Highest Rated Comments


zaloni2 karma

Where are you going to vet school? I'm sure you aware of how bad (income-wise) a profession it is at the moment. Will you specialize? What do you imaging you'll be doing 5 years after you graduate?

(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/business/high-debt-and-falling-demand-trap-new-veterinarians.html?_r=0)

As the husband of a veterinarian, I'm horrified by the state of the industry. Very few vets have any business orientation and many end up being martyrs. Animal welfare is great, but first pay yourselves appropriately and don't give away under-cost work. Vets seem incapable of doing this! Don't be ashamed to price appropriately - vets are routinely cheaper than any other professional service I can think of, and they have incredible overhead. Your local family MD doesn't have oxygen generators, anesthesia, radiology, etc., on site, but many small animal vets do!

In getting to know her classmates (this was 10 years ago), they fell into a few categories: 1) animal welfarists who were not concerned about whether they can make a living; 2) women with families or husbands who can support them or maybe even buy in to a practice; 3) people who come from veterinary family businesses and will inherit practices; 4) and finally, the folk who have an intrinsic clinical or research interest who specialize and generally have some love of animals combined with a cool scientific head... these are the lucky ones. I know I'm painting with broad strokes, but this is what I see.

It seems a very odd group. The first group make horrible employees. They don't "get" pricing, attract demanding and unreasonable clients, etc.

Everywhere I look, I see VCA buying up practices. They can outbid individual DVMs because of their vertical integration (lab ownership, etc.), but mostly because they have business sense (even if their medicine leaves a lot to be desired). It it going to be an interesting landscape in the future. On the downside, less ownership opportunities for associates. On the upside, maybe the people in category 1) will get pushed out the industry will be a bit healthier, with real career paths and income for those who don't have a sugar daddy or trust fund.

By the way, my wife worked in a top consulting firm making big bucks, but was miserable. I put her through 2.5 years additional undergrad to get the pre-reqs, and then vet school. She's happy now, even though the income is laughably poor. I'm OK with that.

I'm very curious to what your view on the state of the industry is and what your career plan is.