On winding roads amid rolling mountains and lush evergreens, she feels a bit like her idol James Herriot. Grants Pass,
Ore., is as close to Yorkshire Dales as an associate veterinarian can get these days in a profession rushing headlong into
the new century. Despite a desire for thoroughly modern practice management, she feels closest to what brought her into veterinary
medicine when she's responding to an emergency as Herriot always did, out on a night call driving these roads in her powder-blue
mini-van, on her way to pull a calf from the womb. But make no mistake; Dr. Elizabeth Kraft is a practitioner looking forward.
She's a recent graduate. She takes business classes at the local community college. She wants to own a practice someday, and
when she does, she intends to run it as "a business, not a charity." She wants to practice high-quality medicine, but she
says she won't be afraid to refer clients to specialists.
What waits around the bend for all the Elizabeth Krafts out there? VeterinaryEconomics put the question to a range of practitioners and consultants in companion animal, equine, and large animal medicine. Their
predictions for the next five years vary as much as their individual expertise and experience. But they do agree there are
trends already at work driving the profession forward.
Bigger practices dot the landscape
Will there be enough doctors?
|
Digital radiology has created a sweeping change in practitioners' diagnostic abilities. And it has also set off dramatic changes
in how equine practices will be organized five years from now, says Dr. Andrew Clark, MBA, CEO of 130-year-old Hagyard Equine
Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky. The problem: Digital radiology is a $100,000 purchase. Not every practice can afford it.
"Yet clients demand it," says Dr. Clark. "Small equine practices will have to find a way to get access, or they'll lose those
clients to the bigger practices."
"Across the profession, the cost of technology is pushing practices to merge or collaborate," says Dr. David Horn, an independent
food animal consultant in Greenwich, N.Y. "And it hasn't been a welcome change. Fifty years or so ago the admissions committees
in veterinary schools somehow selected people who wanted to be individuals—and who felt uncomfortable talking about money.
It was like creating the elements for a perfect storm."
Those particular elements generate the same stormy relationships in companion animal medicine, says Veterinary Economics Editorial Advisory Board member Dr. Karen Felsted, CPA, MS, CVPM. She's often asked to picture the future of veterinary practice
in her think-tank role at Brakke Consulting Inc. in Dallas. As a former companion animal practitioner, she understands that
what looks smooth on paper may be full of potholes if you try to drive it.
"Mergers get lots of press as the greatest solution for veterinary practices," she says. "And, theoretically, they're great.
The problem is implementing the theory.
"If you're going to enjoy all the efficiencies of a merger, you need to work under the same roof," she says. "That arrangement
only works if you and your merging partner share similar business and medical philosophies. That's hard enough to achieve
when a long-time associate buys in. A merger presents far more difficulties.
Featuring Information from:
