As a pet owner, West Vail resident, and long-time member of the Board of Directors of the Dumb Friends League, I am writing to ask you to support Proposition 129.
Proposition 129 creates a new position in the veterinary field called a veterinarian professional associate. This is a mid-level position, equivalent to a professional assistant in human health medicine. A veterinarian professional associate will be specially trained to support veterinarians by handling some routine tasks that veterinary technicians are not allowed to do, such as conducting wellness exams, prescribing medicine, and performing limited surgical procedures, all under the supervision of a Colorado licensed veterinarian.
Veterinarian professional associates will be credentialed. Proposition 129 explicitly directs the Colorado Board of Veterinary Medicine to establish rules and regulations about veterinarian professional associates, just like it does for veterinarians and vet techs. There are currently no credentialing processes or liability insurance procedures in place because one cannot credential or insure a job that does not yet exist…