AVMA spotlights policy career path through Dr. Jacey Cerda

CURRENT FULL VERSION: The latest My Veterinary Life episode from AVMA turns the spotlight toward a career lane many veterinarians don’t see clearly during training: government relations and policy. In “AVMA Government Relations Externship and Beyond with Dr. Jacey Cerda,” the association profiles a veterinarian whose career has moved well beyond traditional practice settings, using Cerda’s path to show how advocacy experience can translate into work on conservation, disaster response, and public policy. (myvetlife.avma.org)

That framing fits a broader AVMA effort to expose students and early-career veterinarians to nontraditional roles. Across its career materials, My Veterinary Life points veterinarians toward opportunities in federal service, fellowships, mentoring, externships, and organized veterinary medicine, signaling that policy engagement is being positioned as a legitimate professional pathway rather than an extracurricular interest. Recent podcast programming has reinforced that point from several angles: a three-part series on “Opportunities in Organized Veterinary Medicine” featured early-career veterinarians Dr. Karen Cross, Dr. Brennan Pittard, and Dr. Sara Verghis describing volunteering in AVMA, state VMAs, and allied organizations as a way to expand networks, develop leadership skills, and help shape the future of the profession, even as they acknowledged common barriers such as limited time and uncertainty about how to get started. (myvetlife.avma.org)

Cerda’s credentials help explain why AVMA chose her for this conversation. According to her professional biography and Fulbright materials, she is a clinical veterinarian, attorney, and postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University whose work centers on biodiversity conservation, One Health, and disaster management. Her current Fulbright project in Australia examines the response to the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires as a case study for building deployable, cross-disciplinary teams to protect, extract, and triage wildlife during disasters in the U.S. and elsewhere. (jaceycerda.com)

The “beyond” in the episode title matters. AVMA’s long-running advocacy infrastructure includes student externships and fellowship programs designed to bring veterinarians into the policymaking process. Historically, the AVMA Governmental Relations Division’s student externship program placed veterinary students in Washington, D.C., to support legislative work, while the AVMA Fellowship Program has continued to place veterinarians in congressional offices or committees as scientific advisors through the AAAS fellowship framework. (avma.org)

That advocacy lane is only one part of the association’s larger engagement message. In the organized veterinary medicine series, Cross described involvement as a way for newer veterinarians to contribute while building confidence and professional connections; Pittard, now leading a state VMA, offered a practice-owner perspective on volunteering and leadership at the state level; and Verghis discussed committee service in an allied organization through the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. In a separate My Veterinary Life conversation, AVMA Chief of Veterinary Engagement and Belonging Dr. LaTonia Craig argued that belonging and engagement are not soft extras but retention issues for a profession that wants people to feel valued, connected, and able to thrive. Her comments tied engagement to post-COVID disconnection and suggested that efficiency can come at the expense of listening if organizations are not intentional. (myvetlife.avma.org)

That background makes Cerda’s story more than a career profile. It serves as a case study in how veterinary training can be applied to issues far outside the exam room, from wildlife emergency planning to federal legislation. It also sits inside a broader AVMA narrative that organized medicine, committee work, and advocacy can be meaningful career development pathways for veterinarians who want influence beyond clinical care. AVMA’s current advocacy agenda underscores the practical stakes: the association said its advocacy work helped lead to the March 27, 2025, reintroduction of the bipartisan Rural Veterinary Workforce Act, legislation intended to strengthen recruitment and retention in underserved areas by improving the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program and ending federal taxation on those awards. (avma.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, especially students and early-career associates, the episode is a reminder that organized veterinary medicine can shape real-world outcomes on workforce shortages, public health, animal welfare, emergency response, and access to care. The surrounding podcast coverage adds another point: AVMA is not just highlighting policy jobs, but also lower-barrier entry points such as volunteering, committee service, and state or allied association involvement. It also suggests that advocacy experience can be career-building in its own right, not just service work. For employers and veterinary leaders, that may strengthen the case for supporting team members who want exposure to state, federal, or association-level policy work. This is partly an inference from AVMA’s career and advocacy programming, but the pattern is clear: the association is building a more visible pipeline from veterinary training into policymaking and professional leadership roles. (myvetlife.avma.org)

Expert reaction specific to this episode was limited in publicly available coverage, but AVMA’s own messaging around fellowships is consistent: veterinarians bring scientific and clinical expertise that lawmakers need when shaping policy. That same rationale appears to underpin both the externship highlighted in Cerda’s story and the association’s ongoing fellowship recruitment. Its newer engagement messaging adds a second rationale: if the profession wants people to stay involved and thrive, it needs structures that help them feel connected, heard, and able to contribute. (avma.org)

What to watch: The next signal will be whether AVMA expands visibility around advocacy training, externships, fellowship pathways, and organized medicine entry points such as committees and volunteer leadership, and whether federal policy wins on workforce issues create more interest among veterinarians who want to move between clinical practice, organized medicine, and public service. (avma.org)