This article was originally printed in the Sept/Oct 2026 issue of the California Veterinarian magazine.

You never forget your first pandemic. Mine was in 1978, when feline panleukopenia mutated into canine parvovirus. Because this was a brand-new disease, there was zero immunity in the global canine population. Overnight, parvo swept around the world. At the time, I was in junior high school working as a weekend kennel attendant when disaster struck.

There was no vaccine. Fresh frozen plasma and advanced blood products were not yet in our arsenal. The devastation stretched the veterinary community to its absolute limit. Parvo was—and remains—a terrible disease. But as a young kid in that clinic, I was deeply inspired by how veterinarians rallied: providing tireless supportive care, offering clarity and hope to terrified owners, and putting science to work at record speed.

Within months, veterinarians resourcefully adapted the feline panleukopenia vaccine to provide off-label cross-protection. Within 18 months, the first killed canine parvovirus vaccine was in our hands.

Today’s pet owners may be three generations removed from the 1978 outbreak, but the collective memory of parvo’s severity remains. During my three decades in private practice in Merced, parvo was never an “exotic disease”—it was a weekly reality. Nonetheless, I watched our profession transform a near-certain death sentence into a 95%+ survival rate through clinical innovation and dedication.

The parvo pandemic is a real-world testament to what our profession can achieve when we confront an unexpected obstacle together. Today, our hurdles may look different—ranging from burnout, mental health, and staffing shortages to regulatory oversight, affordability, and work-life balance. I know these struggles aren’t theoretical; I’ve lived your reality for decades.

That is why I am calling this column “The Scope.” Every issue, we will take both a micro-look at the daily challenges inside our practices and a macro-look at the future of veterinary medicine in California.

As the new CVMA Executive Director, what you can expect from me—and from the CVMA—is an unwavering focus on Value and Relevance. The CVMA team is ready to serve every professional under your roof. We will be expanding our focus and providing additional resources for associate veterinarians, new graduates in the first five years of practice, RVTs, veterinary assistants, practice managers, and our retired colleagues who still have so much wisdom to share.

We have significant work ahead, but if our history proves anything, it’s that veterinary medicine thrives when we solve problems together. Welcome to The Scope—I’d love to hear what issues you want us to examine in the coming year.

Jon Klingborg, DVM
CVMA Executive Director
jklingborg@cvma.net