All
The essential components of a financial plan
December 1st 2004Financial planning early in your career is perhaps the most important thing you can do to make sure you accomplish your personal and professional goals. In fact, the day you leave school would be a great time to start planning. But regardless of your age or career stage, it's never too late to gain value from a hard look at your financial situation and advice from a financial advisor who can help you identify and implement your financial plan. Here are the essential components of a financial plan:
Year in review: How did you measure up?
December 1st 2004Every year, practice owners review their employees, telling them what they did well and how they could improve. But have you ever taken time to give yourself a year-end review? Whether you're the boss, an associate, or a support staff member, you can benefit from evaluating your year, says Jinny Ditzler, author of Your Best Year Yet! A Proven Method for Making the Next Twelve Months the Most Successful Ever (Warner Books, 2000).
Building materials and finishes
December 1st 2004Gates Hafen Cochrane Architects of Boulder, Colo., supplied this brief listing of common finish materials used in veterinary care facilities, along with some "helpful hints." For more information, contact Gates Hafen Cochrane Architects at (800) 332-4413.
Attaining accurate inventory counts
December 1st 2004We're having trouble monitoring the counts of specified items, calculating an accurate budget for inventory costs, and staying within that budget. We've identified our A, B, and C inventory items. What more can we do to get inventory under control?
State unemployment tax audits: Employee or independent contractor?
December 1st 2004The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cares about accurate classification of employees and independent contractors, but so does your state unemployment tax department. No one ever thinks he or she will get audited, and many practitioners are surprised to learn that state unemployment departments often audit more frequently than the IRS.
Case study: Creating a nonprofit spay and neuter program
November 3rd 2004After Veterinary Economics published "Caught in the Middle: Business vs. Compassion" in June 2004, we received several letters fueling the discussion. One in particular, from Dr. Lowell Novy of Valley Veterinary Clinic in Simi Valley, Calif., provided an interesting solution: Start a nonprofit organization to help cover costs.
Intracorporeal suturing in minimally invasive surgery
November 1st 2004Minimally invasive surgery is a rapidly developing discipline in veterinary medicine, thanks to its widespread use in human medicine. During the past 20 years, veterinarians have watched a temporally similar development with arthroscopic surgery. While minimally invasive surgery has many advantages over traditional open surgery—including reduced postoperative pain, reduced recovery times, and improved operative results—there is a caveat: It requires specialized training and considerable experience. In this article, I'll focus on one particular minimally invasive technique—intracorporeal suturing.
Sutures: Past, Present, and Future
November 1st 2004We live in a time when polymer chemists work magic with different suture materials to give them specific properties that benefit surgeons. Today's sutures absorb within a consistent time frame every time veterinarians use them, possess specific handling characteristics, demonstrate good knot security, and cause minimal tissue inflammation.