What does your veterinarian have in common with every other practicing veterinarian in your state? He or she once passed an exam to become licensed, and every year since then, has completed a specified amount of training to remain current on trends, best procedures, and new developments in the field that impact their patients.

This might sound like a lot of hoops to jump through after nearly a decade of specialized schooling, but the requirements exist for good reason: protecting the public. This has always been veterinary licensing boards’ primary purpose, and they do it by ensuring that veterinarians provide competent care to their patients. Boards have long required that veterinarians engage in continuing education to ensure this competency. Along with providing patient care, veterinarians actively work to prevent the spread of diseases, making them a critical link in not only animal health management but also human health management.

Veterinarians recognize that many animal diseases are zoonotic—meaning they can be transmitted between animals and people–and that disease agents could be present in animals that might or might not appear “sick.” This makes veterinarians crucial in communities’ “One Health” team efforts, bridging clients’ health care teams when physicians might not be familiar with the presence and impact of some zoonotic diseases. This is especially important when the clinical signs a disease causes in sick animals are totally unlike those the symptoms it causes in humans.

Further complicating the threats of animal-to-animal and animal-to-human disease spread is ever-increasing transport of animals. Movement of horses within and between states and countries is overseen by myriad local, state, federal, and international regulations. Veterinarians are their clients’ first resource to ensure their horses are free of disease and adequately prepared to legally and expediently travel when necessary