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Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for joining us today. All of your lines have been put on mute as we are recording the webinar in order to make it available to those who could not make it today. Please utilize the chat feature throughout the webinar to ask any questions. My name is Marline Azeved and I am the Program Coordinator for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program and with me today I have Dr. Robert Smith who will introduce himself. Good morning everybody my name is Bob Smith I serve as the Program Leader for the VMLRP and I want to welcome you to this presentation and I also want you to know that if you ever need to reach out to me I'm always available to answer any questions and I'll work closely with Marline to help implement this program, so it's beneficial for everybody. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Smith. So for today I'm going to provide an overview of our VMLRP program, review the contents of the nomination form, review the nomination review process and show you where some recess resources are available on our website and some perspectives from the panel when they are reviewing the shortage nominations with the applications and perspectives from the applicant's point of view when applying utilizing the shortage nomination form. The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program was authorized by the National Veterinary Medical Services Act it helps qualified veterinarians offset a significant portion of the debt incurred in pursuit of their veterinary medicine degrees in return for their service in certain high priority veterinary shortage situations. NIFA will carry out NVSMA by entering into educational loan repayment agreements with veterinarians who agreed to provide veterinary services in shortage situations for a determined period of time. This is a competitive loan repayment program in which an applicant must have a degree of a dvm or equivalent from a college of veterinary medicine accredited by the AVMA council in education. Also, have a minimum of fifteen thousand dollars of eligible educational loan debt. Unlike other loan repayment programs our funding is not as such that we can provide anyone an award who applies designating shortage areas involve the states in this process as you all have a better idea of the needs within your state. NIFA decided to allocate each state a maximum number of allocations based on the agricultural census data. After consulting with the National Agricultural Statistics Services about which variables from the agricultural census would most strongly correlate with state-level food supply veterinary medicine in which land area and livestock and livestock products total sales were selected. Land area is directly correlated with the number of veterinarians needed to provide veterinary services in a state because of the practical limitations relating to the maximum radius of a standard veterinary service area and is directly correlated to the percent of land devoted to livestock production while the livestock and livestock products total sales variable broadly predicts veterinary service needs in a state because this is a normalized to cash value estimate of the extent of live animal agriculture in the state. The allocation rationale is on the VMLRP shortage allocations webpage. The request for application reviews the criteria that is used for the ranking of each applicant. During the panel review process the reviewer's role is to review applications and assess the quality of the match of the applicant to the circumstances and needs of the shortage situation described by you. They make their assessment based on the knowledge, skills, and experience as evidenced by the applications for the applicants education pre, post and during veterinary school, extracurricular activities, employment, accreditation, personal statement, and recommendations. As a reminder unlike some grants and cooperative agreements, the funds offered to VMLRP participants are guaranteed for the life of their contract as we obligate all funds for the award per fiscal year. All of our contracts start January 1st. After the application cycle, all new awards are for three years with a maximum of $75,000 distributed in quarterly payments to their lenders with up to $25,000 paid in one year based on their eligible veterinary educational debt, Renewal awards are eligible for the same maximum award but the contract length is dependent on their debt level. Thus someone with less than twenty five thousand dollars in eligible loans will only renew for one or possibly for one year. If it was a new contract and their debt was less than twenty five thousand dollars they would have to serve the three year minimum for initial contract. The amount of money each year varies based on the appropriation and if any money was left from the previous year as the amount of an award is not set at $75,000 but rather is determined by an applicant's eligible debt. Thus we have loan repayment awards that range from fifteen thousand dollars to seventy five thousand dollars. Typically this means our funding runs out around applications ranked in the top twenty to thirty for each panel for type three public practice awards the funding runs out sooner as congress mandated that most of the funds go to private practice. Thus currently only 10 percent of available award funds go to type 3 awards. This usually results in four to eight awards total. Competition is extremely fierce for these positions. [Music] The vmlrp