Is Veterinary Mentorship The Greatest Casualty Of Corporatisation?
- Dr Dave Nicol
- 39 minutes ago
- 10 min read
Did you hear the one about what happened when the mentors left veterinary medicine?
Pull up a chair, but don’t get comfortable. This isn’t going to be a pleasant read…
Once upon a time, many practices were owned by different vets who lived in their local communities and stuck around in their roles for decades. These vets’ dreams were built on their ability to serve clients, put down roots, and contribute. This, in turn, required them to operate long-term, sustainable veterinary practices. Their wealth depended on bringing value to their local community over decades. Most obviously, this meant delivering services to clients, but behind the scenes, it also meant investing in the skills of the team.
And if they got this right, the reward was being able to take a little dividend each year and eventually sell their partnership to the next generation. The reward was relatively small, occurred annually, and also came with the high likelihood of landing a nest egg at the end, as new blood was brought into the practice to take over. No bubbles, no mergers, no intoxicating EBITDA multiples to make heads spin. Just sustainable, affordable care.
Most of these practices were small, but some started to grow or merge over time, and a few larger local groups developed.
As is the way of things, a few of the vets dreamed ever bigger dreams and schemed ever greater schemes. Meanwhile, wolfish city eyes scanned the markets for places they might make a buck.
First, it was optometry, then dental care, and eventually, inevitably, they sniffed out the alluring scent wafting from our sleepy cottage veterinary profession. From high, glinting towers, they saw smoke drift from chimneys above the thatched roofs of mom-and-pop businesses, and forth they stalked.
Meetings were had, plans were hatched, and the wolves in suits courted some of the more ambitious vets. Agreements were made and the good times began to roll—or at least the cash started to flow, and big sacks of money showed up to prise the clinics away for ever-increasing, eye-popping prices in a game of vet clinic roll-up that became vet clinic pass-the-parcel. The age of speculation and consolidation, fueled by private equity money, was afoot, and the bubble began to grow.
The wolves got very busy, and over the next few years, they bought an awful lot of practices. And the former practice owners suddenly got quite rich. But not long after, they also got quite sad because the wolves started making changes they didn’t like. Costs got squeezed, relationships got damaged, and prices inevitably went up.
Predictably enough, the ex-owners left their practices as soon as possible and went to do something else. This was a problem because as the experienced talent vanished, the practices began to sputter. Would the bubble burst, and would the wolves get fleeced?
Smelling the peril, the wolves responded and made up a fancy-schmancy new job title: “Clinical Director.” It sounded all flash and fun, but what it demanded was a job holder who was both good at clinical medicine and leading a team. The problem? Quite a lot of those recruited into these roles weren’t ready to do this new kind of “super-vet” job. Some weren’t even sure if they belonged in veterinary medicine at all.
However, the title sounded good, and it paid more. And that, for a time, was enough.
The years rolled on, and a few bank accounts grew, but the problems wouldn’t go away. Staff churned, and resilience plummeted. Clinical Directors—and the teams they were expected to lead—kept stumbling and falling apart as they succumbed to the smoke and flames of the smoldering dumpster fire veterinary medicine was becoming. Figuratively burning out of their practices, broken. Replaced by new recruits—eager but naïve to the challenge before them.
The party rumbled on. As long as things were growing, few seemed to care. These organizations grew big and powerful—so big, in fact, that more than half the market was owned by them, which meant the size of problem was growing too. Then, right when things might have gotten very wobbly, COVID hit, and demand exploded. Money poured in, but the fire also raged on—so many pets, so much harder to do the work. Everyone locked down and unhappy.
Then, along came the Great Resignation.
To make things worse, acquisitions gathered pace, and more older vets sold up fast—and checked out faster still. The wolves snarled and tried to tie them in, but when you’re mentally gone, you might as well not be there at all. Just bodies ghosting through the smoke.
Somewhere in all this carnage, a sense of hopelessness and apathy grew. Things limped along, but a tipping point was close, and the vets began to squeal. Business was booming, but people were breaking.
They squealed about many things, but central to it all was one inescapable, and timeless problem - the struggle to feel like you belong. All young vets struggle when they start out. They always have, and they always will—not because they don’t belong, but because doing anything new is hard. The struggle is part of the journey of learning and developing. The pathway to competency and greatness demands it. But it starts out by feeling like you're not good enough… because frankly, none of us ever were.
But unlike previous generations, these young vets felt the pain of losing something vital—the mentors we all need to hold on to us as we struggle to belong. These essential bridges to mastery and confidence had burned. And without them, the young vets got stuck in limbo, between arriving and belonging.
The wolves sniffed the air and knew that something was off, they sensed the peril. But this was a smell they couldn’t quite fathom. Driven by the fear of going hungry, they huffed and puffed and got busy ‘fixing’ things. This time by creating proxies for mentors in the shape of postgraduate “academies” and point-of-care apps. HR departments. Huge sign-on bonuses.
Everything’s fine! We’ve got this. Our house isn’t on fire. No one burns or blows this house down.
All of this did a decent job of convincing both the markets and the young vets (very temporarily) that all was well. But it all really amounted to not very much.
Because what the vets really needed—what everyone really needs to get the hang of being a vet, vet nurse, receptionist, or leader—is a wise mentor to help as you stumble along the pathway. To take you under their wing and keep you safe from harm.
A “point-of-care/in-the-moment” kind of mentor. A superhero, looking over the shoulder as you muddle through the day, trying your best not to screw it all up. One who is there to catch you when you stumble. One to utter words of advice between patients. One to scrub in and get dirty with you, guddling about the guts of a patient. One to give you some pointers for your next difficult client—the one they’ve dealt with for a decade already.
