.
Strong credentialing is worth defending. But credentialing controlled by a single interested party, with no competition and no public oversight, stops being quality assurance and becomes a barrier to entry. NAVEC advocates for competition and public accountability in veterinary credentialing — so that the standard protects the public, not the market position of those already inside the gate.
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