News

For the first time in the history of veterinary medicine, hospice and palliative medicine is on the path to becoming a board-certified specialty. Pet parents and veterinary professionals can help make that happen by learning more and engaging with the American Veterinary Medical Association’s feedback process.

To help educate fellow professionals and interested parties, the IAAHPC is hosting a special webinar:

From the Field to the Specialty Board: ACVHPM and the Future of Veterinary Hospice Care
Wednesday, June 10, 2026 | 1:00 PM Eastern
Free to attend | Open to all

About the Webinar

The American College of Veterinary Hospice and Palliative Medicine (ACVHPM) is a proposed Recognized Veterinary Specialty Organization currently petitioning the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and American Board of Veterinary Specialties (ABVS) for formal recognition. If successful, it would be the first board-certified veterinary specialty dedicated entirely to hospice and palliative medicine.

IAAHPC is proud to formally endorse this effort — and we want our members to be the first to understand what this means for our field, our patients, and our profession.

Join us for a candid conversation covering:

• What the proposed ACVHPM is, and what it is not
• How it differs from existing credentials like the CHPV and CPEV
• What board certification would mean for veterinarians, veterinary teams, and the animals and families we serve
• Where the petition process currently stands and what comes next
• How IAAHPC is supporting the effort
• What you can do right now to help

Your Hosts

• Coleen Ellis, IAAHPC Executive Director
• Aja Senestraro, DVM, CVPP, CHPV, CCRP, CAC-IVCA, CVA, CVCH, CTP, CVFT, CTCVMP, CMTPT, CFV Chair, ACVHPM Organizing Committee | Founder, Sea to Sky Holistic Veterinary Services
• Tyler Carmack, DVM, CVA, CHPV, CPEV, CVPP, CVFT, CTPEP Vice-Chair, ACVHPM Organizing Committee | Director of Hospice & Palliative Care, Caring Pathways

Why This Matters for Veterinary Professionals

Veterinary professionals are committed to advancing the standard of care for animals at end of life. The practitioners behind ACVHPM are your colleagues, your friends, and in many cases your fellow IAAHPC members. This specialty college was built from the ground up by people who have been doing this work — often without formal recognition — for their entire careers.

Formal specialty recognition would mean that the compassionate, evidence-based, interdisciplinary care you provide every day is acknowledged by the veterinary profession at the highest level. It would create a clear pathway for the next generation of practitioners who want to dedicate their careers to this work. And it would give every pet owner seeking end-of-life care for their animal a way to find a veterinarian with verified, advanced training.

This is the moment our field has been working toward. We hope you will join us.

Register Here

If you have ever sat with an aging dog or cat and wondered, Are they comfortable? Is it time? Am I doing the right thing? — you already understand why what is happening right now in veterinary medicine matters.

A national group of veterinarians is working to establish the American College of Veterinary Hospice and Palliative Medicine (ACVHPM) as the first formally recognized specialty in pet hospice and end-of-life care. And one of the leaders helping shape that effort is right here in West Michigan: Dr. Laurie Brush, DVM, founder of Heaven at Home Pet Hospice in Grand Rapids.

For senior pet parents, this is the kind of news worth paying attention to.

Why a New Specialty?

Veterinary medicine has specialties for cancer, cardiology, surgery, internal medicine, dermatology, and more. But when a pet reaches the stage where cure is no longer possible — or no longer what the family wants — there is currently no AVMA-recognized specialty dedicated to that part of the journey.

That gap is what the ACVHPM is being built to close. It would set rigorous training standards in:

• Advanced pain and symptom management
• Quality-of-life assessment for chronic and terminal conditions
• Goals-of-care conversations and shared decision-making
• Grief support for the humans in the room

In other words: the same level of care, comfort, and respect we expect in human hospice — formally established for pets.

A Local Voice in a National Effort

Dr. Brush has been practicing veterinary medicine since 1998 and founded Heaven at Home in 2012, when in-home hospice for pets was still rare in Michigan. She was among the first 100 veterinarians in the world to earn certification in animal hospice and palliative care from the IAAHPC.

Her involvement in ACVHPM brings more than a decade of in-home, family-centered hospice experience to the national table.

“Senior pets and the families caring for them deserve a profession that has trained for this moment with the same seriousness it brings to every other stage of life,” she says.

What You Can Do

Heaven at Home will be rolling out specific ways pet parents can support the recognition of ACVHPM in the weeks ahead — from sharing the story to signing on as public supporters of the effort.

You can help by sharing your thoughts with the AVMA before the August 13 deadline at this link: https://www.avma.org/blog/comments-sought-proposed-new-specialty – or to go directly to the comment form, visit: https://form.jotform.com/260904559098064