September 30, 2010
Co-sponsored by the CVMA and the Veterinary Medical Board, this bill was the result of many months of negotiations on a number of changes to the Practice Act. The CVMA was originally opposed to the VMB’s effort to add two RVTs to the VMB which would have resulted in a non-veterinarian majority on the Board. Many months of discussion between the two groups accomplished the addition of one RVT to the VMB which we felt was an important recognition of the RVT profession yet retained the veterinarian majority. The CVMA also insisted on changes to the composition of the Multidisciplinary Committee and termination of the RVT Committee upon the appointment of an RVT to the Board.
Practice Act changes in this bill include:
- Change the composition of the Veterinary Medical Board to 8 members by adding one RVT
- Sunset the existing RVT Committee upon the appointment of an RVT to the VMB
- Define the composition of the Multidisciplinary Committee as 4 DVMs, 2 RVTs and 1 public member; stagger the terms, and consolidate the RVT Committee’s duties into the Multidisciplinary Committee
- Define the title “veterinary technician”
- Clarify that persons who operate radiographic equipment must have training and proof of that training must be maintained by the employer
- Amend the Government Code to include veterinarians and RVTs, among other healing arts professions, as having no liability for any injury sustained when rendering services during a state of emergency
- Changes the requirements regarding reporting of an animal injury at a rodeo by both on-call veterinarians and by veterinarians that know an injury occurred at a rodeo.