If your veterinary practice is typical, you’re looking for a competitive advantage when hiring and retaining veterinarians. Salaries, sign-on and production bonuses, paid time off, work schedules, ownership pathways, team culture, mentorships and CE stipends are ingredients that hospital owners want to get just right. I don’t have much advice about salaries and bonuses — see “How to Structure an Associate DVM’s Pay” — but having worked on the academic and corporate sides of the profession and having talked with hundreds of practice owners over the past couple of years, I can address continuing education.
Paid continuing education is on the long list of bargaining tools used to incentivize veterinarians to join a practice. Candidates scan job postings and look for these CE numbers: dollars and time off.
Unfortunately, what’s often lost in the negotiations between hospital owners and veterinarians is the kind of CE to be pursued. That’s why practice owners shouldn’t reduce CE to a simple number. Instead, by rethinking what CE means for your practice, you can gain an advantage over your competitors, provide more educational opportunities that appeal to job candidates and grow your business.
Let’s look at the right amount of CE, how to align personal and organizational objectives, and how to measure the effectiveness of your current offerings.
Talking Points
Consultant and attorney Lance Roasa, DVM, MS, JD, has helped thousands of veterinary school graduates negotiate offer letters. The stipends he’s seen for in-person and online CE attendance range from $1,500 to $5,000 a year, with an average of $3,500.
His takeaways:
- To be competitive with CE compensation, a practice owner should offer approximately $3,500 a year.
- A practice owner should look beyond the numbers and talk with candidates about the kind of CE that interests the veterinarian.
How might the conversation go? Here’s an example.
- Practice owner: “If you’re anything like me, CE is more than just about maintaining my license; it’s about how I stay relevant and continue to grow as a veterinarian. Can we talk about what CE dollars mean to you? What kind of CE are you interested in?”
- Job candidate: “We didn’t get a lot of experience in surgery or ultrasound in school, so I’d like to sign up for wet labs to help me get better at both of those.”
- Practice owner: “I didn’t feel very confident in surgery or ultrasound when I graduated, and I could have benefited from some of the wet labs available today. At the same time, our clients are asking for the ability to treat in our clinic and not be referred to a specialist, and they’re looking for advanced in-house diagnostics. This is clearly an important area for both of us. Why don’t we explore some upcoming courses and get you signed up so that we don’t let this growth opportunity slip past us?”
Pursue Opportunities
The conversation above turns into something meaningful for the candidate. It shows that you, the practice owner, are interested in a new associate’s development and that you’re balancing the needs of your veterinarians, clients and business.
To be ready for such a conversation, practice owners must identify those needs. On a basic level, they want their veterinarians to see more clients. However, the savvy practice owner will look beyond the basics and understand the pet owner trends that present growth opportunities for the hospital. Perhaps that means chances for your doctors to perform more advanced imaging, such as ultrasound, radiographic interpretation and digital cytology. Or maybe your city has a lot of deep-chested dogs needing gastropexies or gastrointestinal explorations. Recognizing current and future client needs will help ensure that your practice continues to meet pet owner demands. At the same time, such knowledge will ensure that you’re looking for the right veterinarians to meet those needs.
Diving Into Web Labs
Now that you’ve thought about the needs of your practice, how do you figure out the job candidates’ needs and ensure alignment between the two? Fortunately, determining the growth needs of the next generation of veterinarians is relatively straightforward. My experience shows that recent graduates are most interested in learning about dentistry, surgery (in particular, abdominal surgery), ultrasound, radiographic interpretation and client communication, especially concerning finances and end-of-life conversations. Of course, not every new veterinarian is interested in all those topics, but many are. Therefore, a practice owner should be aware of available wet labs to demonstrate concern for the candidates’ needs and your commitment to helping them grow.
OK, let’s assume you’ve done everything right, the stars are aligned, and a great candidate has agreed to join your practice. Then, a couple of months into the job, the brand-new veterinarian is headed to the first wet lab course. What’s next? Many practice owners think their job is done and assume the training will occur. Some will ask the new associate to share with the team what was learned. The sharing usually takes the form of a slide presentation or informal lunch talk. Though this approach is better than nothing, it’s not much better than nothing. Content covered does not equal content learned.
A more effective way to measure the benefit of learning experiences is to look at the increased revenue generated through new skills. For example, check your practice management software to see how often the associate performs a skill taught at the web lab. If the veterinarian performed no or few ultrasounds before the wet lab and then 10 within a month afterward, you have a clear sign that the wet lab was a success. At $400 a scan, that’s $4,000 in additional revenue. Though obtaining precise numbers on the profitability of wet labs is difficult, general numbers provide enough information.
Another simple measurement tool involves asking associates before and after a CE experience, on a scale of 1 to 10, whether they’re confident in performing a particular new skill. Qualitative measurement mixed with the quantitative financial return provides a more comprehensive understanding of the return on investment.
I want to stress that simply sending someone to a CE course and hoping for the best isn’t sufficient. Neither is sending someone and then asking for a 15-minute summary presentation. Instead, the CE must be incorporated into a comprehensive understanding of the practice’s objectives to ensure that the investment was worthwhile. Pairing that approach with a clear and empathetic understanding of a job candidate’s needs provides a competitive differentiator and turns the cost of CE into a growth opportunity for you and your team.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Continuing education requirements vary by state. For example, California requires veterinarians to earn at least 36 hours of approved CE during each two-year license renewal period. Massachusetts veterinarians need 15 hours annually.