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State of the Profession: A snapshot of veterinary practice, circa 2012
There may be lies, darn lies and statistics, but the study results here show enough positive trends for the profession to be hopeful.
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It's been a rough several years for the veterinary profession. Lots of dour data has been disseminated, painting a picture of an industry in trouble. Visits are down, feline healthcare is abysmal and many practices are unprofitable. What's worse, you can't even blame it on the economic recession-veterinarians have done this all to themselves, the experts say.
While a lot of that may be true, the results of DVM Newsmagazine's 2012 State of the Profession Survey aren't quite so grim. There are still plenty of veterinarians struggling with tepid local economies, but many signs seem to be pointing in a more positive direction. For example, the size of the average active client base has rebounded from 2009 (the last time the State of the Profession Survey was conducted), and practices report that they're seeing considerably more patients on the whole.
Some of these upward tendencies may be a result of the fact that practices are being less "picky" about their clientele: A greater proportion of respondents said their practice philosophy is to take "all paying clients" than at any other point when DVM conducted the survey.
Check out these data points and other survey statistics on the following pages, then compare your own practice. How do you stack up next to the averages we found?
