Weekend Rounds
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Veterinary salaries exposed 🤯

Veterinary salaries exposed 🤯

Plus: news from around vet med

Ryan Appleby
May 05, 2024

Hello 👋

Welcome back to another edition of Weekend Rounds!

To be perfectly honest, we were thinking of taking the week off. We’ve been working a lot and there weren’t any groundbreaking stories that caught our attention - just the familiar articles about how vet care is too expensive.

But then Dr James Cellini, aka DVMCellini, a Neurologist and social media personality decided to post a video that not only caught our attention, but immediately become the reason we wanted to send today’s edition.

Today, all we’re doing is linking the video, asking you to watch and then answer our poll.

🤯🤯
A shocking YouTube video

Hey - Ryan here 👋

Typically this newsletter is a collaborative effort of multiple writers, but as a veterinary radiologist and co-founder of Obi Veterinary Education, I wanted to step out from behind the proverbial curtain and address the video below directly. Because I think I am still in disbelief that this got posted.

Not because I think the structure of how vets are paid should be hidden, in fact I believe the exact opposite. Not because I am surprised at the numbers. And not because it was a reminder that academic specialists are getting a deal more raw than a salmonella filled BARF diet. I already knew that.

But because in today’s environment, Dr. Cellini should know what a video like this is going to do.

When someone hears that a physician makes $400,000 a year they probably think to themselves, ‘yeah, but they are a doctor. They deserve it.’ Unfortunately, and for reasons I haven’t fully understood, veterinarians don’t hold the same esteem in the public eye. The public perception of vets is that we’re constantly price gauging. Nothing in the video seems inaccurate to me, but it also doesn’t do anything to dispel this notion. Instead, it outlines production bonuses like a twisted commission system that incentivizes vet to order more work.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good video. It’s accurate, well-produced and provides crucial must-have information for new grads that will lead to some better decisions being made.

But when this video spreads, and clients understand more about our compensation model - specifically around production bonuses - we want you to be informed and prepared to speak to clients.

-Ryan

After watching, please take a moment to tell us the following and let us know in the comment box what strategies you have used to speak with clients who may believe you are price gauging.

Based on the results of the survey presented, I feel I am:

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Quick Hits

Here are some of the other stories that caught our eye and we're following this week from around the veterinary world and animal kingdom:

The vet industry is in a tailspin

Why your last vet bill was barking mad.

Covetrus opens new distribution center

Covetrus® today announced the opening of a new state-of-the-art distribution center in Iowa.

Superbug from human eye drops outbreak spread to dogs

The discovery of drug-resistant bacteria in two dogs prompted a probe by the CDC and New Jersey health authorities.

Climate change is fuelling a rise in heartworms among dogs, cats in the Pacific Northwest

Heartworm disease is more prevalent in warmer southern states, but it's becoming more common in Oregon and Washington as temperatures rise.

Calif. regulators oppose bill that would expand RVT duties

Debate widens over whether to allow veterinary technicians to neuter cats.

Veterinarians alerted to potential Varenzin syringe problem

Calibration markings may become unreadable, risking misdosing cats at home

One in Five Milk Samples Nationwide Shows Genetic Traces of Bird Flu

There is no evidence that the milk is unsafe to drink, scientists say. But the survey result strongly hints that the outbreak may be widespread.

‘Let’s get serious,’ says Stabenow, proposing 2024 farm bill

With the new farm bill months overdue, Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow proposed a farm bill on Wednesday that would boost so-called reference prices — a roadblock issue — while rejecting the $28 billion cut in SNAP sought by conservative Republicans.

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