Veterinarian

She went from helping in a kennel to owning her own veterinary practice, managing 30 employees. Along the way, she first learned how NOT to operate a vet business. But first, she had to prove her university advisor WRONG!

FAMILY INFLUENCE

PM’s parents came to the U.S. as immigrants, determined to work hard to make a better life for themselves and their son and daughter. Her father, one of 10 children, was brought up with limited luxuries in Ecuador. He appreciated the value of education and after coming to this country, worked with technology in IT support. Her mother was from Poland and came to America as a teenager with no money, to live with her aunt in NYC. Her mother went on to become a chemical engineer – one of the few women in her class and then trained further and started her own business as an accountant and investment advisor. 

Both parents set the example for dedication to their respective careers. PM’s father promoted a not too subtle campaign to persuade his daughter, PM, to become a medical doctor: buying her “glow in the dark” skeletons, a heavy medical reference book (“Gray’s Anatomy”) and a subscription to the magazine “Scientific American”. Teenage PM was interested in only the skeletons. Fortunately, the paternal sales campaign did not turn PM completely away from practicing medicine but her path toward treating others would focus only on animals.  

CHILDHOOD CAREER THOUGHTS

While PM enjoyed typical teenage jobs such as babysitter, camp counselor and later as a waitress and a tutor, her strongest interest was working with animals, first as a helper in a kennel, assisting the technicians to draw blood from the cats and dogs and perform veterinary treatments.

HIGH SCHOOL

During PM’s years in a relatively small (graduating class of 120) public high school which offered no elective courses, she enjoyed her math and science classes and participation in girls’ varsity sports. 

COLLEGE CHOICE 

Neither PM’s parents nor her high school guidance counselor had any specific influence in her decisions regarding which colleges to consider and to then apply. Her colleges research identified a university which offered a strong animal science program, including small class sizes and even a “monkey lab” where students had the opportunity to personally interact with the animals being studied as part of the science curriculum. 

PM also enrolled in education courses leading to a possible teaching career. She appreciated the personal attention from a guidance counselor who advised her on both academic and college social issues. 

COLLEGE CHALLENGE

Following her freshman year at the university, PM’s father had a job set-back, which affected the family’s ability to continue paying for her education at a private university. So, PM transferred to a large, public university in a nearby state, which also offered a strong animal science program. PM enrolled in their basic biology and secondary education courses, still undecided on a specific career focus. 

STUDY ABROAD LEADS TO FOCUSED CAREER CHOICE 

PM’s unfocused career path changed quickly when she was able to enroll in a “study abroad” program, providing the opportunity to spend a month working in a well-run zoo in South Africa, where she shadowed the zoo veterinarians and vet techs. Her foreign studies continued at a zoo in China, which was operated with significantly less government support and staffing. PM learned to appreciate the struggles of providing animal care under different circumstances, where the care givers did their best with the available financial and personnel support. 

By now, PM was focused on becoming a veterinarian. Though part of her heart was for teaching, she realized educating and working with people was a huge component to veterinary medicine. It would be the right path, though not an easy one.

CAREER CHALLENGE: TOLD SHE WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!

When PM returned from her foreign study program, now focused on her veterinarian career path, her university advisor said: “You’ll never get into Vet school; there are only 20 such schools in the U.S. and none of them will admit you. Better choose another career.” 

OK, thought PM, challenge accepted! So, for her last two years of college, she took the most difficult math and science courses to enhance her eventual application to a veterinarian school. Though warned about the super-competitive admission process, PM thought she had proved herself sufficiently for admission – until she was wait-listed at her chosen school. 

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

OK, thought PM, challenge accepted again! She realized she would need additional time to build her credentials for admission so fortunately, she found a very caring mentor veterinarian who worked with cats and dogs in a quaint, rustic hospital that she built from scratch! She appreciated PM’s dedication to learning the trade from the perspectives of both academics and hands-on diagnosis and treatment of the animals in their care.

PM’s continuing research into the admission requirements for veterinary schools led her to conclude that in-state applicants stood the best chance of admission. So as a Pennsylvania resident, she applied to the University of Pennsylvania’s vet program again, but with more thoughtfulness. With the same, stellar academic record plus now the additional boost to her application, U Penn accepted her application. Had she been rejected, PM had already committed herself to move to Wisconsin to establish residency there and apply to the U of Wisconsin’s vet program. Talk about persistence!

