The Official Site for the Hawaii Veterinary Medical Association
Congratulations to Dr. Craig Nishimoto who was recognized with the WSU Alumni Achievement Award! Dr. Nishimoto owns Paradise Animal Clinic on Kauai, and also participates in projects helping animals in American Samoa and children in Cambodia. Read more here.
Google form for RSVP/potluck: https://forms.gle/u9iguvTWVPkSjViP8
The AVMA House of Delegates (HOD) convened in Philadelphia on July 28-29 in conjunction with the annual convention. The House of Delegates are the principal body within the Association responsible for establishing policy and providing direction for matters relating to veterinary medicine and shall be the representative body of the Principal and Constituent Allied Veterinary Organizations of the Association. This is Hawaii’s opportunity to weigh in on upcoming policy updates and other topics relating to our profession.
On the agenda for this meeting:
● Resolutions:
– New policy on use of prescription drugs in Veterinary Medicine
– New policy on Adverse Event Reporting
– Revised policy on genetic modification of animals in agriculture
– Revised policy on the approval and availability of antimicrobials for use in food-producing animals
– Revised policy on raw milk
● Elections:
– President Elect Candidates: Drs Grace Bransford and Rena Carlson-Lammers
– Vice-President Candidate: Dr. Jennifer Quammen
– Other: Councils, House Advisory Committee
● Veterinary Information Forum: at each semi-annual meeting, HOD members seek your input on current issues in the profession and bring your thoughts to the House Floor for discussion. The debate is sometimes quite lively with diverse perspectives brought to the table. Often the VIF is the birthplace of new AVMA policies, programs, and initiatives. Thank you to our colleagues who have contributed to the discussion. Topics on the docket for the summer 2022 meeting are: (we have included a comment from our colleagues and look forward to hearing from you too.)
○ Needed Updates to the Model Veterinary Practice Act (MVPA). We are seeking feedback on whether the MVPA language might be revised to better support license portability; whether the MVPA should provide more detail around the roles and supervision of veterinary technicians and veterinary assistants; and provide more guidance around the practice of veterinary telehealth, including telemedicine.
○ Comment: License portability would be the biggest help in my area, which has a serious lack of veterinarians. It is expensive to live in Hawaii so it is difficult to get vets to commit to owning a practice here. Telemedicine would be helpful as well, especially for some emergency services, since we have no emergency clinics on our island and the existing practices are functioning at beyond capacity already. We need help here!
○ Responsibility to Provide Emergency Care. What is the ethical responsibility to provide essential services for animals when necessary to save life or relieve suffering? When not available, what should our responsibility be to provide readily accessible information to assist clients in obtaining emergency services? How do these obligations fit with maintaining a sustainable work-life balance and protecting the safety of our workforce?
○ Comment (partial): I think providing emergency care for your patients is important. Providing emergency care for all animals regardless of whether they have ever been to a veterinarian or not or whether they have an ability to pay or not seems to be an unfair burden for the veterinarian. The vast majority of emergency cases are the result of owners not taking proper care of their pets. Where I live veterinarians don’t answer their phones after hours to avoid taking care of emergencies when with a cell phone and call forwarding it is easy to answer the phone. We are on an island so there is no driving to an emergency clinic elsewhere. There are none. People want pets but don’t want to take good care of them in a manner that would avoid emergencies. Most emergencies are avoidable or could be handled in regular hours. We have enough trouble taking care of those who have been willing to try to care for their animals.
Please feel free to share your thoughts by contacting Leianne Lee Loy and Carolyn Naun.
Highlights of recent AVMA activities
● AVMA Annual report
● AVMF has funneled over $500,000 to relief efforts in Ukraine. Funds are being directed to groups working on the ground to help people and animals affected by the crisis. Read more.
● The annual AVMA Legislative Fly-In brings veterinary professionals from across the country together with their members of congress to discuss matters important to our profession. It also provides us with the opportunity to position ourselves as nonpartisan experts on animal related matters within their constituencies. This year’s fly-in was, once again, virtual and involved 200 of our colleagues across 49 states. Dr. Jenee Odani and Dr. Carolyn Naun met with the offices of Senators Hirono and Schatz and Representative Kahele, and directly with Representative Case and asked them to cosponsor or support the following pieces of legislation:
○ The Healthy Dog Importation Act would require all dogs entering the US to be accompanied by a health certificate signed by a licensed veterinarian and to create a database of this information to enable disease tracking and increase biosecurity.