process begins with the solicitation of shortage nominations in October and November. Once the shortage nomination period is closed the nominations are reviewed by a committee that will recommend or not recommend a shortage nomination. The request for applications is usually released in February with the shortage nominations for a period of an estimated 60 days. In april the deadline for applications is set. Throughout April to July the applications are reviewed and processed to assess each application to see if it meets the VMLRP criteria to go to panel. Two panels are conducted for two weeks. From July to September, the loan information is reviewed to see if the applicant meets eligible educational debt of fifteen thousand dollars. A funding cutoff is established based on the amount appropriated with the amount awarded, repayment schedules are built, awards are approved and notified. Then contracts are signed and finalized to begin on January 1st. The initial step for you is to review the maximum nomination allocation table that is linked to the VMLRP shortage situations webpage. The VMLRP allows each state to nominate a set number of veterinary shortage situations. Each fiscal year the VMLRP maximum nomination allocation table contains the maximum number of shortage situations each state can nominate as a shortage. If a nomination is submitted beyond the maximum number, we will ask you to reevaluate your shortage nominations and limit down to the maximum number allocated. If a nomination is carried over from a previous year to the following the total combined number of new and carryover nominations cannot exceed the maximum number allocated. A carryover nomination is an identical nomination that was previously recommended. A carryover does not go through the panel process unless it is the fourth year of the same nomination. All nominating entities states, special consideration areas, and federal lands are listed in alphabetical order followed by the maximum number of nominations new and or retained that may be designated for fiscal year 2020 through 2022. Part of the review process is to determine the maximum number of nominations and if a state exceeds that amount you will be notified and to adjust as necessary. We encourage you to utilize your maximum number of allocations provided support for your state. So this will assist in increasing the potential of applications to different areas within your state, provide a variety of jobs, increase exposure, as well as maximize the application process. The shortage nomination form to use is a pdf fillable form and shortage nomination instructions are found on the same web page as the form. The link is available on the VMLRP shortage situations main webpage. You will complete this form for each shortage area. When you open the nomination form this is what you should initially. See all shaded areas are what you can type text into or select from a drop down box. All items with a red outline are mandatory items with a black outline are optional and items without an outline need one section or the other to be filled out. We will send you a response once we have received the nominations. If there is a problem we will notify you for correction and not count it against you if the data is missing but it is in by the due date. I recommend saving a copy of the filled out form on your computers to ensure nothing gets lost. What we will not accept is a form that has been printed to pdf or saved as a non-fillable form as we need to be able to pull the data file. As I go through the form I will explain what information should go on each line. The shortage ID code that's in the box is for VMLRP use only and not to be filled out by you. The location of the veterinary shortages for type 1 and type 2s need to list out the counties. Do not include modifiers like county parish or boroughs or the state name unless you are listing a county from a neighboring state. Other descriptors can be included if it helps focus the area. For example San Bernardino 100 mile radius around the city of Barstow or southwestern Benton. If your intent is for the vet to provide most of their services in one county but they can provide services in other counties you can list the primary county then say surrounding counties for example Stearns and the surrounding counties of Tuolumne and Clay. If the nomination is a carryover and you submitted it last year and want to resubmit it again you'll just have to copy and paste the information into each field as appropriate. Remember carry over should not have any changes made and then the form will not be reviewed again. The key is the area to be covered should be logistically feasible along with any other descriptions needed and the counties listed should be contiguous. For Type 3 positions, the state can be listed if the services are to be provided for the whole state. If it is a regional position you can list the counties in either situation the location must include geographically relevant text. It should not read district 9 unless it is followed by the list of counties that fall into district 9. The approximate center of the shortage should be a city, zip code, cross streets, GPS coordinates and something that helps pinpoint the focus of the area and can be mapped for type 3 awards this should be addressed the address of the primary office that the veterinarian will be working. Anything missing or counties that are not contiguous may cause for a return to you and for correction of any part of these sections. The next box is a drop down for the overall priority of the shortage. It's