Weekend Rounds is a newsletter by Obi Veterinary Education. Each week, we'll round up what's new and noteworthy across veterinary medicine - both within the Obi community and veterinary industry at large - and deliver it right to your inbox.

New and Noteworthy

When giants collide 

The 2nd largest owner of veterinary clinics in the world is closing the gap between them and

Mars, Inc.

who currently holds the top spot. 

IVC Evidensia

from Britain has announced the acquisition of Canada's VetStrategy for an undisclosed sum. With the acquisition, IVC Evidensia will acquire another 270 clinics across Canada, bringing their global count to about 2,000 clinics across 17 countries.  While it's unlikely to significantly change the day-to-day operations at the clinics, it is still a big deal.  One thing we will definitely keep an eye out for with the merger is whether either company will employ a

Chief Barketing Officer

, we are preparing our retention package to avoid Bowie going corporate, the deal is private but we can say it involves a peanut butter Kong.

A new line of business to chew on 

Chewy, the direct-to-consumer provider of pet essentials like toys, food and halloween costumes is launching a new veterinarian-only marketplace. 

The new service, Practice Hub, allows clinics to create and approve prescriptions and authorize veterinary diet items for their clients. Pet owners can add the items to their cart for a seamless experience. While the service is invite-only right now, it has the potential to disrupt the industry.  Clinics need online solutions and Canadian clinics have embraced this for a few years with many using services like myvetstore.ca.  Now with a big player cornering a different segment of the direct to consumer market we hope that the benefits and profits will trickle down to the veterinarians on the floor rather than the corporate power houses.

Cause and effect

The vet shortage is real.  As pet adoptions boomed during the pandemic, we saw plenty of good news stories about empty adoption centers and happy pet owners finding friendship in a new loved one during turbulent times. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

The increasing number of pet owners has meant increased demands on veterinary clinics which were already at their maximum number of clients.  There are too many appointments to be seen.  Last week we saw two news stories drive home this point.  The first noted the closure of Tufts Veterinary Hospital to emergencies.  A practice so common that the individual instances of it don't make the news most of the time.  ERs and ICUs everywhere are closing and this has had dramatic repercussions for pet parents everywhere.  As the

CBC reported

last week, some patients cannot get the care they need as ICUs are at capacity and ERs are closed.  

September Leaderboard 

Pumpkin space lattes are in full force as we head into fall. It also means that we're getting ready to award new monthly leaderboard badges and September's board is up for grabs. Hop on the complete a few lessons before the month end and you could be taking home the top prize.

Let us know what you'd like to see in future editions of Weekend Rounds by replying to this email.