Together, we can prosper

by Cynthia E. Johnson, student, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine

Students don’t need to be told that debt is a big problem; they are painfully aware of this fact already.

Focusing on the expenses that students must pay off, rather than promoting the value new graduates can bring to a practice, ignores powerful tools we can use to fight the debt problem and move forward.

Veterinary students are getting more business education than ever before, and are therefore more aware of the debt burden they carry. This means new graduates are negotiating their salaries more aggressively, something that has practice owners worried.

Although new graduates with “extra” business education can command higher salaries, their education also translates into more revenue for practices. They have been incubated in a veterinary school culture based on a strict fee-for-service philosophy.

Although few veterinarians get their MBAs while in school, the basic business background they receive gives them a framework on which they can build as a veterinarian.

Future associates are also seeking more business education in their free time. The Veterinary Business Management Association (VBMA, www.vbma.biz) is the largest independent veterinary student-run organization in the country. In the five short years since it was founded, it has turned into a behemoth with more than 2,600 members, and chapters at all 28 U.S. veterinary schools, as well as three international veterinary schools.

Across the United States, chapter meetings during the past six months have included topics such as, “Management Strategies in Uncertain Times,” “Money Mistakes to Avoid,” “Exam Room Communication Skills,” and “Bridging the Generation Gap.”

These students realize that there’s more to being a good veterinarian than knowing the medicine, and they want to bring business skills with them into practice.

Veterinary students have to practice making communication and business decisions as well as medical ones. How many teaching hospitals offer client-communication rounds, ethics rounds? If an AAHA-accredited hospital offers a veterinary student an externship, do they discuss AAHA’s business standards?

Veterinary students are not looking for a handout. If anything, students are looking to be more valuable to their employers. In the “Elephant in the Room” discussion described earlier, students wanted to be more prepared for practice but weren’t sure if they were moving in the right direction.

Student debt will be on the mind of every new graduate. Unless veterinarians go the way of the starving artists, student debt is going to impact the starting salaries veterinarians request.

Applicants will thrive if they can be profitable for the practice they join, and owners have the opportunity to help students and associates be more profitable. If veterinarians make more money, owners make more money and everybody wins. If everybody sits back and says that the other side isn’t playing fair, everyone gets stuck without money.

It’s not “us versus them”. Only together can we prosper.

Cynthia Johnson is the marketing director for VBMA. The following veterinary students contributed to this article: Adam Berman, Heather Groch , Juliette Hart, Steve Tousignant and Mandy Wallace

Reprinted with permission from TRENDS magazine (trends.aahanet.org). Copyright © 2009 American Animal Hospital Association. All rights reserved.