either critical high or moderate. The information you provide on page two of the nomination form should provide provide the support of the priority level you indicate here especially when addressing risk. The higher the risk of not filling the shortage areas the more critical a priority should be. Corrections will be requested if the priority is missing. A moderate priority is the definition is an area lacking in some aspect of food supply veterinary services justified by lack or or insufficient access to veterinary services for basic animal health well-being production, food safety or public health. Informally there is no major threat to food supply or public health related veterinary services. However the unavailability of services could negatively impact food supply and public health. A high priority meets the criteria of moderate priority, plus any additional concerns related to food supply veterinary medicine or public health. Informally a shortage situation where veterinary services are delayed and or traveling a distance based on geographical difficulty or amount of time that is required to access food supply veterinary services. A critical priority is an area severely lacking in food supply or public health related veterinary services by meeting the criteria of moderate and high, plus any additional concerns relating to the roles veterinarians play in protecting animal and public health. Informally a shortage situation that does not have access to food supply or public health related veterinary services the lack of veterinary services creates detrimental consequences by not protecting animal and public health. This is the drop down for shortage area types. Type 1 is a food animal medicine position that are located anywhere as long as they meet practice of food supply veterinary medicine requiring a minimum of 80 percent full-time equivalent or 32 hours per week. Type 2 is a rural area food animal medicine requires a minimum of 30 percent full-time equivalent or 12 hours a week spent on food animal. The definition of rural area is defined in the farm bill as any area other than a city or town with a population of 50,000 inhabitants and the urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such city or town. Type 3 is the public practice position requires a minimum of 49% full-time equivalent or 19 hours a week. If any item is missing we will ask for corrections as well. [Music] Both types one and two indicate the must and may serve species. Must servce species or species type are those animals a veterinarian must be prepared, willing, and committed to provide services for in order to mitigate the shortage situation. May serve species or species type are those animals a veterinarian may provide services for in order to meet the required percent full-time equivalent. You can also indicate a may serve species. These are fallback species meaning if a business is such that they cannot meet all of their contracted full-time equivalent time with the must serve species they can augment with the may cover species. If I did a service audit not seeing any services to may cover species for a quarter is not a problem therefore if you want them to see a specific species on a regular basis make them a must cover there. There was an example last year that deemed appropriate so if there is a situation in must cover that you feel to have cattle or poultry under as an option in the other or must cover indicating that you would like a veterinarian who has experience in either cattle or poultry if that is a possibility for you on your shortage nomination form. It's very important to have descriptions on the page two of the questions about what is meant, what is allowed, and what are the services that are going to be provided that you would like an expert, an experienced veterinarian with expertise and knowledge within cattle and or poultry to serve that shortage area. Please do not use may or must cover species for work someone can do with the other percent of their full-time equivalent time to meet business needs so for example 20 for type 1 or 70 for type 2 or some other variation if you can change the percent full-time equivalent. All of the percentage full-time equivalent time must go toward animals used for agricultural purposes. It's really important that the species covered are are assisting the applicant to understand the knowledge and the experience that are needed for the shortage nomination. Sometimes listing all the species to cover under must can hinder an applicant's success unless that applicant is addressing all of those specific species with their experience, knowledge, and abilities to each one of those and that that is a need within that shortage area. So it's really important that the applicant addresses that within their application if they see that on your nomination form listing beef, dairy, swine, poultry under must then that applicant is needing to address in some form some kind of experience ability and or knowledge to address all of those species to cover. Then it's really important for you to have good descriptions and be specific on the types of activities listed for each one of those species on page two of the nomination form when filling out the responses to the questions. [Music] For type three awards you will enter the employer, the position name as they would find it for applying, and the specialty or discipline that is needed. This must be for only one position. You can't ask for a microbiologist and field officer in the same solicitation unless their duties will be exactly the same and it is