The Vet Vault: Veterinary Career, Clinical Skills & Wellbeing

Why does a vet who's flat out every single day still hit a pay ceiling? Dr Andy Roark explains the hidden economics of veterinary practice, and an uncomfortable truth: the thing that makes us good vets might be the same thing holding our pay down.Andy is a practising vet, the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference and podcast, host of The Cone of Shame podcast, and one of the best-known voices on the business side of vet medicine. He works with thousands of practice owners and managers, and he's still in the consult room too, trying to figure out how to find solutions for a client with $150 to her name - like you. In this conversation, he picks apart the sum every employed vet has done on the back of a lab result printout: why is there such a big mismatch between what I’m treating and the number on my pay slip?In this episode, he explains:■ The Mediocre Industry Problem: Why it's better to be mediocre in an exceptional industry than exceptional in a mediocre one, and where vet medicine sits on that scale.■ The Inherent Tension: Why veterinary profession is one of the only jobs where we beg customers not to leave, and how our drive to keep care affordable puts the ceiling on what we earn.■ Where Every Dollar Goes: The three buckets that eat 85 to 90 cents of every dollar a practice brings in, and the one number that puts everything in perspective. ■ The Invisible Stress of Ownership: Why practice owners often feel real shame when pay comes up, and how much of the finances they should share with their team.■ Resentment as a Metric: How to tell when resentment is warning you about something, and how to choose what to do about it.■ Corporate vs Independent: What a US survey found about who earns more and who finds more meaning in their work, and why comparing salaries is so often the thief of joy.■ The Retail Model Mistake: The one thing Andy would change if he could rebuild the profession from scratch.Mentioned in this episodeThe 10th Anniversary Uncharted Veterinary Conference Cone of Shame PodcastThe Uncharted Veterinary PodcastBlunt Dissection with Dr Dave NicolQuestions With Crocker with Dr Tanasia CrockerFictional podcast StoryCorpsCome skiing with us (while you learn)Vets On Tour is heading to the Dolomites. It's a week of CPD in Canazei, Italy, from 16 to 23 January 2027, with a Dolomiti Superski pass covering 1,200 km of runs. The learning is excellent, the snow is better, and the après is non-negotiable. Book your spot here.Topics and time stamps| 2:38 | Money & Business in Vet Medicine – Why vets are uncomfortable talking money | 3:55 | "Money is not distributed fairly" – Mediocre industry vs. exceptional industry | 5:06 | The Disney World analogy – Why vets can't just walk away from unpaying clients | 7:07 | The Inherent Tension – Caring for pets vs. maximising revenue | 9:31 | Why Employees Don't See the Full Picture – The young vet's $50/hr frustration| 14:04 | Compensation is more than money – Benefits, culture, flexibility & context | 18:53 | Corporatisation & high salaries leading to unhappiness | 22:35 | Resentment as a Metric – Choosing how you suffer | 23:49 | The Dollar Conversation: "Andy, explain my pay" | 27:29 | The Anchor Principle – Why clients think vet care is overpriced | 29:13 | The Three Buckets – Labor Cost of Goods Overhead | 33:54 | The Invisible Stress of Ownership – Catastrophising & shielding the team | 37:53 | The Medusa Problem – Building trust before tackling money conversations | 41:37 | Empathy for the business owner – Shame, fear & emotional baggage around money | 45:49 | Corporate vs. Independent – Trust, meaning & pay trade-offs | 49:07 | "Comparison is the thief of joy" – Don't chase dollars alone | 54:42 | The Pass-Along Question – Redesigning the vet profession from scratch 

Ask most vets what feedback means, and they'll think of a meeting. Once a year - maybe someone explaining that you're not billing enough.Dr Liv Oginska reckons that meeting is barely feedback at all.Because real feedback is happening all day: the look on your face when someone walks in, whether you say the thing you've been wrestling with for three weeks, or take it home and complain about it to your partner instead.There's a famous quote: 'The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.'In this episode, we fix that. Liv shows what to actually say when someone goes straight to defensive, why you should never label their emotion, and the work you need to do on yourself first. Plus her practical advice on receiving feedback well.Dr Olivia Oginska is a vet, emotional intelligence specialist, certified workplace conflict mediator, lecturer at Murdoch University and founder of Human-Savvy. She's also just published research examining the links between feedback skills, psychological safety and turnover intention in veterinary organisations. In other words: does the way we talk to each other influence whether people want to leave? (Spoiler: it matters!)Somewhere in your practice there's a conversation nobody is having. It's already changing how everyone behaves. This episode is about having it.Resources and linksLiv's work: Human-Savvy  A new cohort of the year-long Human-Savvy League leadership mastermind opens in October 2026.The Human-Savvy Symposium - a full day of this, in person, Brisbane, Friday 6 November 2026.Stuck on a case and want a specialist's eyes on it? Come and ask in our specialist support space.Close to 700 clinical episodes with full show notes: thevetvault.com (click "clinical content")Vets on Tour - Italy 2027 and the Serengeti with Prof Jill Maddison and Prof Dave Church: vetsontour.comTopics and time stampsWhy Liv Researched This Topic (4:40)  Personal Feedback Stories: Good and Bad (8:11)  Sponsor Break (12:24)  Feedback Is Constant, Not Just Formal (13:17)  Defining Psychological Safety (19:48)  Personality, Environment, and Fear of Conflict (23:32)  Two-Way Feedback: Leaders and Employees (26:12)  Behaviours That Destroy Psychological Safety (31:15)  Handling Defensiveness (33:29)  Practical Roleplay: Giving Difficult Feedback (37:17)  Feedback vs. Other Causes of Turnover (42:53)  A Vision for the Future of the Profession (47:14)  Closing Thoughts (49:52)

