Dr. Stan Oxenreider of Monroe– WVMA
President 1992
Authors’ note: Dr. Stan Oxenreider’s comments as recorded
are far more extensive than any of the recorded past-presidents. The in-depth descriptions of the events and
issues he had to deal with in his presidency gives the reader greater knowledge
how the WVMA President and Executive Board operates. Many changes were
made during his term as president and explains why they were made.
Personal
information
I became
involved with veterinary medicine late in my academic career. When I was in
high school I always thought I would be a farmer. At that time in the late 50s,
farming was on one of its down cycles and when I got back from service in the
Marine Corps, there really wasn't any opportunity for me to farm. The farm
wasn't a big enough farm to make a living from just farming. I enjoyed caring
for the animals, but really never gave a thought to being a veterinarian when I
was young like a lot of people do.
I went to go to college after I got out of the service
and became interested in animal reproduction very early. After obtaining a
bachelor's degree in animal science, I worked towards a PhD in animal
reproduction. During that time I found the veterinary profession was behind
time in animal reproduction. I thought that my calling would be to teach
reproductive physiology in a veterinary school, so I proceeded to go to
veterinary school at Iowa State after I received my advanced degree at the
University of Missouri. My DVM was achieved in 1970. I was so caught up in
clinics and working with animals that I knew I had to go out and practice. The
plentiful small dairy farms around Monroe, Wisconsin were my places of work for
the next 20 years. A couple of times I thought about going back into academia,
but I never did. I have enjoyed practice so much that I've stayed there most of
my professional life.
Donna and I
have been married 30-something years and we have four children. Fortunately,
the two that have stayed close to home are the ones that have the
grandchildren. Presently I have my own practice, Animal Reproduction Services
in Browntown, Wisconsin. Most of the work is with ultrasound in cattle and
horses, some embryo transfer, and artificial insemination in dogs and horses.
During my presidency
The Long Range Planning Committee
was created during that time. This
committee is made up of the last five presidents of the WVMA and its charge is
to look into the future, generally, five years or further down the road. We felt that the executive board could handle
short-range planning, but a special committee should look into the future at
issues the WVMA should be thinking about or possibly implementing on a
long-range basis. It’s a guide to the
executive board to help them decide what they want to spend time on in the
future.
During my
term we changed the association management software system, which was a very
big step to take in the computerization of the WVMA office.
We also
decided that the monetary reserves of the WVM should be no less than 50 percent
of the annual budget. At that time our
budget was a little over $300,000, so the minimum we could have would be
$150,000. That amount of money would
cover the loss if we had a disaster in our annual meeting. At the time, we had more money than $150,000
in reserve and were able to afford the new software system and did not have to
increase membership dues.
The Challenges:
The greatest
challenge for me as president was finding the right people for the committees. The incoming president of the WVMA has many
committee appointments to fill. It was a
monumental task of diplomatically twisting arms. I think I did a good job. I knew enough responsible veterinarians and I
knew what they could do and I had a feeling for where they would work
best. It took a lot of thought and much
time on the telephone, and it was a really big challenge that I felt good about
because I chose some real good people.
By putting in the time it made my year a lot better by having good people
on the committees because the WVMA is driven by their committee system. I believe the main reason the WVMA presently
performs so well is because we have a very active and concerned executive board
and committee system. I was involved in
veterinary medicine during the 1980s on the local level and with some committee
work on the WVMA, but the 1990s is when I really knew what was going on. Veterinarians in Wisconsin have a good system
to help them in their profession. The
executive board has tremendous responsibilities and they’re the ones that make
the decisions, ultimately.
The Executive
Board meetings are intense, stimulating and productive. You have 20 people in the room concerned about
what’s going on, and they do an exemplary job.
They argue things out, but they don’t really have any animosities, at
least not when I was there. Everybody
knows that veterinarians are very individualistic people and have differing
ideas. In some situations maybe issues
would just get swept under the rug, but at executive board meetings it usually
gets argued out to its end and something usually gets done. I think we have a good system of government
for Wisconsin veterinarians. I’m not sure it’s that good in all states.