Teaching in dry academies gets you more students and more theory. It does not get you more skilled staff. Access to apps provides more information, but they take you further into devices and away from real connection. HR gets you more process, but also more fear and resentment (when done badly).
Greater distance between the boardroom and exam room gets you apathy and cynicism… until something snaps. And then it gets you a workforce that is so angry they simply won’t do it anymore. They vote with their feet and leave.
The hopes and ambitions of a generation of veterinary professionals have been torched in this rapacious dumpster fire. Some have escaped the flames and snapping teeth, found the edge and scrambled up, caught some air, and made it. But too many have simply seen their hopes burn and smoldered right out of the profession.
It’s a desperate story that, if we don’t do more, will lead to a very sad ending.
For Whom the (Fire) Bell Tolls
But for whom? It’s already caused quite a lot of pain for the professionals in practice.
There’s a sense, perhaps, that a new chapter is being written. Could it be the start of the end of the wolves too?
Like any good story, storm clouds are gathering. Rain is coming.
The music in the party game of pass-the-vet-clinic-parcel is getting closer to ending. It has to. There aren’t that many mugs out there. The clinical teams can’t suffer this much without a backlash. It’s started, and it’s getting louder.
Those too broken to keep going are leaving. People who can hack it but are fed up are slowly banding together and unionizing. Some have gotten the attention of their elected officials and invited them to sniff around the vet monopolies and their operations.
The multiples paid for these practices were always far too high, and someone, somewhere, is going to be left holding what they thought was a valuable prize, only to find a box full of ashes when they peel back the final wrapper.
The flames have licked the goodwill, destroying both culture and value.
When it comes, it’s going to be ugly, but I doubt many will shed tears. The jury can’t be in much doubt that M&A has done terrible damage to the fabric of veterinary medicine, as it did to optical and dental before. You’d think smart people would learn lessons. Maybe they do, money never sleeps, and it’ll find a new home soon. The house always wins.
So what are those who care going to do about it? Squeal, whine, complain? That’s not going to cut it.
Many of the wolves will eventually scamper off, and someone is going to have to sort out the mess. Anyone and everyone who gives the slightest little toss about veterinary medicine is going to have to act.
As I see it, there are several ways forward with varying levels of impact and likelihood:
1. There is a reversion back to small, diversified ownership models where highly experienced teammates are found close to the places where mentorship is best deployed. A long shot, perhaps, but there is a sense of a renaissance in independent ownership—of people who see the issue and believe they can do it better. There is a huge strategic advantage to those who wish to take the wolves on. Their strategy was based on our goodwill and their ability to manage costs. The goodwill has evaporated, and there are no pips left to squeeze on the cost side of things. It’s become a busted flush.
So open, be brilliant, and take advantage of the massive amount of support and tech now on offer to make a great fist of it. Care the crap out of your people—team and clients—and watch the wolves scamper. You may assume that ensuring point-of-care mentorship as you grow must be on your list of strategic moves.
2. The corporate bigwigs figure out that the model they’ve deployed had enough runway before it failed completely to allow some investors to get rich. But some poor suckers are at great risk of losing their shirts.
Rolling up clinics without ensuring you roll in the talent in a way that the talent still gives a crap about their people is a losing play. It’s not sustainable. The goodwill has gone. Time’s up.
If I were managing a larger corporate business, I’d immediately start listening to the senior clinical talent and give them the budget and time to fix the gaping mentorship gaps. Those former owners I have spoken with remain hugely passionate about the profession and are very capable people who, if you gave them more resources, would be the driving force behind your business for the next decade.
Do not continue to short-change this activity. You’ve lost enough to disillusionment already. Good luck meeting your P&L targets with a 50+% salary line as the need for relief staff grows and grows. And just how does growth work when you have to close the doors on a clinic you paid a huge multiple for because no staff are willing to work for you?
3. Can AI help? In a word, almost certainly. It won’t (yet) be able to offer the sort of "local, worldly-wise" insight into a particular client's foibles. Nor can it scrub in and quickly help sort out an issue mid-surgery. But it can help improve decision-making and plan formulation. It can help with clarity and speed of communication—two of the issues that are at the heart of client complaints. And it can do everything it needs to in seconds on an app that can be installed on every employee's phone for $25/month.
4. Factor mentorship time into your operational AND financial models. If you fail to do this, why are you surprised when no one has time for mentorship? Set your leaders up to succeed at their highest priority job—caring for their people.
5. Commit to mentorship from the top to bottom of every organization. No one should be doing any kind of job without mentorship.
I bet you can add to this list… I write the words, but this is going to be a collaborative effort.
Perhaps this story sounds very anti-corporate to you. And I suppose, in the sense that I believe many of our greatest challenges exist as a consequence of this structural change to our profession*, it is. But that’s not on me. I’m just telling one story of how things got here. I’m not the least bit concerned about the ownership structure. I care about the people.
It’s not the entity that is the issue, but the strategy and actions of leaders. It’s a fact that the goodwill of veterinary professionals has been taken for granted or worse, openly abused.
Change is possible in any organization. But mark these words: change is needed and needed urgently.
If corporations read the tea leaves correctly, then their executives should be worried. Very worried. And they are duty-bound to do what’s in the interests of the company of which they are custodians. Regardless of your place in vet med—if you are a financier or a vet who believes in this profession, then you have some food for thought and some decisions to make.
It doesn’t have to end in ashes, this after all is a story with many chapters yet to come. With the right actions—mentorship, support, and a commitment to change—we can douse the fire and rebuild. The embers of hope are still glowing in the ashes, waiting to reignite—not into a house or dumpster fire but a passion for work that rewards us both emotionally and financially.
What will it be?
(*I use this word with care, many call where we work the veterinary industry. I think these people are wrong. This is a profession, there’s a world of difference.)
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