only the title that differs. For example at CDC their epidemiologist positions can often be filled by a health scientist medical officer or veterinary officer. The degree is what determines the title but the job is the same. Our reviewers are trying to match the best person for the position. Thus if the position is written for more than one job description reviewers cannot compare apples to oranges. For a match this could lead to two people being the best match for two different positions but for only one shortage. Additionally there should be only one employer unless there is some situation where the same job can be done no matter the employer. A 50/50 split between the position of a federal and state or an agricultural and health department if this is the case please let me know. [Music] Finally this full-time equivalent or FTE percent box is optional if you determine that the FTE's proposed time is not high enough you may designate a higher percent. For example for a type two award you may indicate fifty percent if twelve perce uh thirty percent thirty two percent is too low or for type three you may indicate a hundred percent if this is a full-time position and they will only be doing what you outline in the questions on the next page. Please keep in mind we set these percents lower as we recognize the need to either have to do companion animal practice to help augment food animal practice to run a successful mixed animal business or to enable a state to have a part-time epidemiologist, pathologist or adjust to changes in workload distributions. Therefore if you increase the percent FTE please be sure there is enough work available for the applicant to meet the requirements and or maintain that requirement for the duration of the award up to three years. Additionally our percent FTE is based on a 40-hour work week. So if a veterinarian is putting in 60 hours per week we are not having them track 30 of 60 hours but rather 30 of 40 hours. This can make a big difference during the slow months. If anything is missing off of this page that's mandatory, if species are duplicated on must or may have served, listing companion animals are listed or animals not used for agriculture purposes, we will be reaching out to you for clarification and or correction. [Music] Page two of the nomination form has four questions. These are the first two. While we anticipate that the responses to these questions will have some subjectivity we strongly encourage you to present verifiable quantitative and qualitative evidentiary information wherever possible. Absence of quantitative data such as animal and veterinary census data for the proposed shortage area or areas may lead the panel to not recommend the nomination for approval. Nominations that are not recommended are returned to the submitting official with feedback, including instructions for correcting any and all incomplete components of the nomination. First you must describe the importance of the veterinarian filling the shortage area and what objectives you want this veterinarian to achieve. Reviewers are assessing the importance of this area based on both your qualitative but mostly quantitative assessment like senses of animals versus the number of veterinarians available, the economic importance to the state and our region, or how many square miles will the veterinarian be covering within this area. the second question is where you outline the activities the veterinarian can provide in order to meet the shortage. This is the main section reviewers are using to see if applicants have the knowledge, skills, and experience to best fill the shortage. Reviewers are looking to see if this is well described and clear, an applicant would know what is expected of them, all species designated have activities associated, is there any outreach or community efforts needed, are there promotion opportunities of the veterinary industry through social media, newsletters, press releases, or publications. Also this is what determines what the awardee can do to claim time toward their contract. Similar to the percent FTE this can be a very important consideration for slow periods. The third is a short description of what has been done to attract veterinarians in this area but has been unsuccessful, maybe veterinarians come but don't stay longer than a year, maybe practice owners have reported no applicants to their advertisements, incentives offered for state positions, etc. This section is weighted the least. Reviewers are just concerned that some effort has been made to attract veterinarians to this location and is not solely dependent on being designated for the program. Finally the risk, this is weighted the highest. Reviewers are evaluating what the risk is to a safe and wholesome food supply and to animal human and environmental health not only locally but regionally nationally and even internationally if a veterinarian is not secured or retained. This section is the main part that supports the priority level you indicated on the first page of either moderate, high or critical. Although not a section for you to fill out reviewers also evaluate the whole nomination and based on the justification that this location species needing to be served and or disciplined is a bona fide shortage. Please refrain from describing specifics on a individual or couple that is easily identifiable when reading. The nomination is not designated to recruit a specific individual or created for a specific individual. The shortage nominations are open to all who meet the requirements and the nomination is created because there