The Difficulties:
I found
myself in more than one situation arguing for projects that I felt strongly
about while I was president. I found
out that doesn’t work . When you’re
president, you should preside over the meeting.
You need to let other people argue about it. First of all, I think you can keep anger to a
minimum because you’re the president and can control the flow. Also, you need to pay attention to make sure
everybody has a chance to express their opinion. You can’t be thinking of what you’re going
to say and get all members involved at the same time. The meetings were much less stressful and
more rewarding to me after I learned my lesson.
An additional
difficulty during my presidency was the State Fair Board planning to put caps
on the amount of money paid to young people when their animals were sold at
auction at the State Fair. The State
Fair Boar was going to vote on this action before our executive board meeting. If we didn’t get our input promptly, it was
going to be late. The Executive
Committee of the executive board met and decided that we would support the idea
to put caps on how much the owners of the fair auction animals would receive. The fair board plan was that the animal be
fairly bid and the highest bidder would take it, but there would be a certain
cap that the individual owner would get.
Above that the money would go into a pot and be distributed among all
the exhibitors. There was a real
controversy among the executive board members about that. We had already made our recommendations as a
Executive Committee, but it was with reluctance and on a narrow vote that the
executive board did approve the action of the Executive Committee. However, when the State Fair Board voted on it,
they voted it down, so it was a moot point.
The Major
Concerns:
10-Point Program
For me,
being a large animal practitioner, the purified milk ordinance 10-Point and
Dairy Beef Quality Assurance Program was a major concern. Dairy producers were going to have to go
through this protocol with their veterinarian if they had residues in their
milk. I could see it was going to be
something that practitioners were going to have to deal with. I felt we should address the situation
promptly and vigorously. I knew John
Dahl was the person to lead the charge.
It’s interesting to note that John and I got this effort started in the
bathroom in front of the urinal. I asked
John about his thoughts on the issue during this mundane time and by the time
we had our hands washed and got ready to leave the bathroom, we had decided
that John would act as chairman of an ad hoc committee.
The effort
went real well. It was there, we needed
t address it, and we did a good job in getting good on the committee. A by-word that we used was “train the
trainers.” We enlisted veterinarians who
knew about how to produce quality milk, and scheduled meetings throughout the
state where they trained member veterinarians on how to implement the 10-Point
program with their dairy producers.
We were
hoping it would e something that we could get dairy producers interested in
doing ahead of time, instead of doing it only when they’re penalized. We were not very successful with that but we
worked with the dairy industry and obtained cooperation among dairy producers,
processors, distributors and veterinarians.
We felt the cornerstone of the of this program was it should be the
veterinarian that was working with the herd who would be responsible for the
training the dairy farmer. There should
be a valid veterinarian, client, patient relationship involved. We didn’t want specialized veterinarians
going out and going through the 10-Point program. We wanted the local veterinarians doing it.
For the most part, we succeeded in that.
We didn’t get the voluntary involvement from the farmers and we had some
veterinarians that still didn’t get the word.
But, in the long run, it was one of the things we addressed which we did
a pretty good job with.
Editors note: For a full and complete description of the
purified milk ordinance 10-Point and Dairy Beef Quality Assurance Program, go
to the following web site: http://dairy.ifas.ufl.edu/dpc/1993/Shearer.pdf
Lay Pregnancy
testers
During my
term, the lay pregnancy bill was introduced into the legislature and Bob
Klostermann, Dennis Carr and some others argued our point to the Assembly
Committee on Agriculture. Marty
Schreiber was instrumental in our success.
We had good cooperation from ABS and some of the other AI
associations. Some of the AI
associations were not on our side, but ABS spoke for us and we were able to
stop the legislation.
The Responsible
Animal Medicine Code
We also
initiated and passed the Responsible Animal Medicine Code. This was important largely because one of the
big things on the national scene in veterinary medicine at that time was extra
label usage and the fact that the AVMA was pushing in the national legislature
to have a bill that would allow extra label use by veterinarians. By getting the Responsible Animal Medicine
Code passed ahead of time, it allowed Wisconsin veterinarians to use drugs
extra label in a responsible way, as far as the state government was concerned. Our action, in Wisconsin, played a part in
the arguments that occurred on the floor of the national Senate and the House
of Representatives.