○ The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act would make the awards non-taxable, thus freeing up additional funds and allowing more positions in USDA designated shortage areas to be filled.
○ Veterinarians press lawmakers on rural veterinary shortages, dog importation
● AVMA has created free printable resources for members to quickly reference antibiotic prescription recommendations. Two are handouts that can be given to cat and dog owners or printed as posters, and two are white sheets for practitioners, one for cats and one for dogs, both broken down by location of infection and/or disease. Read more and access the downloads (AVMA members only) here: When do cats and dogs need antibiotics?
Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to continue to represent your voices!
Leianne Lee Loy (Delegate – Hawaii)
Carolyn Naun (Alternate Delegate – Hawaii)
SB2798 was signed into law by the governor in June. This bill amends the veterinary practice law in Hawaii to better define the practice and parameters of veterinary medicine and veterinary telemedicine to protect consumers and their pets from inadequate, improper, or unlicensed veterinary care. This bill also helps to address the shortage of licensed veterinarians in Hawaii by allowing the temporary permitting of out-of-state veterinarians, providing for international veterinary school graduates to qualify for licensure examination in Hawaii, and extending the amount of time that out-of-state veterinarians may practice in Hawaii while awaiting their licensing exam date. The HVMA is grateful for support from the American Veterinary Medical Association and across the state from multiple organizations, legislators, and individual citizens to help push this bill across the finish line.
HB 1598 will be heard on Tuesday February 8, 2022 at 2pm by the House Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce via videoconference. Please submit written testimony in support of this bill which will amend Chapter 471, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to better define the practice and parameters of veterinary medicine and veterinary telemedicine to protect Hawaii consumers and their pets from inadequate, improper, or unlicensed veterinary care. In addition, to address the current shortage of licensed veterinarians in Hawaii, this bill will also provide for the temporary permitting of out-of-state veterinarians and ensure international veterinary school graduates of both AVMA Council on Education and AAVSB approved programs are able to qualify for licensure examination in Hawaii. For more background on this bill, see this post.
SB 2798 will be heard on Monday February 7, 2022 at 1pm by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Environment via videoconference. Please submit written testimony in support of this bill which will amend Chapter 471, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to better define the practice and parameters of veterinary medicine and veterinary telemedicine to protect Hawaii consumers and their pets from inadequate, improper, or unlicensed veterinary care. In addition, to address the current shortage of licensed veterinarians in Hawaii, this bill will also provide for the temporary permitting of out-of-state veterinarians and ensure international veterinary school graduates of both AVMA Council on Education and AAVSB approved programs are able to qualify for licensure examination in Hawaii. For more background on this bill, see this post.
The Hawaii Veterinary Medical Association (HVMA) seeks to amend Chapter 471, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to better define the practice and parameters of veterinary medicine and veterinary telemedicine to protect consumers and their pets from inadequate, improper, or unlicensed veterinary care. Further, because there is a shortage of licensed veterinarians in Hawaii, HVMA is proposing to provide for the temporary permitting of out-of-state veterinarians and providing for international veterinary school graduates to qualify for licensure examination in Hawaii.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions brought about consumer demand for telehealth in the field of veterinary medicine. Telemedicine has allowed consumers more access to veterinary services for their pets, particularly in areas where access to veterinary care is limited. However, HVMA is aware that the use of telemedicine may also be abused without an established veterinary-client-patient relationship. Without actual physical examination of a pet, veterinary services rendered through telemedicine alone can be inadequate and below the standard of veterinary care. The addition of telehealth definitions and the telemedicine section will help to clarify the practice of veterinary telemedicine and assist the Hawaii Board of Veterinary Medicine in ensuring consumers in Hawaii receive proper and licensed veterinary telemedicine services.
Additionally, the pandemic highlighted the shortage of veterinarians available to provide specialty and routine veterinary care for Hawaii’s people and their pets. At times, veterinary emergency hospitals were unable to operate 24/7 and surgeon schedules were completely booked for months due to the inability to fill these staffing shortages by temporary permit. In one specific case, there was a veterinary surgeon within the state that could have assisted during this period, but due to her international veterinary school degree, was unable to sit for Hawaii’s state licensing exam due to a technicality in the administrative rules. These amendments are critically important to prevent such veterinary care shortages in the future, and ensure that all qualified veterinarians are allowed to sit for the Hawaii state licensing exam.
