ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1652931
This article is part of the Research TopicVeterinary teaching in 2025: where we are and where we expect to goView all 22 articles
Future plans of veterinary graduates in Germany in 2023: an online survey
Provisionally accepted
- 1Clinic for Cattle, Clinical Centre for Farm Animals, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Hannover, Germany
- 2Institute for Veterinary Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School for Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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In Germany, as in other countries, a shortage of veterinarians is threatening the health and welfare of pets and livestock. Against this background, the aim of this study was to find out what plans veterinary graduates have after their studies, what field they want to work in and whether their career aspirations change during their studies. In addition, it was investigated whether the factors of gender, origin (urban/rural), and animal ownership before studying were associated with future planning/decision-making. With the help of an online survey, German graduates of veterinary medicine from the class of 2023 were interviewed. Responses from 157 people were analyzed, which corresponds to a response rate of around 17%. The results of this study show that almost half of the participants (n=76; 48%) would like to work in a practice directly after graduation and 63% of respondents (n=98) saw themselves working in a practice in five years' time. The field of small animal medicine was the most strongly represented, followed by equine medicine. Only 42% of participants (n=66) saw themselves in the same veterinary field in the future as they had aspired to before their studies. Neither gender nor origin were associated with future planning. However, the husbandry of certain animal species before studying was significantly associated with the field in which the respondents wanted to work later. These results provide an initial basis for estimating how many veterinarians enter the respective fields and should be taken into account when discussing changing the admission requirements of universities of veterinary medicine to attract more young people to a certain animal field or a certain region of Germany.
Keywords: shortage of veterinarians, Survey, Veterinary graduates, influence on future planning, Education, admissions
Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 22 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Riemann, Hoedemaker and Jensen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mira Elisabeth Riemann, Clinic for Cattle, Clinical Centre for Farm Animals, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Hannover, Germany
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