[Jacob-list] vets - a matter of economics

[AvillFarm at aol.com]

A number of my close friends are practicing vets and the way it is explained 
to me is as follows.  The realities of veterinary practice are that farm 
calls are on average relatively inefficient in terms of $ earned per unit 
time expended, i.e. you "lose" alot of time in driving and costs incurred by 
doing same that it simply isn't possible to recover from providing veterinary 
services.  Horses, for most people, are either big $ investment or big pet 
(hence willing to spend alot of $ on irrespective of $ return) so they are 
better return on time spent from a profit standpoint.  Most vets I know that 
treat goats and sheep routinely do it for one or both of the following 
reasons:  (1) because it is expedient and incidental to their main practice 
(i.e. the client already has horses and cattle), or (2) they simply like 
sheep and goats and have a personal interest in them.  In one local practice, 
treating goats and sheep is basically the bobby prize, i.e. it falls to the 
newest or most jr vet in the practice.  Alot of times these are good vets, 
but they tend to move on after a couple of years because they realize they'll 
likely never make partner in this firm.  Don't know how common this is, but 
I'd suspect it is an issue some places.  Nowadays alot of young vets get out 
of school with alot of debt and the realities of paying back school loans 
definitely have an impact on the choices they have to make regarding practice 
as opposed to what they might do if they could just afford to do the kind of 
medicine that they would prefer to practice.

E.