Bolstering Federal Veterinarians Through the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges for all people in a variety of ways. For employers, one of such challenges included the need to adapt how employees showed up to work. For federal employees, many of whom serve in essential capacities, there were all kinds of adaptations and considerations that needed to be accounted for. The Federal Veterinarian community was no different.
Federally employed veterinarians serve in a wide range of essential roles. Public veterinary practice takes many forms, and as such, the ways in which the work is conducted varies widely depending on the type of role being carried out. For example, there are some federal veterinarians whose regular duty station is out of their home. Examples of such include field veterinarians in APHIS Animal Care and APHIS Veterinary Services. For those veterinarians, adapting to the pandemic’s remote work environment was not as difficult. On the flip side, there are also many veterinarians who serve in essential roles which could not be conducted remotely. For those veterinarians, the past year has been all about adaptation and flexibility.
One of the essential roles that Federal Veterinarians play revolves around animal disease inspections. This includes food animals, livestock, wildlife, and laboratory animals. Much of this inspection work requires on-site inspection, documentation, and tracking- making it nearly impossible for this work to be conducted remotely. As such, throughout the pandemic, NAFV has worked very hard to ensure that veterinarians serving in those roles feel supported. Often, NAFV’s most important role has been to serve as a conduit between field and regional employees and headquarters here in Washington. Indeed, we take seriously our role as part of the feedback loop, ensuring that our members have an opportunity to provide feedback on how policies and initiatives affect their ability to perform their duties without fear of retribution.
Perhaps one of the agencies that has had to be the most flexible and willing to adapt has been the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). FSIS veterinarians are critical in the food safety inspection process, and throughout this year, they have demonstrated a heroic effort to continue to ensure that animal food products and exports are free of disease and safe to consume. Animal processing plants have often been sites of exposure to COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. The nature of the work environment, coupled with the incessant need to continue to produce safe and wholesome food for the American public, has required malleability and fortitude on behalf of Federal Veterinarians in those duty stations. It has also required regional offices and headquarters in Washington to ensure that their communications channels are solid. NAFV commends the agency for stepping up to the plate in that front, and especially commends FSIS field veterinarians for their commitment to duty.
As the pandemic continues to evolve, and many folks are either beginning to return to their workplaces and/or continuing to show up, NAFV is working to ensure continued support for Federal Veterinarians. We are particularly focused on providing resources related to worker burnout, as the emotional toll that the pandemic has taken on society as a whole will inevitably play a factor on how people are able to reintegrate back into “normalcy”.
Lastly, NAFV is also working with our members, Federal Agencies, and through Congressional avenues to ensure that the lessons learned throughout this pandemic are not quickly forgotten. One of such, being the ways in which Federal and public health veterinarians are uniquely equipped to serve at the intersection of animal and human health. As Federal Veterinarians continue to demonstrate the different ways in which their abilities can be applied, NAFV will continue to highlight the critical role they play in the stabilizing of animal, human, and environmental health.
The column from NAFV is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDmanager audience.
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