What do you see when you look in the mirror: practice owner, associate, or specialist?
Originally published in the June 2026 issue of West Coast Veterinarian Magazine
BY GREG TONER
Take a moment. Step away from the exam room, the appointments, and the endless stack of charts. Find a quiet corner and ask yourself a question that most veterinarians never truly sit with: when you look in the mirror, who do you see?
Do you see someone driven by the art of medicine—the joy of diagnosis, the satisfaction of a perfect surgical outcome, the bond formed with a patient over years of care? Or do you see someone who lies awake thinking about staffing models, overhead ratios, and whether there is a better way to run a veterinary practice? Both visions are valid, leading to deeply fulfilling careers. But confusing one for the other—or worse, never asking the question at all—is one of the most common and costly mistakes that veterinarians in BC make.
Such decisions are not simply financial but instead are deeply personal. And the sooner you get honest about who you are, the sooner your career starts working for you instead of the other way around.
THE ENTREPRENEUR IN THE WHITE COAT
Practice ownership is not for everyone; that’s fact, not criticism. Owning a veterinary practice means accepting that you are no longer just a clinician. Instead, you are a business owner, an employer, a marketer, a landlord negotiator, a compliance officer, and a financial strategist—all before lunch.
Veterinarians who thrive as practice owners tend to share certain traits. They are energized—not exhausted—by solving operational problems. They think naturally about systems: how to schedule more efficiently, how to reduce supply costs without sacrificing quality, how to attract and retain excellent staff in a competitive labour market. They are comfortable with financial ambiguity and can hold two truths simultaneously: this month was difficult, and the longterm trajectory is strong.
If you find yourself frustrated when workflows are inefficient—not because they affect patient care, but because you can already see a better system— that is a signal worth paying attention to. If you read your year-end financial statements with curiosity rather than dread, and you catch yourself calculating what a second location might look like, ownership may be in your DNA.
Be honest with yourself about risk tolerance, too. Practice ownership requires capital, often significant capital, and the income uncertainty of the early years can be genuinely stressful. BC’s real estate and leasing costs are among the highest in Canada. If financial unpredictability keeps you up at night and erodes your quality of life, ownership could become a source of chronic anxiety rather than pride. That matters.
THE CLINICIAN AT HEART: THE CASE FOR THE ASSOCIATE PATH
There is a persistent mythology in veterinary culture that working as an associate is a stepping stone, something you do while you figure out the real goal. That mythology is both inaccurate and harmful.
Being a skilled, experienced associate veterinarian is not a consolation prize. In the right practice environment, with a fair compensation structure and clinical autonomy, an associate can build a profoundly rewarding career—one that stays rooted in medicine rather than management. If what you love is the work itself, protecting that love is not a failure of ambition. It is wisdom.
Ask yourself honestly: when ownership comes up in conversation with colleagues, do you feel genuinely excited, or do you feel a quiet dread that you quickly suppress? Do you leave administrative tasks until the last possible moment or even actively avoid them? Are your most fulfilling moments in the clinic when you crack a difficult diagnosis or comfort a distressed family—not when you review the month’s revenue summary?
If so, the associate path—chosen deliberately, negotiated well, and pursued with professional pride—may serve you far better than a practice ownership journey undertaken out of obligation or social pressure. The key is to pursue it intentionally: seek contracts with strong compensation, protected scheduling, and clinical autonomy. A well-compensated associate in British Columbia can earn an excellent income without the liability exposure and administrative burden that come with ownership.
THE SPECIALIST: DEPTH OVER BREADTH
Some veterinarians look in the mirror and see neither the entrepreneur nor the generalist. They see a surgeon. A dentist. A specialist for whom the full complexity of a discipline is more compelling than the broad sweep of general practice.
There are many growing fields across British Columbia, driven by an increasingly sophisticated client base with higher expectations and greater willingness to invest in advanced care. Specialists who build referral reputations can command strong incomes, deep professional respect, and the particular satisfaction that comes from mastery. If you feel most alive in the operating theatre—if the technical challenge of a complex procedure energizes you in a way that a full day of wellness appointments simply does not—that instinct is telling you something important.
The path to specialization demands significant additional training and delayed earning—costs that are real and not to be minimized. But for the right person, they are an investment in a career that feels genuinely aligned with who you are. The question is not whether specialization is prestigious. The question is whether the depth of focus it requires would feel like freedom or confinement.
THE QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Regardless of where you are in your career—newly graduated, a decade into associate work, or approaching the point where ownership is a real possibility—the following questions are worth genuine reflection:
When I imagine my best professional day five years from now, what does it look like?
Am I energized or drained by managing people and solving operational problems?
Do I have the financial resilience and risk tolerance that practice ownership requires?
Is there a clinical area where I would trade breadth for mastery?
What does success actually mean to me? And am I pursuing that, or someone else’s version of it?
There are no correct answers. There is only your answer, and the clarity that comes from being willing to ask.
THE MIRROR DOESN’T LIE
BC’s veterinary profession is evolving rapidly. Consolidation is reshaping the ownership landscape. Compensation structures for associates are improving as practices compete for talent. Demand for specialized services is growing in urban centres from Vancouver to Kelowna to Victoria. The opportunities are genuinely broad—but only if you pursue the right one for who you actually are.
The veterinarians who build the most satisfying careers are rarely the ones who chose the most prestigious path. They are the ones who chose honestly—who looked clearly at their own strengths, temperament, and values, and then built a professional life around that truth.
So go ahead. Look in the mirror. Take your time. What you see matters more than you might think.
Greg Toner, CPA, CA, TEP, CLU, is principal at VetCPA.
Reprinted with permission.