What if the thing making your working day harder isn’t the workload?What if it's the building?In this episode we're joined by Jerry Kennard from ⁠Evoke Projects⁠, someone who designs veterinary spaces for a living and has watched a lot of owners get this expensively wrong. Because a practice build always starts as a dream: the right location, the beautiful fit-out - the clinic you've always wanted. But plan it wrong, and that dream can quickly turn into a trap that stifles growth and demotivates teams . And most of it comes down to five mistakes that are a lot easier to avoid before you sign anything than after.In this episode, you'll learn:Why falling in love with your site might be the single most expensive mistake you can makeThe "too big or too small" problem, and how to future-proof for expansion without drowning in debtWhy designing for the pet and the client but forgetting your team is a false economyHow lean design and smart workflow let you do more in less space, without burning anyone outA great clinic isn't designed to look good on opening day. It's designed to perform every day. Join us to find out how. For more episodes like this with practical insights for practice owners join us on the Veterinary Business Accelerator podcast. Join Hugh and Jerry on a Vets on Tour adventure: https://vetsontour.com/

Everyone says burnout. But Dr Sarah Golding thinks a lot of us are misdiagnosing ourselves.When vets come to her ready to walk away from the profession, they arrive with a vocabulary: burnt out, overwhelmed, imposter syndrome. Not one of them opens with the word Sarah reckons is often actually doing the damage:Fear.Fear of failing. Fear of the money conversation. Fear of the board, the Facebook post, the Monday morning debrief. And the big one, the one that shows up in almost every list she asks vets to write: fear of criticism, mostly from each other.Every fear you carry into a consult room was handed to you somewhere along your path - often by someone with good intentions - a teacher, a mentor, a friend. So we get into what to do about it. How to run a debrief that lets someone put a mistake down instead of carrying it for a decade. Why "don't worry about it, mate" is just as unhelpful as shouting. The difference between practising defensively and practising to help, and why clients can sense which one you are within seconds. Sarah's "debrief and dump it" process, complete with the literal bucket in her clinic that gets burnt at the Christmas party. And a small structural fix for the money conversation that has all but ended adult tantrums at her front desk.Dr Sarah Golding is a mixed practice vet in her second decade, principal practitioner and co-manager at Gowrie Vet Clinic in NSW, and this year a finalist in the NSW/ACT AgriFutures Rural Women's Award for her mentoring work through The Vet Mind Mentor.Somewhere in your career there's a case that wrote a rule about what you're good at, and what you avoid. This episode is about going back and reading that rule properly.Resources and linksSarah's work: The Vet Mind Mentor - the Resilient Vet Mastermind and mindset course, plus a free strategy call. Instagram: @thevet_mindmentorClose to 700 clinical episodes with full show notes: thevetvault.com (click "clinical content")Connect26, Greencross's conference, Brisbane, 7-8 November. Open to everyone in the profession. 20% off with code VETVAULT20: book hereVets on Tour - Italy 2027 and the Serengeti with Prof Jill Maddison and Prof Dave Church: vetsontour.comTopics and time stamps03:01 - Fear in veterinary practice06:23 - What feeling are we chasing?09:28 - Guilt, disconnect and early burnout11:58 - The six categories of fear13:33 - Where our fears come from14:30 - Mid-roll: Vet Vault updates16:05 - How we gift our fears to colleagues20:02 - System failure vs personal failure21:55 - The itty bitty shitty committee23:16 - Healthy caution vs paralysing fear26:22 - The debrief and dump it process28:24 - Accountability without shame34:56 - Imposter syndrome as hidden fear36:11 - Are vets more scared today?38:22 - You don't need all the answers40:02 - Defensive medicine vs helping46:03 - Consult room formula and money conversations54:45 - The changing fear behaviour activity1:01:57 - Schedule anxiety and work-life balance1:03:20 - Wrap-up: podcast picks and final thoughts1:08:22 - Advice for the new grads of 2026

I love any new tool that can make my life as a veterinarian easier and get better outcomes for my patients, so when I first heard about IDEXX's new CancerDx test I was excited, but I had questions! Like, how is a cancer screening test useful to my patients, how reliable is it, why can’t I just use FNA, and how am I going to incorporate it into my workflows?In this episode I chat to oncologist Dr Sandra Nguyen to find out how she thinks about this test for her patients, and where it fits into our lives as general practitioners. We cover:A genuinely memorable way to finally keep sensitivity and specificity straight The advertised numbers for Cancer Dx, and how that compares to FNA cytologyThe two clinical scenarios where Dr Sandra finds it most useful: the vaguely "cancery" dog, and annual screening in at-risk breedsWhy you should keep those slides on the shelf when owners are undecided about chemoWhat to actually do with a positive result in a happy, healthy dogIf this is the kind of clinical content you want more of, our full library of case-based CE lives at ⁠https://thevetvault.com⁠. Want to join us on a ski lift? Vets On Tour is where CE happens in ski boots, saunas, and the occasional conference room. Come find us at https://vetsontour.com/