I am fully in support of this amendment. As restrictions are already in place to limit students to practicing information they have already been taught and only under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian, there should be no additional risk of harm to patients by allowing first through third year students to practice what they know. As the curriculum currently stands, first and second year students only learn some very basic procedures which inherently carry little to no risk of injury to the patient seeking care, but which require a great deal of practice to attain proficiency.

To illustrate, first year vet students learn the procedure of a routine physical exam. This should not injure a patient especially when performed under supervision of a DVM, but in order to conduct an expert-level exam (which can be necessary in order to recognize the minute changes associated with various illnesses) veterinarians must first be familiar with a wide range of patients and their varying physical forms, such as the vet school is unable to provide to its students except in the form of patients. As it stands now, students have only their fourth year to perform exams on as many animals as possible (while also trying to familiarize themselves with all the other aspects of clinical medicine) and then are expected to have that expertise by the time they graduate a year later. In reality, it takes at least several years of practicing exams before veterinarians can truly call themselves experts. Adding two summers of examination practice before graduation would surely improve graduating veterinarians' abilities in this area.

At this time, worry about students performing unauthorized complicated operations on sick pets, unbeknownst to their owners, is irrelevant. Students do not learn any surgery until their third year anyway, and by the time this semester is over (and therefore they have learned the information and would be allowed to practice it) they qualify as fourth year students and are already covered under the existing law. The concern over owner consent, though important, is a separate concern and has no place in this current discussion.