is a need. If there are statements that are specific to an individual the nomination will be returned for correction and possible discussion. Be specific in regard to the area of need and completion of the nomination form. Throughout the review panel depends on information from you to meet the intent of congress so being as specific as possible helps justify the merit of the nomination. For example one option is currently 42 veterinarians practice in the shortage area. To be more specific you can write currently 42 veterinarians practice in the shortage area and there is a need for an additional 10 food animal practitioners. You cannot clarify enough about the specifics. Be specific in regard to the area of need and completing the nomination form. The applicants utilize this nomination form for self-assessment to see if they fit and to help write their application. This combination is generally more competitive. This also helps protect applicants in completing the terms of service with their contract when NIFA conducts their audits on their service. This also helps being specific, allows the review panel to truly match the areas of need to the best applicants that apply. The VMLRP is highly competitive and working with applicants can really help be successful. And so with that things that hurt applications are grammar and spelling. The panel is reviewing personal statements and realize that this is the $75,000 award and to have someone proofread it prior can assist in making the application improve. Also the other thing that hurts applicants is being a poor fit to the area of need so when SAHO's indicate the must cover and there is no mention of that species in their personal statement or throughout their application it can also hurt their application going through panel. Their lack of evidence for potential success so that the applicant may be an outstanding practitioner but the review panel only has the application. So if they're not specific in their future short-term and long-term goals or their business plans and if that is lacking that can also hurt the applicant. The low likelihood for personal professional satisfaction if there's new graduates without mentorship the concern for professional burnout, etc. Type three situations are generally targeted and specific and there are low number of awards due to the 10 percent cap of funding. Renewal applications have the same expectations of the criteria among the new applicants, in addition they have to add into what their future and how they're using their money in the past award is currently helping that shortage situation they are currently in and what is their plan to continue to mitigate the shortage area. The last page is the affirmation page and your contact information. These two affirmations provide assurance that as SAHO's officials you understand the shortage nomination process and the importance of having reasonable confidence that the nomination submitted describes a bona fide shortage area. The second assurance is particularly important to help avoid the placement of a VMLRP awardee where veterinary coverage already exists and where undue competition could lead to insufficient clientele demand to support either the awardee or the veterinary practice originally serving the area. A note of caution, we do not recommend just submitting nominations based on having someone in mind or knowing someone will apply. Reviewing the data some locations have stayed open for years and then one year they get filled. The strength of the applications and the circumstances in which veterinarians find themselves changes year to year. So don't count out an area or think you have failed if you have a true shortage and it's not being filled or the person you had in mind to fill the area does not get the award. We've had situations where it appears the nomination was intended for a specific person but others apply and sometimes are the better candidate. Before you submit you can save the form to work on it later or to ensure you have a copy before submitting go to the save button and pick the location you want save and give the file a name. When you save the form it should remain fillable so you can make changes to it before submitting. Once you are ready, save your file with a designated file name. Please use the current form on the website because there have been issues with previous versions. Please submit to us in one email with all the nomination forms saved as a pdf document to vmlrp.applications@ usda.gov. Please change the subject to your state name and the number of nominations you plan to submit. In the body of the email please add a notation if any of the nominations are considered a carryover. Remember a carryover is a nomination that was previously recommended. This will help us identify the correct shortage to verify nothing has changed and to keep track of the shortages. After three carryovers we will require the shortage to undergo review again. This process is to ensure shortages posted year after year maintain the same quality standard. Some of your resources that are available are on our VMLRP shortage situations webpage. All of the information presented today can be found on our website. On our homepage you can go to the shortage situations and you have access to the veterinary shortage situations map. What you can find here on this webpage is also descriptions to the shortage types, the maximum allocation table to view what is the maximum number that can be allocated for the shortages in your state, the review process of the nominations, the nomination process