Veterinary medicine

The law creates new pathways for qualified out-of-state and retired veterinary professionals to serve animal shelters while clarifying safeguards for remote animal care and prescriptions.

What the law does ​

• Creates a shelter veterinarian license for qualified veterinarians licensed in another state, U.S. territory, or Canadian province who work for animal shelters.
• Creates retired status, barring practice and exempting holders from renewal, and retired volunteer status for unpaid shelter and specified emergency veterinary services.
• Updates veterinarian-client-patient relationship rules, including one-year expiration after in-person exams or premises visits and six-month expiration after audio-video exams.
• Requires veterinarians to communicate a treatment plan for each condition treated and sets telemedicine consent, record, privacy, followup-care, and prescription rules.
• Allows preventive rabies vaccination without a veterinarian-client-patient relationship and permits limited emergency refills by another veterinarian.
• Bars animal owners and unpaid assistants from performing surgical or dental operations, while preserving specified livestock and animal-identification procedures.
• Exempts accredited zoos, universities, colleges, and governmental research agencies when treating animals they own, and allows unlicensed experts to teleconsult with California-licensed veterinarians under defined limits.
• Requires veterinary-premises registrants to confirm ownership, management, and other registration information is current when renewing.

Who it affects ​

• Veterinarians, registered veterinary technicians, veterinary premises, and telemedicine providers.
• Animal shelters, rescue groups, animal-control organizations, and their staff.
• Retired and out-of-state veterinary professionals seeking to provide shelter services.
• Animal owners, zoos, universities, colleges, and governmental research agencies.

Context ​

The Veterinary Medical Board administers these licensing, registration, renewal, and enforcement changes.