AVMA podcast highlights policy pathway through Jacey Cerda

CURRENT FULL VERSION: AVMA’s latest My Veterinary Life podcast episode, “AVMA Government Relations Externship and Beyond with Dr. Jacey Cerda,” puts a spotlight on a part of veterinary career development that often gets less attention than clinical training: policy and advocacy. The episode centers on Cerda’s experience with the AVMA Government Relations Externship and what came after it, framing her career as an example of how veterinarians can move into public policy, conservation, and interdisciplinary leadership. Based on current public profiles, Cerda is now a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University and a 2024-2025 Fulbright Scholar focused on biodiversity conservation and disaster response. (fulbright.org.au)

The externship itself has been part of AVMA’s advocacy infrastructure for years. AVMA materials describe it as a four-week program in Washington, D.C., where veterinary students work with the Government Relations Division on legislative and regulatory issues that affect the profession. Externs attend hearings, meet with congressional offices, research policy questions, and help support AVMA’s advocacy agenda. Historical AVMA coverage shows the program has been around for decades, with formal selection criteria established in 2005 after demand rose sharply, and AVMA funding restored in the early 2000s to support student participation. (electives.vet.osu.edu)

That background helps explain why Cerda’s story resonates. The source episode describes her as a veterinarian, attorney, researcher, and former Fulbright Fellow, and outside biographical material fills in the broader arc. Fulbright and university profiles say Cerda’s current work focuses on building policy frameworks and training programs to improve disaster preparedness and biodiversity protection, especially for wildlife and ecosystems affected by fires and other disasters. Federation University said her interest in this work was shaped in part by Australia’s 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires, which pushed her toward conservation veterinary medicine after she had been working as an attorney in Colorado. (fulbright.org.au)

The bigger message from the podcast appears to align with AVMA’s broader effort to draw students and early-career veterinarians into organized veterinary medicine. Other recent My Veterinary Life episodes have focused on similar themes, including leadership, belonging, general practice growth, and opportunities to shape the profession through national, state, and allied organizations. In a three-part series on organized veterinary medicine, host Dr. Annie Chavant explicitly framed volunteering as a way to expand networks and help shape the future of the profession, while also acknowledging common barriers such as not knowing where to start, what options exist, or how to find the time. The featured guests reflected different entry points: Dr. Karen Cross, a 2021 Texas A&M graduate and AVMA Early Career Development Committee member; Dr. Brennan Pittard, a 2016 LSU graduate, Arkansas practice owner, and president of the Arkansas Veterinary Medical Association; and Dr. Sara Verghis, a 2022 Virginia-Maryland graduate and associate equine veterinarian serving on the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. (avma.org)

That broader podcast context matters because it shows Cerda’s episode is not standing alone as a one-off career profile. It sits inside a larger AVMA narrative that early-career veterinarians can contribute through committees, state VMAs, allied organizations, practice leadership, and policy work. Other recent episodes reinforced adjacent themes from different angles. A general practice episode with Dr. Jon Cudiamat emphasized that veterinarians do not need to have their careers fully mapped out early, and presented general practice as a place for fast growth, problem-solving, and professional development. A separate conversation with AVMA Chief of Veterinary Engagement and Belonging Dr. LaTonia Craig argued that belonging and engagement are increasingly important as the profession works against disconnection that worsened during COVID, with too much focus on efficiency sometimes replacing listening and connection. Together, those episodes suggest AVMA is using My Veterinary Life not just to tell individual stories, but to normalize multiple forms of participation in the profession and to make organized medicine feel more accessible to younger veterinarians.

AVMA has also publicly emphasized the value of veterinarians in federal policy spaces, including through its congressional fellowship program, which it says helps place veterinary expertise directly into legislative offices. (avma.org)

While there doesn’t appear to be broad third-party industry reaction specific to this podcast episode, AVMA’s own messaging around advocacy has been consistent: veterinarians bring scientific and clinical expertise that can inform legislation on animal health, public health, food systems, wildlife, and the veterinary workforce. In a 2023 press release on its congressional fellowship, AVMA President Dr. Rena Carlson said veterinary perspectives are “essential” in crafting federal legislation, while fellow Dr. Mariah Lancaster pointed to veterinarians’ relevance across livestock management, sustainable agriculture, wildlife population health, and pandemic prevention. That framing helps position Cerda’s story not as an outlier, but as part of a wider push to normalize policy careers within veterinary medicine. It also complements AVMA’s newer messaging that engagement and belonging are retention issues as much as culture issues: if veterinarians feel heard, valued, and connected, the profession is better positioned to keep them involved and thriving.

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is a reminder that regulation and advocacy aren’t abstract issues handled somewhere else in Washington. The AVMA externship’s stated work areas, including student loan debt, animal welfare, veterinary education funding, and tax and small business policy, connect directly to daily realities in practice and to the pipeline that shapes the future workforce. For hospitals, associations, and veterinary colleges, stories like Cerda’s may also help broaden how students think about career development, especially as more graduates look for roles that combine medicine with public health, policy, sustainability, or emergency preparedness. And because AVMA has been pairing policy-focused content with episodes about volunteering, belonging, and early-career leadership, the practical takeaway is broader than advocacy alone: organized veterinary medicine is being presented as a place where veterinarians can build networks, find community, and influence the profession even if they are not pursuing a traditional association career. (electives.vet.osu.edu)

Cerda’s profile also reflects a wider One Health trend: veterinarians increasingly working across legal, environmental, and policy systems rather than staying in a single lane. That may be especially relevant in regulation-focused coverage because many of the profession’s biggest pressure points, from telemedicine rules to debt relief to animal disease preparedness, are ultimately shaped by government processes. An externship that teaches students how those systems work may not change practice overnight, but it can build a more policy-literate profession over time. This is an inference based on the externship’s structure and AVMA’s stated goals for advocacy training. (electives.vet.osu.edu)

What to watch: The next thing to watch is whether AVMA expands visibility for these policy pathways, either through future podcast episodes, student outreach, or fellowship and externship promotion, as the profession continues to wrestle with workforce, education, and public policy challenges. Just as important, watch whether the association keeps linking those pathways to its parallel messaging on volunteering, belonging, and early-career engagement, since that combination may be how it brings more students and new graduates into organized medicine in practical, sustained ways. (avma.org)