The
Accomplishments:
Pesticide Manual
and Test
One of the
accomplishments of my administration that I am proud of was the making of the
pesticide manual and the rules and tests that veterinarians now take to be able
to be certified to administer pesticides.
In the early 1990 an amendment that was attached to the budget bill in
the Wisconsin State Legislature was going to require veterinarians to pay a
licensing fee and take a test to be “pesticide applicators for hire.” The WVMA worked very hard to modify this so
that we didn’t have to pay a large annual fee and didn’t have to take a test
every year. Working very closely with he
Department of Regulation and Licensing, we saw that it was our responsibility
to decide what questions should be asked of the veterinarians. I appointed a committee with Dr. Pete
MacWilliams as Chairman. Peter Vanderloo
and Becky Wagner were also on the committee.
They worked very hard creating good questions and constructed a manual
that veterinarians could study and ascertain what were the pertinent facts that
they should know when using pesticides.
They can study this manual and then take the test one time and become
certified to be able to administer pesticides.
The committee worked closely with Secretary Marlene Cummings of the
Department of Regulation and Licensing and came up with a good procedure. It was certainly better than what would have
been if the WVMA had not become involved.
BST
There were
controversies between the WVMA and the state government during my term. I wish things had gone smoothly, but they
didn’t. One of them occurred when state
Senator Feingold submitted an amendment
to the state budget bill that was essentially a road block to bovine
somatotropin. It was going to make the
pharmaceutical companies jump through a couple of hoops. It got veterinary medicine involved by stipulating that
marketing was only going to be through veterinarians. It wouldn’t be marketed through lay channels,
and there was a lot of controversy on the executive board and among large animal practitioners
throughout the state about this. One of
the things that was suggested during executive board deliberations was to write a letter to Governor Thompson
urging him to veto Feingold’s amendment. I was in favor of doing that. This is one of the situations where I was the president conducting the
meeting and arguing the point which I shouldn’t have been doing.
Sentiments
were close to 50-50 on the executive board, and probably among practitioners,
on whether we should go on record as opposing or continue being neutral on this
situation. The issue was in the
newspapers, and was very sensitive with dairy farmers and consumers. Local veterinarians were continually being
asked how they felt about it.
The WMA
Legislative Committee working hard, choosing their words very carefully, and
presenting their argument to the executive board resolved the situation. Their argument was that we should take a
chance and not write the letter to Governor Thompson, which was against my
wishes. However, it was passed on a
narrow margin in the executive board and we came out very good. It turned out to be, in hindsight, the best thing to do because the Governor used
his line item veto and we weren’t put on record.
Diagnostic Lab
Another
controversy was what should the WVMA do about the State Diagnostic Lab? There was a committee appointed by a
preceding administration studying what should be done about the State
Diagnostic Lab. The executive board
meetings during my administration were filled with much controversy. We finally ended up doing a lot of talking to
different people concerned with the State Lab.
In the beginning, State Lab personnel thought we were adversaries and
were trying to direct where they were going to have their lab. That’s really not what we wanted to do.
We talked to
both parties, and it turned out that there really wasn’t a lot of support
within the University to have the Diagnostic Lab involved with the University,
as it is in most states. We essentially
did nothing because we didn’t feel that we had the support. We spent a lot of time on the problem and
never did get executive board members to agree. Views varied, all the way from, let’s make
sure we have the best laboratory of any state to it’s got to be in the
university if that’s going to happen because the state government’s never going
to fund it well enough, to we don’t need the lab. Some thought we suggest the state do away
with it completely, except for some of the government programs that have to be
done by a state government, such as import/export of animals. A lot of time was spent on it but,
essentially, we didn’t make official recommendations.
