While other kids wanted to be a firefighter, a policeman or an astronaut when they were growing up, Dr. Harvey R. Bendix knew what he wanted to be when he was in grade school in the 1950s: a veterinarian.
“I‘ve loved animals since I was in my late grade school years. My family loved animals. Wanting to be a veterinarian began as a childhood dream,” said Bendix, a native of Pittsburgh’s Friendship neighborhood in the city’s East End.
Working three summers at the Pittsburgh Children’s Zoo after graduating from Peabody High School, taking care of the animals the children loved to see and pet, helped to cement that desire to become a veterinarian
His love of working with animals, his efforts educating veterinary students, technicians, first responders and staff about veterinary medicine and his dedication to his profession over 47 years have earned him the lifetime achievement award from the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association.
“I am greatly honored to accept this lifetime achievement award for 2024,” Bendix said in his acceptance speech at the association’s conference in Hershey last month.
“The Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award is earned for years of dedicated and outstanding leadership and service to PVMA,” said Dr. Rhett Proctor, president of the association. “During his time in leadership, Dr. Bendix dedicated himself to providing quality educational speakers and programs to keep members of our association informed about the latest concepts in veterinary medicine.”
Proctor is a veterinarian in Honey Brook, Chester County.
The recent statewide recognition he received from his peers is not the first one, because he earned the same statewide association’s Veterinarian of the Year Award in 1995 and won its distinguished service award in 2016. He was president of the Western Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association in the 1980s. He was elected president of the state Veterinary Medical Association in 1998.
Bendix, a South Huntingdon resident, was nominated for the award by associate veterinarians, friends and employees of his Norwin Veterinary Hospital in North Huntingdon. He said he could not have succeeded in his small animal practice without the support of his wife, Diane, with whom he opened the clinic in 1977.
“Dr. Bendix has gone above and beyond not only for the animals and employees, but for the students as well,” said Dr. Sandra Rodkey, medical director of Altmeyer Veterinary Hospital in Kittanning. She worked with Bendix for 41⁄2 years as a vet technician and for eight years after graduating from veterinary school.
Rodkey described Bendix as a veterinarian who is always teaching, one who keeps up with the advancements in veterinary medical and testing equipment.
“He is the best dog diagnostician that I’ve ever met. He takes all of the different pieces … the tests and the physical exam and puts it all together,” Rodkey said. “He’s the Sherlock Holmes of veterinary medicine.”
As part of that desire to teach others, Bendix has gone beyond the office to spread his knowledge and expertise. He teaches police, paramedics and first responders an in-depth course on emergency first aid and cardio pulmonary resuscitation through courses at the Westmoreland County Community College near Youngwood.
Veterinarians needed
The profession that Bendix loves is in need of more people like Bendix.
“There’s such a very severe shortage of veterinarians,” Bendix said.
There were a little more than 127,000 veterinarians in the United States as of December, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. While that’s an average of slightly more than 2,540 per state, not all are working in clinical practice. Close to 6,500 are employed in academia, and about 3,200 work for the government.
The pool of veterinarians taking care of cats and dogs is even thinner because close to 3,100 work in industry or commercial practice, according to an association report.
The high cost of veterinary school can determine a career path. Students might graduate with debt ranging from $300,000 to $500,000, Bendix said, so they turn to work for corporations that may help them pay off the debt in return for their service.
“Private practitioners are getting to be fewer and farther between,” Bendix said.
It’s not like those who work in small animal clinical practice don’t have a solid client base. Its estimated there are between 83.7 million and 88.8 million pet dogs and between 60.2 million and 61.9 million pet cats, according to the association’s 2022 Veterinary Medical Association’s Pet Ownership and Demographic Sourcebook. Horses kept as pets account for another 200,000 animals.
Featured Local Businesses
The pipeline for more veterinarians entering the field is by no means massive. There are just 33 accredited veterinary medical schools in the United States, although the Veterinary Information Network reported last year that there are at least 10 new veterinary medicine schools in the works.
There were close to 15,000 veterinary students in 2023, according to a report from the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. Bendix’s alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, has just 137 students in the graduating Class of 2025 and averages about 130 over the following three years.
The composition of those 15,000 veterinary students is quite different than in Bendix’s days at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-1970s, when 75% of his fellow students were men. Today, 80% of the students in the Class of 2027 are women, according to the Veterinary Medical Colleges association.
And then there is the fact that fellow baby boomers who were in veterinary medicine school are of retirement age. Bendix graduated from Penn State with a degree in animal science in 1971. Of his fellow classmates from the Class of 1975 at the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school, Bendix said he is the only member who is still working.
Bendix, however, said that at age 74, he has no plans to retire from his full-time schedule of taking care of pets and conducting surgeries. He said he is operating a practice that typically would take three or four veterinarians, on a staff of 11⁄2 doctors, with the help of an agency providing temporary veterinarians.
“My health is pretty good, and I want to still work,” Bendix said. “Every day is a new day, and it’s exciting. I love saving lives.”
Joe Napsha is a TribLive reporter covering Irwin, North Huntingdon and the Norwin School District. He also writes about business issues. He grew up on Neville Island and has worked at the Trib since the early 1980s. He can be reached at jnapsha@triblive.com.