We now employ 19 staff (we had five when we opened in 2021) and only a tiny percentage of them are full time workers. Whether COVID accelerated this or it was always coming, there’s been a significant shift away from full time work.

We never closed our doors during COVID but during that time, families recalibrated their lives with work from home days. If I can only get a star vet or nurse for a couple of shifts a week between school drop-offs and pick-ups, why shouldn’t I jump at that opportunity? My business is better for it, and so is the industry. And, ultimately, that’s why we do what we do.

The vet industry is a little complicated. As vets we love what we do but it’s not all hugging puppies and kittens.

Vets are up to five to six times more likely to attempt suicide than the general public. Long hours, compassion fatigue, owners at their most vulnerable. This is a heavy thing to deal with but it’s happening more and more. It will continue to happen as more vets leave the industry.

As a business owner, my staff are my responsibility and if I want to change things, I have to start with my clinic. Burnout was probably my number one priority when I started The Foreshore Vet. I attacked it two ways: pay my staff more and make them work less.

It is a balancing act. A vet clinic is a hospital, which is expensive to run. Unlike human medicine, there’s no Medicare subsidy. Every dollar is accounted for. But prioritising our team and giving them time to breathe is only a good thing.

If you want staff to be happy and stay in the industry, you have to play the long game. Yes, you could be generating more revenue initially to cover costs by extending consultations and seeing less, not more, patients. But the result is a more thorough experience for patients and clients.

The demographic shift in the vet industry has been astounding. It wasn’t long ago that almost every vet graduate in this country was male. Now about 80 percent of the industry is made up of women.

But, sadly, those numbers haven’t translated into female practice ownership. Is that because women – by nature – don’t want to be practice owners? Absolutely not.

It’s a hard slog to have a family and run a business. But it’s not unachievable. For the senior staff with an interest in business ownership, giving them as much information as I can about the process and trying to demystify it is so important.

This is a problem that the industry is aware of and is trying to address. There are stories of more independent clinics either opening or encouraging ownership from within, so hopefully we’re at the start of an upswing.