Proportion of practising veterinary surgeons in the population

The proportion of practising veterinary surgeons in the population is on average 3891 inhabitant/vet in the countries studied.

Attention is drawn to the fact that there is a demographic prevalence of practising veterinary surgeons, i.e. vets who treat animals. It is interesting to calculate this ratio with respect to the number of practising veterinary surgeons, leaving aside veterinary surgeons in the public sector, as our study focuses on veterinary assistant who are employed only by practising veterinary surgeons.

France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Hungary and Denmark have the same demographic profile for veterinary surgeons. In these countries there are approximately 3500 inhabitants per veterinary surgeon.

Hungary and Finland stand out as having a proportion of practising veterinary surgeons which is almost twice the average. These two countries have a lot of practising veterinary surgeons due to the number of farm animals and the number of cats and dogs (see ratio table).

However, three countries present an exceptional profile: Slovakia and the United Kingdom with almost 7000 inhabitants per veterinary surgeon and particularly Romania with over 20 000 inhabitants per vet.

Taken as a whole, this ratio is of the same order of magnitude in the countries studied.