links, and access to submissions instructions for the nomination form. The shortage situation map is available and it will be once awards are confirmed the map will be updated. A list of the tentative awarded shortage areas will be emailed to the states to assist in this cycle submission. However as this list is subject to change depending on each awardee's decision to accept or decline their offer. We are waiting to release an official list of awarded shortage areas until those awards are confirmed it will be posted on our website on this VMLRP shortage situations map once everything is confirmed for 2020 awardees. Also on our VMLRP webpage, we have the VMLRP nomination guide and here you'll have guidance in regards to links from the previous page as well as well as having the federal register of the VMLRP solicitation of nominations, which explains in detail all the requirements for the nomination form. You can also find on this webpage the maximum allocation table which will lead you to the reasoning of the allocation process and then the review process of the nominations by NIFA as well as the nomination form again and on the nomination form you'll find the nomination instructions of submission and the form. Each page may have duplicative links to better assist you in finding the information required. on this VMLRP shortage nomination review process you'll just be able to review the process of how they recommend or not recommend shortage nominations. As well as the conflicts of interest and confidentiality. I want to thank you for your time today. On the shortage nomination period opens Monday, October 5th and closes on November 9, 2020. You can see our website linked above as well as the email for vmlrp.applications@usda.gov of where you will email all the shortage nominations in one email to that address. So at this time if there are any questions you may feel free to ask. You can utilize the chat box or if you feel comfortable and unmuting yourself and speaking you may go ahead at this time. Is there a way we can know if there is an applicant in a shortage area in 2020 as it can affect if they will be a carryover? Yes, I do plan to send the tentative shortage areas that were awarded for 2020. A list of those shortage identification codes of 2020 this week. When will the awards be up on the website for this year? The plan will most likely be November/ December the latest. Can you expand the public practice process question? what does that entail please public practice process? Unless Bob you have an input on that question the public practice process is? Is there a limit to the number of times you can carry over a shortage area? In consecutive years you can carry over a shortage area three years before it goes back. On the fourth year it will go back through the review process. So if that carryover is continued to be a shortage, technically you can continue to carry that over consecutively until filled and it will no longer meet the carryover in its fourth year and it will go through the review process. If in that fourth year it is not filled and it needs to be a carryover in the fifth year it's starting over so then it will be a carryover in its second cycle. I heard that a veterinarian in my state received the award but it is listed as not offered on the shorted nomination map when will it be listed on the map. If you're referring to 2019 um we are still updating the map and our website that's going to be a focus for the VMLRP in this coming quarter so hopefully by the end of the year we will have 2019 updated as well as 2020. Yeah our 2020 so the 2021 nominations for the map has not been updated yet and we want to make sure that we have official offers before we say that it is awarded and we will be updating it to show as offer. Are states without a vet school excuse me are states without a vet school given any preferences for approval of nominations especially public practice? Dr. Smith, do you want to take on that question? Are states without a vet school giving any preferences for approval of nominations especially public practice. I think if I understand the question correctly are states without a vet school given any preferences. I want to say there are no preferences. um For approval of nominations above without the criteria without outside of the criteria listed so there should not be any preferences. If I understand correctly. So Dr. Smith do you want to jump in on that? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, no there is no preference. You're right I'm sorry. Maybe I was muted before but uh no we don't give any practice to those states without a veterinary school. It's based on the the merits of the recommendation from the SAHO and also the strength of the applicant themselves. So um we don't take in consideration whether or not it's the state does or does not have a veterinary college. So thank you. How do you know if the position has not been updated for four years? Sometimes state veterinarians change and incumbent does not know when it was last updated? Great question. We have our state animal health officials nominations submitted to us and are organized by year and we have notations about carryovers when we review. So when you submit your email with your shortage nominations and indicate that it was a carryover on one of them. We go back to those states in the previous year and look at our notations to determine if it it matches identically and then what year of a carryover it is and whether or not that will go back into the the committee review. If you would like to know where you stand on any