VET SCHOOL AND FURTHER FORMAL VET CERTIFICATIONS

Veterinary school involves a four-year commitment – following the usual, four-year college commitment – just to become eligible to take any state’s vet licensing exam to provide general veterinary care to animals. Some vet school graduates choose to next enroll in additional vet specialty courses toward an internship, then a residency and examinations for certification in such animal care specialties as soft tissue surgery, dermatology, cardiology, and radiology (to name just a few examples.)

Even a licensed veterinarian needs to work to earn a paycheck to support basic living expenses of housing, food, clothes, and transportation plus likely student loan payments. Even if the new vet is personally wealthy enough to open a vet practice (involving rent, equipment, staff salaries, etc.) it is wise to continue learning animal care techniques and business practices from an experienced vet practice. 

PM always had “in the back of her mind” someday owning and operating her own vet practice. So, she took advantage of her vet school’s opportunity to enroll in business courses within a university related business school. Courses included legal issues (forming business entities such as partnerships and corporations) and business finance. 

EARLY JOBS PROVIDE EXPERIENCE WITHOUT COMMITMENT

PM was glad to finally be a licensed vet, working full time to provide care for a wide variety of animals beyond cats and dogs. But her first job proved to be not a good fit. She was interested in working on animal care involving significant health issues, even providing night care but there was no staff dedicated to those issues, only relatively new vet school graduates assigned to cover routine and emergency care at all hours of day, night, and weekends. Essentially, it was a “burn ’em, churn ’em” practice: new vets were soon burned out, quit, and replaced by another set of new vets, who were soon burned out, quit and replaced…. Ownership wasn’t focused on creating a stable work environment for their vets or technicians.

Thus, PM began to learn from doing it the wrong way, how to do it the right way. 

This pattern followed through several more employments as a veterinarian, each providing necessary but eye-opening experience with how the real business world of veterinarian practice was sometimes operated but not to be emulated. Hopefully all vets provide a high standard of animal care but sometimes business goals are prioritized over customer relationships by, for example, charging for vet services far beyond the local market prices, eliminating services (e.g., overnight emergency care) without advance notice to customers and introducing new electronic software without adequate staff training, etc. Such negative business strategies occur more frequently with vet practices owned by corporations controlling multiple franchises but putting profit over care for the professional staff can happen in any vet practice. 

RISK ACCEPTED!

As an employee of several veterinary practices in succession, PM had eagerly continued her informal education in the best practices for animal care. She had also seen the best and worst business practices. The best would be the goal if she could own her own business. But opening a business is always done at significant personal financial risk which might even result in a risk to one’s physical and mental health if the finances and stress were not well planned and managed. 

With her father’s encouraging words and her mother’s mentorship as a confident, hard-working role model echoing in her mind since her childhood, PM confidentially consulted with a few trusted advisors to develop a business plan to establish her own veterinary practice. She assessed prospects for attracting clients from her several years of experience treating their pets. Then she presented her financial plan to a bank. Once approved for credit at a certain level, she worked with a realtor to locate a commercial building (formerly a florist shop) which could be renovated for adequate animal care. Financing would also have to cover required equipment such as exam tables, x-rays, and surgical tools, plus salaries for vet techs, office receptionists and business consultants (legal, insurance, etc.) had to be considered. 

PM accepted the risk, opened her business and succeeded, slowly at first but soon it was thriving, eventually employing 30 full-time employees. Customer reviews were nothing but raves. 

CAREER SATISFACTION

PM concludes that she now has the “perfect job for me” – she can provide the highest quality animal care for her size of a veterinary practice (referring cases beyond her experience and equipment to a local, nationally recognized vet hospital) while controlling – to the extent possible – all the business administrative aspects, thus promoting and inspiring high staff morale by putting each employee in the best position to serve the animals and their owners. She is happy to live locally and volunteer time at local elementary and high school career days.

She stated, “The best part of veterinary medicine is it changes every day! It’s a dynamic job and there’s always more to learn. My heart used to be Emergency & Critical Care, Internal Medicine, and Soft Tissue Surgery and now I’ve developed additional interests in Ultrasound, Chemotherapy and Orthopedics. I’m just so happy for all that I can do for animals.”

PM is wise enough to know when she needs to back off from her voluntarily hectic work schedule to be a great parent and spouse. And she is mature enough to resist telling that university advisor how wrong was that advisor’s advice…….. though she does very occasionally, silently enjoy the prospect that she could someday track down that advisor and present her career story.