For the financial year ending 30 June 2017 the Board registered 155 new graduates (78% female).  This represents approximately 5% of veterinarians with full registration.

New graduates were from all seven veterinary schools in Australia as well as schools in New Zealand, UK and North American.  One new graduate veterinarian from a European school was granted limited registration.

New graduates registering during the year represented 53% of all new registrants (293).  In addition to new registrations the numbers of registered vets in NSW also changed during the year due to restorations to the Register (121), veterinarians voluntarily removing themselves from the Register (276), and deaths (7). Overall, therefore the total number of veterinarians in NSW increased by 131 for the financial year.

Figure 1 shows the distribution by gender of new graduates for remote, outer regional, inner regional and major cities of NSW.  These location of practice categories were derived from self-reported work postcodes using the Australian Standard Geographical Classification Remoteness Structure.

Figure 2 expresses these numbers as a percentage of the total number of new graduates and for comparison Figure 3 shows the percentages for the distribution of all veterinarians working in NSW (this also includes the category of very remote).  The latter figures clearly indicate the gender shift within the profession but suggest that the percentage of new graduates by location is comparable to the percentage of all veterinarians by location.

Figure 1 New graduate numbers in 2017 by gender and location of practice

Figure 2 New graduate (percentage) in 2017 by gender and location of practice

Figure 3 All veterinarians in NSW (percentage) in 2017 by gender and location of practice

Figure 4 reveals the relationship between the Australian veterinary school attended and the location of work for new graduates (percentage) registering in 2017.  Graduate distributions for Charles Sturt and Sydney, the two NSW based veterinary schools, are virtually mirror images. 

The majority of new graduates in major cities and inner regional NSW are from Sydney University and the majority of new graduates in outer regional areas are from Charles Sturt University. A higher percentage of new graduates from all Australian universities with the exception of Sydney University have chosen to work in inner regional, outer regional or remote areas of NSW.

Figure 4 Distribution of new graduates (percentage) by Australian veterinary school and location in NSW

General descriptive statistics for registered veterinarians and veterinary hospitals are provided in the Annual Report which is available from the Resources section of the Board’s website.