Thank you
Linda

August 3, 2010

Debranne Pattillo, President and Founder
Equinology INC and Caninology
P.O. Box 1192
Gualala, CA. 95445

RE: RECENT CONCERNS RAISED REGARDING AB 1980-HAYASHI (VETERINARY MEDICINE)

Ms. Pattillo,

Thank you for speaking with CVMA’s lobbyists this week regarding AB 1980 by Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, which seeks to make a series of reforms to the Veterinary Medicine Practice Act. Several members of the animal massage community, and for that matter, the animal chiropractic community, have raised concerns with an amendment in the bill in Section 4826 of the Practice Act. This letter seeks to provide you with some additional clarification for your membership and students.

AB 1980 is jointly sponsored by the California Veterinary Medical Board, the California Veterinary Medical Association, and the California Registered Veterinary Technician Association. Section 4826 of the Business and Professions Code (Veterinary Practice Act) is being amended (in italics) thus:

4826. A person practices veterinary medicine, surgery, and dentistry and the various branches thereof, when he or she does any one of the following….
(f) Performs physical rehabilitation or musculoskeletal manipulation upon an animal, unless otherwise authorized by regulation of the board.

The intent behind adding “f” to Section 4826 of the Practice Act is to give the Veterinary Medical Board two authorities: 1) the ability to crack down on unlicensed activity by lay people purporting to be “animal physical therapists” and “animal chiropractors” and 2) the ability to write regulations regarding the animal physical therapists. (The animal chiropractic regulations – Section 2038 of the California Code of Regulations – have been in effect for over a decade.) Legislative Counsel specifically recommended that we include the phrase “unless otherwise authorized by regulation of the board,” or (f) would be restricted to only veterinarians who could perform these tasks. Clearly, we did not intend to limit this provision to veterinarians only, and so we concurred with Legislative Counsel’s recommended language.

The bill is totally and completely silent with regard to animal massage therapists and it will not impact your ability to practice whatsoever. Animal massage is specifically and intentionally not mentioned in these amendments. Perhaps some of the confusion on the bill has come from the use of the phrase “musculoskeletal manipulation.” This is a term that is contained in Section 2038 of the California Code of Regulations, relative to animal chiropractors, however, when we drafted this section years ago, we were told that the term “chiropractic” is a protected term by the industry and may not be used by any of the other healing arts professions. Thus, the VMB adopted the term “musculoskeletal manipulation” instead.

Lastly, the addition of (f) to Section 4826 is, in no way, intended to impede the work of legitimate practitioners who perform work on animals. Rather, it seeks to highlight those “bad actors” in the world of animal chiropractic or animal physical rehabilitation who have no training or certification, and who are not safely working on animals.

We appreciate your recent conversation with us and we hope that this letter further assists your efforts in alleviating some of the recent concerns raised by Equinology or Caninology members/students. Please feel free to share this letter with those interested parties you find appropriate.

Sincerely,

Valerie Fenstermaker, CVMA Executive Director

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Valerie Fenstermaker I Executive Director
California Veterinary Medical Association
800.655.2862 x32 I Fax: 916.646.9176
http://www.cvma.net

I think instead of making all these things illegal, they should provide ways to be licensed by the board. That way people still receive the care they want/need for their animals, there are no “legal” issues, and it would minimize the risk of animals being harmed at the hands of someone untrained in their self-proclaimed profession.
I don’t know how to suggest that to the board though.

I think it necessary that people be trained in the basics of veterinary care (such as a certification as a Veterinary Assistant-not to be confused with an RVT) if they are going to be working with animals like this but, I don’t think that the practices that this bill covers should be regulated to “Vets Only” and certainly none of them fall under “Veterinary Medicine” in general.

If they want to make sure people are licensed and trained, good-I agree.
But the fact is that they only want to make it illegal. The fact that they want to take those services and professions away from people and animals just makes me mad.

