Quality of life in practice

I had the pleasure of attending the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) Annual Conference in Melbourne this year.

This is a very well organised and run event, consisting of a four full-day conference, followed by a range of one-day workshops on a variety of topics – the only problem being choosing which ones you want to attend.

A highly sociable event, too, a happy hour takes place every evening in the exhibition hall, which is a great opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones. Australian hospitality and friendliness is well known, and I was wined and dined every evening.

Healthy mindset

A couple of plenary sessions were held, but for the majority of the conference, eight streams ran at once.

Health and mental well-being is really important in Australia and, at the moment, 20% of Australian vets will have some mental health problems.

I was very impressed to see the AVA had mental health and general counsellors available all week for people attending, and they were exceptionally busy. A massage service was also available for those who needed a quick 10-minute de-stress. This initiative started last year, has continued to grow and is perceived to be of major benefit to everyone.

Melbourne is a really trendy city, full of fine restaurants, trams and excellent shopping, and home to the Australian Grand Prix. The only downside was the conference being held in June – which is winter in Melbourne – so, of course, it was quite cool. The great thing about attending an international conference such as this is it gives you a completely different mindset and view of the profession in another part of the world.

I was able to take away lots of new thoughts and ideas that will help me both personally and professionally. Next year, the conference will be held in Brisbane in May, so if you are looking for a good way to spend four days, you might want to put this in your diary.

Staff care

The Aussies have always worked hard and played hard, and I was interested to see how they approached working life in practice. More and more farm practices are realising the value of the more “elderly” vets who have great experience and know clients inside out. When someone retires with a clean break, a great loss of knowledge, support and goodwill is experienced in practice.

Many practices have looked at ways to make a more balanced quality of life. Many farm practices are now working 9 days out of 10, so each vet has one full day off every second week.

For example, if you were on call the previous weekend, you would have the following Friday to Sunday off – a three-day break. When I was talking to younger vets about this, they really valued the extra time off and longer weekend.

It is not that big a deal to attract new vets to farm work, but it is a great challenge to keep them in practice and motivated. Anything that can add to improving quality of life has to be considered. Remuneration is important, but time off can have a higher value.

Some practices allow vets to take sabbaticals after a number of years in a practice. The amount the veterinary practice supports its vets during a sabbatical will depend on the number of years’ service and their value to the practice. Some will offer some pay for a period of time, but if you are taking six months off, most of this will beself funded.

It was really good to see lots of older cattle vets who were still enjoying work – many of them working part-time. One practice allows vets to start dropping down days after 25 years’ service; it has vets working three or four days a week, and still partners and makes allowances for profit distribution.

If vets want to work less than three days a week, they will come out of the partnership and are employed back as consultants. In fact, this option will be available to most vets and many enjoy carrying on with the clinical work, but without any of the responsibility.

They find releasing their investment from the business earlier has benefits, so they can go and invest it in, say, a nice yacht, second home (or fancy mistress!).

Practice growth

Most practices want to retain vets for as long as possible, provided they are not a liability. In the past, it was often the younger partners who were reluctant to look at alternative ways to make things work to mutual advantage, but that is now changing rapidly. The impression I got was the Aussies are far more advanced than in the UK in trying to improve quality of life and maximising the work-life balance to the benefits of everyone.

A significant number of practices are emerging. These are taking place to improve the quality and range of services they can offer clients, economies of scale, allowing specialisation of individual vets, career progression and an improved quality of life.

Many veterinary practice owners only work four days a week and are probably as productive – if not more so – than those working five days a week.

These mergers are taking place even with what we would often perceive as unmanageable problems, such as different fee structures and medicine prices for clients, and different practice valuations. I was very impressed at the positive and can-do attitude in this area.

• Part 2 – Tips on small animal practice management and profitability
• Part 3 – Happiness and well-being