Becoming a veterinarian is a dream many people hold since childhood. Who wouldn’t want to take care of adorable animals and get to be a hero to pet parents? It’s an easy career to romanticise, but the reality of being a veterinarian can hit harder than people expect. It is both challenging and rewarding, exhausting and fulfilling.
As a veterinarian, the animals may be your patients, but they’re not the only ones in your care. You could administer a puppy’s first vaccine in front of a beaming new pet parent one minute, perform a life-saving surgery on an injured animal whose owner is in shock the next and euthanize a beloved senior pet surrounded by their tearful family after that. There’s a human element running through everything you do, and no matter how strong your empathy and communication skills are, the emotional toll can be overwhelming if you’re not ready for it.
Of course, this is also what makes being a veterinarian so thrilling and gratifying.
What do veterinarians do? The short answer
Reviewing cases, follow-up calls, team huddles, maintaining patient records, payroll and accounting … and we haven’t even gotten to patient care yet.
What shapes your day as a veterinarian depends on many things, including the type of practice in which you work. In this article, we’ll break down what you can expect during a typical day from the perspective of three different types of veterinarian.
A day in the life of three veterinarians
Associate, specialist or practice owner? Veterinarians who own their practice have the most control over their schedule and the care they provide. However, they also take on more administrative duties and are responsible for recruiting, hiring and managing their team. That doesn’t mean owners are the only ones balancing a full plate, however.
With staffing and scheduling out of their control, associate doctors commonly deal with full caseloads and plenty of their own busywork. Specialists will see more referral work and are inherently more selective in the cases they treat, but could also find themselves in such high demand that they are still overworked.
The associate
As an associate veterinarian, you work for someone else. This is most commonly in a corporate ownership model, although independent doctor-owners will also hire associates. A corporate associate position can look especially attractive to new DVMs just coming out of veterinary school as it typically comes with a good salary and, potentially, a large signing bonus.
The typical day includes a full caseload from an appointment book that is largely out of your control; you see the number and types of cases that you are assigned. The pace is fast, and you may have limited time with each patient and client. Procedures are set at the corporate level, which can simplify operations and add clarity, but may not always line up with what works best in your community or with your assessment of an individual animal.
Another consideration is staffing. With corporate practices having a strong profit motive and wanting to attract talented DVMs, there is incentive to keep other staffing costs low. As Critter Fixer Veterinary Hospital owner Dr. Vernard Hodges explained, “if somebody’s going to give you a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus, that money has to come from somewhere.” Maximizing cases while minimizing staffing can be extremely difficult to balance, and the pressure created by this situation is one contributing factor of burnout.
Your personal experience will depend on the location, your clients and the policies of the ownership entity. For some veterinarians, the associate track is exactly what they need, offering a relatively simple and low-cost entry into the veterinary profession that can be financially worthwhile.
The specialist
With 48 veterinary specialties recognized by the AVMA, the workday of a given specialist can look very different from another.
A specialty can be related to the kind of animals you treat (such as zoo, aquatic or food animals) or type of care you provide (such as cardiology, oncology or nutrition). You might work in a brick-and-mortar hospital, perhaps alongside a general veterinarian, or on location wherever you’re needed.
Becoming a specialist requires extra training (and the associated expense) but allows you to focus on the type of animals or procedures you’re most passionate about. While choosing a specialty may seem like it would simplify your caseload, it doesn’t necessarily mean a lighter day. You could be taking referrals from multiple hospitals, spending long hours on the road or find yourself in a specialty where there simply aren’t enough veterinarians for the amount of work. Farm animal doctors, for example, are in particularly high demand: there can be as many as 106,000 animals per vet.
The specialist track is a great choice if you have a strong interest in a specific type of care, are ready for the demands of that particular specialty and don’t mind giving up some variety and clinical control.
The doctor-owner
As an independent vet, you have the autonomy to manage your own caseload, set your schedule, handpick your team and build genuine relationships with your clients and community.
Your day depends on the type of hospital you create, which is entirely up to you. You might see a mix of scheduled appointments, walk-ins and urgent or emergency patients. At the same time, you’ll be responsible for managing staff and taking care of the business, which could be everything from bookkeeping to marketing to ordering supplies and formulary items. An owner’s day is full of additional tasks that associates and specialists may not even think about, which is why many owners choose to hire a practice manager to help with administrative tasks.
Some ownership models, such as the franchise model at PetSmart Veterinary Services, also provide back-office support to give you more time to focus on care.
“I do a lot of the administrative work,” said Dr. Katie Manning, owner of PVS Southern Pines. “Even so, it’s probably only 20% in comparison to patient care.”
Hospital ownership can allow you to build your dream career. It’s the logical end game for many veterinarians and carries the highest potential return on investment, but also comes with financial risk and significant start-up costs. Just knowing where to begin can be a struggle.
