A Call to Action: Reclaiming Veterinary Medicine from Big Corporations

July 12, 2023

It’s time for veterinary professionals to take back veterinary medicine (7.10.23)
https://www.dvm360.com/view/it-s-time-for-veterinary-professionals-to-take-back-veterinary-medicine

COMMENTARY featured on dvm360 July 2023, Volume 54, Issue 7, written by Pamelar Hale, DVM, MBA, who has held numerous high-level leadership roles within veterinary medicine, from chief of staff to chief medical officer.

The red pill or the blue pill? Veterinary professionals get to decide, and the time is now.

  • The red pill is the world in which we uncloak ourselves and retake the business from the veterinary
    practice to the board room.

“With the proliferation of corporatization in the veterinary profession, veterinarians are more often managed by nonveterinary professionals from other multiunit entities who come with no understanding or experience of the pet medical care world. With this new management comes the push for veterinarians to care for an excessive number of pets per shift with strict cost control, which results in fewer staff to assist the veterinarian.”

UPDATED: February 4, 2024

RELATED:

Using SOAP to Fix Vet Med’s Ills (2.1.24)
https://todaysveterinarybusiness.com/soap-veterinary-viewpoint-0224/

  • Veterinarians hoping to spend more time with patients abdicated many leadership and administrative responsibilities when becoming part of group practices. In giving up ownership of their work schedules, patient schedules, staff selection, pharmacy items and equipment needs, they are now at the behest of managers uninformed of the needs of veterinary professionals and animals — veterinarians in corporatized practices are often pushed to see too many patients a day, resulting in an inability to forge needed connections with pets and clients.

Effects of Corporatization on Vet Med (September, 2022)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNMWYUqN9FQ

  • Discusses article from The American Prospect entitled “Welcome to Hell”, which seeks to expose some of the working conditions inside vet hospitals owned by large corporations.

Are Veterinary Consolidators and Hospital Groups Helping or Hurting Veterinary Medicine?
https://www.pets.care/corporatization-veterinary-medicine/