The Beginning

Welcome aboard this journey!

Welcome to my Gen Zennial (elder Gen Z meets infant millennial) blog about becoming a female veterinary practice owner in the age of rising corporate medicine and surrounded by elder generational leadership. I invite you to follow along as I unveil my journey, first with a detailed backstory, trending towards real-time success and hardships of ownership. I hope my journey inspires more young veterinarians to create a future for themselves and our industry that we can be proud of; that will ultimately guide our profession to further success throughout the years to come.

"How did you know you wanted to be a practice owner?"

I feel like this is the top FAQ of my current personal and professional conversations. I would be lying if I said there was one epiphany that changed my life. I've wanted to be a veterinarian since I was 3 years old, and I wanted my own clinic as soon as I could understand what that meant. Everyone I've met through my life thus far has heard my daydreaming discussions about this once far-away aspiration. I was impacted throughout my childhood and younger adult life surrounded by small business owners scattered throughout both sides of my family; none of which were in medicine but all of them successful in their own right. I saw how being an entrepreneur could lift up a family and change trajectories - while also being an incredible burden filled with uncertainty. Owning a business is not for the faint of heart - more so for the risk taskers and fiercely independent individuals. So my short answer is that there was no one moment - I just knew that I wanted to be a veterinarian and I wanted a clinic of my own to shape and mold into the future.

My burnout breakthrough

I find business ownership to be one of the biggest reasons I have avoided burnout - as the challenges and problem solving involved in business matters continues to feed the desire to push onward in this career. It is the ultimate ever-changing landscape that challenges me in a way that replicates the drive to persevere through this career to begin with. It affords me a creative outlet completely different from medicine yet intimately intwined with it that is so captivating. When I find myself tired from clinical practice, I focus on the bigger picture of how I want the clinic to grow, expand our services to the community, brainstorm how we can get there, and I feel reinvigorated every time.

How relief led me to my home

I never imagined I'd go into relief work; especially early in my career but life happens when you're busy making other plans. Originally I wanted to stay at my first job until I felt ready to purchase my own clinic; but after one year I decided that was no longer in my best interest. I also realized after a poor experience and my own fierce independence that I need a break working under someone else. I had already dipped my toes into relief to subsidize my income when my associate position was slow and the practice refused to take new clients. So when I left that position I already had plenty of work to at least pay my bills for the next 2 months. I ended up reaching out to the clinics that I had interviewed at previously to determine if they needed relief services - to which I was pleasantly surprised at their vigor of inviting my to travel there. Using the power of networking, I was fully booked 3+ months in advance for the next almost two years of traveling. I first found the practice I would eventually buy from contacting them as a relief vet and asking about their openness to a sale. I ended up providing relief services to my future practice for about a year by the time we closed on the sale. I gained valuable insight into the practices in my area, the landscape of veterinary medicine around me, as well as the pain points current practices faced that I learned from each location. Many friends and collogues were met along the way, to whom many of which I now miss, but keep in contact with thanks to this digital age.

Next week I'll start to chronicle how the last year of my life has gone, throughout the process of buying my first veterinary practice and all the surprises along the way. Stay tuned!