Education debt load represents a veterinary medical graduate's biggest challenge, experts say. Now there's a fast-growing
group specifically charged with helping students meet that challenge with business education.
It's called the Veterinary Business Management Association (VBMA), an organization created by students, for students, with
chapters in nearly all U.S. veterinary medical institutions. With 2,300 members, reflecting a 23-percent growth spurt since
2006, the group bills itself as the world's largest independent veterinary student organization. Its mission: to offer future
veterinarians extra training for the business side of practice.
VBMA's three newest chapters are at Michigan State University, Oregon State University and Oklahoma State University. The
group even has an international link with a chapter at Murdoch University in Australia, with another forming at Ross University
on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Texas A&M is the only U.S. veterinary institution without a VBMA chapter, but students
there are changing that, says Tonya Sparks, national VBMA president.
All the attention is a good sign, considering many veterinary medical graduates owe more than $100,000 in student loans, says
Sparks, a third-year student at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.
That burden, combined with relatively low starting salaries, is a new graduate's biggest hurdle, she says.
"It's usually very hard to balance that debt with the cost of living and doing business. Students need to find out what steps
they can take that will affect their salary — to bring it up."
What VBMA offers
Run by students, each chapter is responsible for its own programming, which includes hands-on experiences and lectures by
leading veterinary-business consultants.
A key objective for new graduates, Sparks says, is to learn how practices are run and how income is generated.
"Some at first may not realize how a practice that generates $1.5 million of annual income must divvy up that money — that
part of it goes to inventory, overhead, team sharing and other things," Sparks says. "They may think they're not earning in
proportion to what they're bringing in, so they have to learn to adopt the team principle and why the money has to be divided
in various ways for the practice to succeed."
It falls on the national VBMA to provide such business education for its members. The group plans to host a series of lectures
during January's North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Fla.
It's "our biggest project," Sparks says.
"We have to arrange funding, line up speakers and in other ways prepare to host about 100 veterinary students," she explains.
VBMA officers also are preparing an article for an upcoming issue of the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education. It's aimed
at "helping veterinary-college administrators and faculties better understand the value of VBMA and use it as a resource in
improving business-education courses," Sparks says.
The national group also works to enhance member benefits and perks by arranging professional journal subscriptions and discounts
on veterinary business and legal publications.
Innovative VBMA chapters
Local VBMA chapters arrange their own programs to advance business and practice-management education, and help members network
with professionals.
Some chapters are innovative, Sparks says, citing the University of Missouri group as an example.
"Ever hear of speed dating, where singles move from table to table, chatting for five minutes at a time with a series of potential
dates?" Sparks asks. "The MU chapter arranged something like that, bringing about 50 veterinarians and 60 students together
to network round-robin style."
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