I will be keeping up with this bill has it has been shelved-not gone completely. If I find out anything new I’ll be sure to post it

If I were to simplify this, would I be correct in stating that legally in the state of California, I, as a certified Small Animal and Equine massage therapist (I’m not yet but hope to be), can not charge for my services? Therefore I can not earn a decent living as a Small Animal/Equine Massage therapist only, however, if I wanted to play it safe, I could use those skills/certificates working as a Vet Tech (under the supervision of a Vet)?

Thank you in advance for your response.

Thank you for speaking with CVMA’s lobbyists this week regarding AB 1980 by Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, which seeks to make a series of reforms to the Veterinary Medicine Practice Act. Several members of the animal massage community, and for that matter, the animal chiropractic community, have raised concerns with an amendment in the bill in Section 4826 of the Practice Act. This letter seeks to provide you with some additional clarification for your membership and students.

AB 1980 is jointly sponsored by the California Veterinary Medical Board, the California Veterinary Medical Association, and the California Registered Veterinary Technician Association. Section 4826 of the Business and Professions Code (Veterinary Practice Act) is being amended (in italics) thus:

4826. A person practices veterinary medicine, surgery, and dentistry and the various branches thereof, when he or she does any one of the following….
(f) Performs physical rehabilitation or musculoskeletal manipulation upon an animal, unless otherwise authorized by regulation of the board.

The intent behind adding “f” to Section 4826 of the Practice Act is to give the Veterinary Medical Board two authorities: 1) the ability to crack down on unlicensed activity by lay people purporting to be “animal physical therapists” and “animal chiropractors” and 2) the ability to write regulations regarding the animal physical therapists. (The animal chiropractic regulations – Section 2038 of the California Code of Regulations – have been in effect for over a decade.) Legislative Counsel specifically recommended that we include the phrase “unless otherwise authorized by regulation of the board,” or (f) would be restricted to only veterinarians who could perform these tasks. Clearly, we did not intend to limit this provision to veterinarians only, and so we concurred with Legislative Counsel’s recommended language.

The bill is totally and completely silent with regard to animal massage therapists and it will not impact your ability to practice whatsoever. Animal massage is specifically and intentionally not mentioned in these amendments. Perhaps some of the confusion on the bill has come from the use of the phrase “musculoskeletal manipulation.” This is a term that is contained in Section 2038 of the California Code of Regulations, relative to animal chiropractors, however, when we drafted this section years ago, we were told that the term “chiropractic” is a protected term by the industry and may not be used by any of the other healing arts professions. Thus, the VMB adopted the term “musculoskeletal manipulation” instead.

Lastly, the addition of (f) to Section 4826 is, in no way, intended to impede the work of legitimate practitioners who perform work on animals. Rather, it seeks to highlight those “bad actors” in the world of animal chiropractic or animal physical rehabilitation who have no training or certification, and who are not safely working on animals.

We appreciate your recent conversation with us and we hope that this letter further assists your efforts in alleviating some of the recent concerns raised by Equinology or Caninology members/students. Please feel free to share this letter with those interested parties you find appropriate.

Sincerely,

Valerie Fenstermaker, CVMA Executive Director

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Valerie Fenstermaker I Executive Director
California Veterinary Medical Association
800.655.2862 x32 I Fax: 916.646.9176
http://www.cvma.net

While this response was positive for massage therapists it is not helpful for physical therapists. I am planning on writing to the CVMA and asking them to clarify who will be able to do physical therapy in the future on animals since vets don’t have this training. It looks like they are positioning to have veterinary technicians pick up the slack in this area after they have had further training in physical therapy. The IPTA is working with the AVMA to set standards for animal physical therapists and works in some states with the IPTA to help get human physical therapists certified to do animal physical therapy.

You should contact the physical therapy organization and have them work with you and other therapists to get the field opened up to human physical therapists in this state. I am sure that the IPTA has lobbyists in this state that can help shape the law.

I personally plan to contact the CVMA and have them contact the veterinary enforcement department and have them get clarification on whether massage therapists will be targeted by the enforcement department. This won’t help physical therapists, but will bring some peace of mind to the massage therapists who are working with animals.