Veterinary education shapes the welfare standards of an entire profession — changes in how vets are trained directly affect millions of animals they will treat.
Veterinary education is a welfare multiplier — improvements in how vets are trained propagate through every animal they treat during their career. The inclusion of animal welfare science, pain recognition, and ethical reasoning in veterinary curricula has direct welfare consequences for patients. The transition away from terminal procedures in vet education (training on living animals then euthanizing them) to simulation models reduces animal use while maintaining educational quality. Moral distress in veterinary students and professionals, often arising from being asked to perform procedures they find ethically problematic, is itself a welfare-adjacent issue that deserves institutional attention.