Yet again this petition rears its ugly head...

The State of Virginia and the Board of Veterinary Medicine should be setting high standards of medicine, not lowering it simply to meet a need in practice due to the lack of LVT's in the Commonwealth of VA. I am against non-licensed persons placing IV catheters as there are risks of too many complications. If this is the road Virginia wants to take veterinary medicine, it speaks volumes for how little the profession is upheld, especially for the staff that holds a practice up.  Anyone can be taught a skill, it is the knowledge behind the skill that either makes the person a professional vs. dangerous to the profession. This does NOT help the profession, it LOWERS its standards of care.

There are 3 current schools for veterinary technology in the Commonwealth, all of which offer online courses and employers should be offering help to obtain licensure, not supporting an OJT person to perform medical tasks on pets and having the hospital or the attending veterinarian take the blame yet again for adverse events. 

Anyone in the veterinary profession should be ashamed of themselves if you are supporting a petition as ludicrous as this one. Imagine veterinarians having to fight technicians for performing small surgical procedures? That would be met with an uproar... but for technicians to have their skills dumbed down shows exactly how the profession really feels about their support staff. 

Congratulations VA for accepting yet another petition to lower the standards of care.