10 Scary Things Female Veterinarians Do
1. Not understanding educational debt.
Women! Wake Up!! According to 2009 AVMA research we have approximately $10,000 more in educational debt than our male counterparts. On what are we spending this money?
Over 30 years, at an 8% interest rate, the real cost of that $10,000 difference is $24,000 in simple interest alone. Look carefully at the fine print of what you are agreeing to pay. The lender will not agree to forgive the debt because you are a nice person, worked hard and put yourself through veterinary school. Do you really need to borrow that much? Can you cut back anywhere? Can you room with a few other students as opposed to having your own place? Do you really need a car as your own reward for being accepted to veterinary school? Can you take a part-time job? If you didn’t get accepted right away, would it be better to wait, earn some money, and reapply to an in-state school, as opposed to going to an overseas school where you got a slot, but it costs a fortune? Can relatives come and visit you, or can you take a bus instead of an airplane, so that you save money on travel?
2. Focusing solely on academics in veterinary school.
Sounds crazy doesn’t it? After all, you went to veterinary school to get a medical degree. You didn’t go to business school to get an MBA. It would make sense to learn everything possible about the former.
And you should. But think beyond that.
Real life veterinary medicine is something completely different than what you studied in academia. Veterinary medicine is essentially a retail, sales profession. Any veterinarian can learn to spay a cat. The trick is selling that spay at a profitable price. It will be your job as an associate to market and sell products, services, and goods to ordinary citizens with limited knowledge of their recently pet. Our professional job is defined as the maintenance, care and well-being of luxury items. No more. No less. A veterinarian’s salary will ultimately depend on one’s marketing and sales abilities. That sales associate is you in the real world of veterinary medicine.
So...take business classes if offered or at the business school affiliated with your vet school. Join the VBMA. Become involved in the SCAVMA. Budget half of your continuing education time for management and business classes. Take on internships with pharmaceutical companies. Run for a leadership position in student organizations.
3. Giving things away for free at work (see my previous article).
Between the high oxytocin levels that surge through our female bodies enabling us to feel more compassion than men, to skewed societal “norms” telling us that we are supposed to be “sugar and spice and everything nice,” it can be very difficult to for women to say “No.”
As in: "No, I cannot provide these services for free."
I spoke in a previous blog about "feeling sorry" for stray animals and giving away the clinic's (and our) services for free. But we do that in other ways, too.
We tend to underestimate our worth. We tend to set prices on what "feel" we are worth and not what a business model tells us we are worth. Every clinic has, or should have, a fee schedule. But we constantly make up the fees as we go along, as opposed to presenting an estimate to the client based on the clinic's predetermined prices.
I recently worked with an incredibly gifted, talented veterinarian. She had taken many, many of hours of continuing education in ultrasound courses, and the clinic had a new, expensive ultrasound machine. After completing a full abdominal ultrasound, she diagnosed a cat's bladder stones. Based on her ultrasound diagnosis, the cat went into surgery and several stones were successfully removed. While the client had given us written consent for the $250.00 ultrasound examination, the doctor charged only $50.00 because she was "not board certified." Even without ultrasound, I would have charged the owner at least $180 for the two radiographs that would have been used for a non-ultrasound diagnosis. I told the doctor she should at least charge as much as two x-rays would cost. She refused. I was speechless.
We also tend to x-ray a client's pocketbook. I cannot tell you how many times a doctor has confided to me that they lowered prices because the client "wasn't dressed well; had many children; looked poor; couldn't speak English well; had a relative in the hospital, etc. etc. etc. Not one of these clients actually even received a written estimate to turn down. Their finances were diagnosed and the pet treated based on a doctor's" feeling."
Another doctor told me that she didn't get the diagnosis she was looking for in the abdominal x-rays taken of a pet. So, she confided in me that she would just shoot two "quick, under-the-radar" chest x-rays. If they were diagnostic, the client would be charged. If not, the clinic would absorb the price. My thoughts were, "Wait a minute. The reason the owner brought the pet here was to obtain a diagnosis. Diagnostic tests help us rule out problems. They don't guarantee an answer.". Can you imagine going to your own, human doctor for your annual physical. He or she takes blood and performs other diagnostic tests and tells you: "If the tests don't indicate a problem, the tests are on the house!"
Veterinarians are underpaid. The only way that we will be paid more is if the business of the clinic makes more money. Every time that we give our services away for free, we are effectively cutting our own wages. Can we, as women, really afford that?
4. Assuming your Prince Charming will stay Prince Charming.
No one enters a long term relationship anticipating its demise. Perhaps we should. Much fiscal and emotional pain could be avoided if we planned based on reality and not on dreamy hopes. When you enter into a long term relationship with someone, protect your assets. Live as though the relationship has a shelf life of ten years or so. Assume you are going to be on your own with kids by the time you are 40. Statistics support this.
Keep your assets in your own name. Make sure you have separate bank accounts. Consider a pre-nuptial agreement. Stay in the full time work force. Make sure your name is on big ticket items like a house, a car or a boat. Insist on keeping a weekly eye on investments whether they are shared or individual. Obtain a full credit report on your mate before you say “I do.”
5. Professionally speaking, keep your eye on the top, not the bottom.
While it is very important to get along with paraprofessional staff, it is even more important to try and become friends with your boss. He has a lot to teach you from a business perspective and can be a viable avenue towards practice ownership.
Ultimately successful practice ownership is the quickest way to get out of debt. As recent graduate chances young professionals are in a lot of debt. As a female veterinarian, statistically speaking, you are in even more debt than your male counterpart. Start keeping your eye on practice ownership. Learn from your boss. Ask questions. Review the financials with him. Show him your interest in the business. Learning the business side of practice will put you on the road to retiring your student debt much more quickly than learning how to place the perfect catheter.
You can read the second part of this blog series "10 Scary Things Female Veterinarians Do: Part 2" to read the next 5.