This bill has currently been introduced to the House (HB 1598) by Representatives Johanson, Hashem, and Nishimoto; and into the Senate (SB 2798) by Senators Lee, Gabbard, Keith-Agaran, Misalucha, Acasio, Ihara, and San Buenaventura . Please take the time to thank them for their support, and write your local representative to ask for theirs!
Congratulations to our two HVMA scholarship recipients for 2021!
Threnody Brown Earley-Clark is a 4th year student at the Royal Veterinary College in the UK. She was a part of the pre-vet club at UH Manoa and volunteered at the Animal Clinic of Honolulu and the Honolulu Zoo.
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Tyler Primavera is a WICHE scholarship recipient and 4th year student at Oregon State University. While exploring the veterinary field in Hawaii, Tyler volunteered at the Hawaiian Humane Society and worked at Kailua Animal Clinic and as a livestock inspector with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.
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We look forward to welcoming them back to Hawaii and our local veterinary community.
The Hawaii Board of Veterinary Medicine has recently reinterpreted Hawaii’s veterinary practice law and begun rejecting the practice of veterinary sponsorship. This practice previously allowed many out-of-state specialists to share their services with our clients on a short-term or intermittent basis. All of us have benefited from referring our clients to visiting dermatologists, radiologists, surgeons, as well as our few emergency care centers that operate 24/7. This interruption in veterinary sponsorship has limited service hours at emergency clinics and worsened the backlog of surgery cases in Hawaii.
If your clients are being affected, please encourage them to file a complaint with the DCCA and Board of Veterinary Medicine to insist that they must immediately return to honoring the practice of veterinary sponsorship in Hawaii as clearly allowed by HRS 471(2)-5.
Submitted by the American Veterinary Medical Association
The AVMA has been working hard for the past few months, as veterinarians have been increasingly discussed as needing to be among those able to assist in efforts to vaccinate people against COVID, to have veterinarians specifically included in the declarations under the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), which authorizes the HHS Secretary to issue emergency public health declarations and provides limited immunity from liability to those covered under the act.
As of March 12, 2021, veterinarians and veterinary students are included in the PREP Act:
· It allows veterinarians who are licensed to practice under the law of any state to administer COVID vaccines in any jurisdiction in association with a COVID vaccination effort by a state, local, tribal, or territorial authority or by an institution in which the COVID vaccine is administered.
· This also applies to veterinarians who have held an active license or certification under the law of any state within the last five years which is inactive, expired or lapsed, as well as veterinary students with appropriate training in administering vaccines. The intent is to include recently retired veterinarians who may want to help.
· Today’s amendment preempts any state law that would otherwise prohibit veterinarians or veterinary students who are a “qualified person” under the PREP Act from prescribing, dispensing, or administering COVID vaccines or other covered COVID countermeasures.
· Veterinarians and veterinary students will be afforded liability protections in accordance with the PREP Act and the terms of the amendment. However, specific conditions must be met in order for the authorization to administer the vaccines and the liability protections to apply. These liability protections apply from March 11, 2021, through October 1, 2024.
· In order for the authorization and liability protections to apply, veterinarians and veterinary students must be participating in association with a COVID vaccination effort by a state, local, tribal, or territorial authority, or by an institution in which the COVID vaccine is administered. Additional specific requirements also must be met, such as having basic certification in CPR, completing the CDC COVID vaccination modules, an observation period, etc. There is a separate section of the declaration that applies to those in the uniformed services and for federal employees, contractors and volunteers when authorized to administer COVID vaccine.
· While the liability outlined in the PREP Act is broad, it does not apply to willful misconduct, and the federal government does not provide a legal defense in the event that you are sued. Your state may have separate liability protections, along with separate requirements to qualify, and may or may not provide a legal defense. Veterinary malpractice will not likely respond to claims arising from a veterinarian intentionally vaccinating people against COVID.
More information on vaccination volunteer requirements
Sign up for Hawaii’s volunteer Medical Reserve Corps here
PREP Fact Sheet that Includes Veterinarians as Qualified Health Professionals
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