National Issues
I eluded to
extra label drug usage before, during discussion of the Responsible Animal
Medicine Code. The AVMA initiative in
the US Congress for extra label usage of medications by veterinarians was the
number one issue concerning veterinary medicine at that time. Another issue was the rising cost of
veterinary medical education and the fact that the new graduates were
graduating with such large debt loads that the starting salary was not enough
for them to be able to pay debts in a reasonable amount of time.
WVMA Executive
Board
We had five
executive board meetings. They were in January,
April, June, August, and October. When I
was on the executive board, before I was president, we initiated a planning
retreat for the executive board and that was held in February. So we actually got together six times as a
full board. The year I was president at
the Edgewater Hotel in Madison, Mirror Lake, by the Dells for our retreat,
Chula Vista Resort in the Dells, the Edgewater Hotel again, at the Holidome in
Stevens point and in Lake Geneva.
I can give
you a little background on the planning retreat because I was on the executive
board at the time we initiated it. We
felt that we were getting blind-sided by some issues that the executive board
had not seen coming. It seemed like we
were always playing catch-up. I
especially remember during John Dahl’s administration, that he had been to the
Nine-States meeting where they talked about forward planning. John was a great one for sending us
voluminous paperwork through the mails and he hit us pretty hard on this. We should have been thinking into the future
and we really weren’t. We were having
long meetings just getting things done that had to be done. We decided that we
would plan a retreat, get away, have it less formal than our executive board
meetings, and just think about the future a little bit. We found ourselves doing long-range planning,
but it wasn’t very long range, it was really short-range planning. But it was helpful just to be able to have the
executive board get together in a less formal situation. I remember some of the first meetings were at
Ted Poelma’s cottage on Lake Wisconsin.
We got away from the telephones and formality and started to think about
what we’re going to do in the coming years.
One of the
reasons that I decided that we needed a Long Range Planning committee was
because, even though these retreats were meant for long-range planning, we
didn’t really have time to get past planning for the near future. The Long Range Planning Committee’s function
is to let the executive board know some of the things that might be occurring
and what those people think might be important.
It is the executive board’s responsibility to discuss these at the
retreat and decide which issues they want to pursue.
Sometimes
we’ve had facilitators at these retreats and sometimes we’ve acted as our own
facilitators. Essentially, it’s added
another burden to the executive board members who now have six meetings to go
to instead of five, but it has become a necessary part of the functioning of
the executive board.
Summer meeting
When I was
president there was no longer a summer meeting.
I use to enjoy those a lot, but times had changed. The School of Veterinary Medicine had become
mature and they wanted to put on a postgraduate conference in the summer time and
it was felt that there wasn’t room for two big meetings in the summer. Since that time, the SVM has been sponsoring
the postgraduate conference and we’ve been scheduling one of our board meetings
to coincide with the meeting.
Past versus
present
My personal opinion I that we’re better off
than we use to be in the old days. At
the present time individual veterinarians in Wisconsin have more democratic way
of determining how their association functions.
A state association should promote veterinary medicine within the state,
provide camaraderie among veterinarians, and address problems that concern its
members. It’s done better now than in the past. When I first came to the state in 1970, I don’t think it was as
democratic. Things got done pretty well,
necessary business was accomplished and it didn’t cost very much. But I don’t
believe as many people were involved with the decisions that were made.
In the time
that I’ve been involved with organized veterinary medicine in Wisconsin we’ve
gone through some traumatic times because we had gone from a fairly inexpensive
state office of the WVMA to a fairly expensive and somebody has to pay for
that. Individual veterinarians are
paying for it with dues that are higher than in the past. But the dues are not exorbitant. Due to the annual meeting and winter retreat
operating in the black, our dues are stable.
The money held in reserve is invested more wisely than formerly. The budget is scrutinize closer than in the
past and we’re getting a lot for our money.
We had to go
through some traumatic times in going to a non-veterinarian as an executive
director. We grew along with that
director, and she is doing what veterinarians want and need. If any veterinarian in the state feels the
WVMA is nor meeting their needs they can call up their representative on the
executive board and their concerns will be voice at the executive board and, if
it’s valid, something will get done. *
No comments:
Post a Comment