Why is there a persistently increasing gap in the availability of livestock veterinarians in the rural U.S.?

Veterinary shortages in the rural United States represent a ma­jor challenge for all stakeholders in the cattle industry. Poor accessibility to veterinary services can lead to animal health problems and decreased productivity, ultimately impacting producers’ bottom line through either increased costs to access services, decreased revenues through reduced production and animal loss, or both. Here, we employ the systems thinking ap­proach to better understand the problem of rural veterinary shortages. After starting with a primer on the systems think­ing approach, we then use the Iceberg Diagram framework to explore the events of interest in the contemporary discourse, the trends and patterns that have unfolded over time in factors related to the problem, and then unpack the underlying struc­tural forces and processes that have made the problem so dif­ficult to manage, including competing mental models of various stakeholder groups. We synthesize these structural elements in a Causal Loop Diagram that visually illustrates the key feed­back processes at work. We conclude with general comments about potential leverage or intervention strategies aimed at re­versing the trends in declining rural veterinarians.