The University of California at Davis is considered one of the world's best veterinary schools, and now the incoming class will be 80 percent women. This enormous change has come about as technology has advanced and attitudes have changed.
Some interesting quotes from the article include:
When UC-Davis Professor Carol Cardona graduated from vet school in 1990, she drove eight hours to apply for a job at a dairy farm. "I didn't even get to be interviewed by the vet," she said. "I was interviewed by his wife. The big question was: 'Why do I want to work with cows?'"At the time, everyone said that a woman isn't strong enough to handle a cow. Well, a man isn't either," Cardona said. "A cow is 100 times stronger than a man and 100.5 times stronger than me. That's not a real argument."
With treatments for animals mirroring what is offered to humans, many female veterinarians talk about the interest and challenge in areas such as kidney transplants, cancer chemotherapy, back surgery, MRI and titanium hip-joint replacements. For them, the challenge and reward is there. As for the pay being considerably less than an equally-educated physician would make, many of the women respond, "What else is new?"
Read full article: San Jose Mercury News
