I was very annoyed by the article “22 Extraordinary Women” [August/September 2022], as I am by similar articles crying that women can “have it all” as veterinarians. None of your outstanding females were currently working in general practice. Some had “done their time” for a few years before looking for something better. The message here was that the best and brightest either go into a specialty or into some adjunctive pursuit so that they can arrange their personal lives as they wish. These women are outliers. If they are pointing the way to the future, we won’t have anyone willing to do the “hard stuff.”
In general practice, you can have your two children, your house in the suburbs, your horses and your yoga classes if you:
- Work part time.
- Do relief work when you want to. (Notice the huge trend here.)
- Work for “skimmers” — corporations that hire veterinarians to go to pet and farm-supply stores to give vaccines, which are high-margin, low-overhead items.
- Work for large practices that have enough veterinarians to schedule them in shifts.
- Work in a doctor-centric practice that schedules until 3 in the afternoon to allow time for records and callbacks, doesn’t hospitalize sick or injured animals, refers out non-routine surgeries or dentistries requiring extractions, and has readily available emergency clinics to use.
- Quit working during your child-rearing years.
Of course, the same trends are occurring in human medicine as the baby boomers retire and the “me first” generations take over. God help us all.