of those types of nominations please feel free to contact me and I can assist you on what was previously given. As well as the VMLRP shortage map has all the approved shortage nominations are on the VMLRP shortage map on our website and you can filter by year to determine which ones were approved in the previous cycles. If a veterinarian receives a state award are they still eligible for the VMLRP award or must they give up the state award? It depends if they're out if they're under an obligation and it pays back um they can't be under another type of contract. Dr. Smith, do you want to add any more to that? No, that yeah fine they can only have one contract in order for them to enter into a contract with us. They cannot be holding a contract with uh the state or another institution. uh For example I know that some veterinary schools offer incentives pay back loan centers to serve in the state and if they're receiving one of those and they would not also be able to receive an award from us. Your address uh I would just uh contact the message that uh the address that you gave above on your your last slide and uh that way it'll go to uh any any member of the team who can pick that up and address it. Yes, thank you in regards to any response as Dr. Smith indicated, any questions or concerns you can use the email there vmlrp.applications@usda.gov. If an area was given an award yet is still lacking veterinarians can it be ruled the next year? Yes. If public practice is more competitive is some effort made to have all states having that shortage are able to fill it in regards to the public practice process? Dr. Smith, do you want to add to that? Is it, well first of all, we're limited by the number of uh I'm going to call them category threes uh I guess public practice is uh for only for a loop but so the category threes um you know we're limited by the number that we uh can can give out and we don't uh really even look at you know which states have got it which states don't those type of things and again it's all involved with the applicant the need in that particular area. um and uh you know what states are looking for someone to serve in their diagnostic state diagnostic laboratory around the field excuse me or if even the federal government has a need for someone to serve. FSIS so food safety inspection service or any of the other federal agencies and they can certainly have an applicant or have an opening for that too so not sure if that answered your question but that's you know what I have. You know I would like to make uh if you don't mind, uh if there's a time here, I can make some comments. Just real quickly thinking about them uh you know so just in summary I wanna please have you nominate your state's maximum allotment. That means if you've got four or five uh areas you're able to shortage allotments I think it'd be uh great for you to be able to fill those or nominate those. It really allows you a much broader application pool and we found that the more allotments or nominations that you make given your allotment okay then you're going to have a better chance of getting somebody to your state. Okay I recognize that some states haven't always had a success in getting applicants to their state. um if you uh I also want anybody any of the SAHO's that uh might want to serve on the panels for panel reviews whether it be the VMLRP or the Veterinary Services Grant Program please contact Marline or myself express an interest. Typically our panels are held in the late spring perhaps maybe even the early summer but usually late spring and uh we we'd really like to have a state animal health official uh on that panel it brings a lot of depth and breadth to the panel and this and the review process. okay so Just want to through it out um also we were talking about this earlier Marline and I, if you could please uh think about sending a one page maybe one to two paragraph nothing long document to Marline uh explaining how you determine your critical shortage area nominations? Okay this is only i'm asking this as a voluntary measure but we're very curious uh as uh just understanding your process within your state. I may even reach out to you and Marline and just to ask you those questions so we can better understand exactly how you're filling those uh allotments those nominations and uh if you have any questions about this nomination process please do not hesitate to reach out to Marline or myself. If you want to reach out to me fine my email address is robert.m.smith@usda.gov. You know I'm really looking forward to communications with anybody that has questions. If you want to set up a conference call with me or Marline or both of us we'll be happy to accommodate. So I just wanted to try to be communicating as best as we can with every one of you and and I think that if we can answer any questions that you have on the application process that uh we're more than happy to do so that's really all the questions I have or statements I have right now. Thank you Dr. Smith. And I added an email, question or comments address to the VMLRP in the chat box as well as Dr. Smith's email if you have any specific questions to direct to him. We'll stay on the line for a few more minutes if there are any additional questions please feel free to ask them in the chat or unmute yourself if you feel so. Well, I just want to thank you once again for taking the time to join us today. This was recorded and will be sent out to everyone to review again and if anybody was unable to join us. Thank you for taking the time today and that will conclude our webinar.