“There are so many little things to managing a business you don’t think about,” said Dr. Thomas Huddleston, owner of two PVS locations in Las Vegas, “like all the different types of licenses and permits and things you’re going to need.” Still, since moving from a corporate associate position into ownership, he’s never looked back. “I can control the atmosphere, make sure it doesn’t become a toxic work environment and put things in the practice to take care of my people that you wouldn’t normally see in a corporate environment.”
Hospital ownership isn’t for everyone but it can be life-changing for many veterinarians. The extra effort is worth it if you want the most control over your schedule, your culture, your medicine, your financial future and your legacy.
This is why PetSmart Veterinary Services reduces the barriers to ownership. Our in-store hospitals come with built-in foot traffic in a premium retail location, reducing real estate costs, accelerating your opening timeframe and putting potential patients in front of your lobby from day one.
What contributes to a veterinarian’s day
As we’ve shown, what you do as a veterinarian depends on the career track you follow. Even within those main categories, your duties and responsibilities can vary wildly.
An associate’s day is determined by the policies and goals of the ownership entity, so working for a national corporation won’t be the same as working under an independent vet. A specialist’s day depends entirely on the chosen specialty. For example, an oncologist could take referral cases in the same hospital every day, whereas a large-animal vet might travel to a new location for every case.
When it comes to the doctor-owner, the normal day is, more or less, up to them, although they do have responsibilities the other tracks don’t.
There’s no single solution that works for every doctor. Take inventory of what’s most important to you — salary, autonomy, community, level of responsibility — and see if a move to a different career track could bring you closer to what you want.
Feeling stuck? Maybe it’s the setup, not the medicine
There’s no denying that the profession can be challenging. “Veterinary medicine is a tough field,” said Dr. Hodges. “It’s a great field, but a tough one.”
If you’re feeling overworked, undervalued or like you’re starting to lose your passion, the problem might not be the veterinary field itself, just your particular setup within it.
There’s no single solution that works for every doctor. Take inventory of what’s most important to you — salary, autonomy, community, level of responsibility — and see if a move to a different career track could bring you closer to what you want. If you’re a specialist but wish you had more variety in your day, maybe look into general practice. If you’re an associate and want more control, maybe it’s time to start looking into ownership. And if you just earned your DVM and aren’t quite sure where to start, know this: all experience is good experience, and any choice you make now isn’t set in stone.
The most important thing to remember? You have options. There’s more than one way to build a successful, fulfilling career in veterinary medicine.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What does a veterinarian do on a typical day?
A: It depends on the type of veterinarian and practice, but any given day will be filled with a mix of patient care, client communication and administrative work. An associate veterinarian will see cases assigned to them, work within the limits of the ownership structure and have a limited administrative load. A specialist focuses on a subset of animals or a particular type of care, and may work in a hospital or in the field depending on the specialty. A doctor-owner has the most control over their day and the medicine they practice, but must balance running a business on top of providing care.
Q: What are the daily tasks of a veterinarian?
A: A veterinarian’s daily tasks include patient care (administering vaccines, conducting exams, performing surgery, etc.), client outreach and management (patient notes, scheduling, follow-up calls, etc.) and assorted back-office tasks (where associate doctors have a lower administrative burden compared to practice owners).
Q: What is a veterinarian’s work environment like?
A: Physically, the veterinary hospital is a busy place. You’ll be on your feet most of the day and moving quickly between patients. Emotionally, it can also be heavy, full of excitement, meaningful successes and hard losses. You will see pets — and pet parents — at both their happiest and saddest.
Q: How many hours do veterinarians work?
A: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most veterinarians work full time and often more than 40 hours per week. Hospital owners have more control over their schedules but may end up working even more hours than an associate. Vets also commonly work weekends, whether associate or owner.
Q: How much of a veterinarian’s day is spent on paperwork?
A: This depends on the type of practice and whether you work as an associate or own your hospital. Patient documentation alone takes at least 2–4 hours per day but will be more for complex or emergency cases, according to VetRec. For practice owners, there is additional admin time for managing staff, budgeting, marketing, ordering and more, although some ownership models, such as franchises, can alleviate much of this burden.
Q: What skills do veterinarians use every day?
A: Veterinarians rely on a mix of hard and soft skills. Medical experience and clinical judgment are critical, but so are your communication skills and empathy. Practice owners also need good leadership and conflict management skills to successfully run their hospitals.
Q: Do veterinarians enjoy their jobs?
A: The veterinary profession can be extremely enjoyable and rewarding, but it isn’t always easy. On average, practice owners report higher job satisfaction and lower rates of burnout compared to associates, but the specific situation matters. Read more about the pros and cons of being a veterinarian.
