Can You Be a Successful Veterinary Practice in a Fast-changing World?

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus, quoted by plato, was known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe with sayings such as ‘Everything flows, nothing stands still’ and ‘nothing endures but change’ which has been translated into ‘the only constant is change’. We can experience this ourselves as we grow from birth, through childhood into adulthood and death, through each different season in the year, the growth of human knowledge, the changes in climate and geography (ice age etc.) and the evolution of the veterinary profession! How do we cope with change? it is possible to try and ignore it by ‘burying our head in the sand’ or as Heraclitus said ‘He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored’ but out- side change has a habit of disturbing our view of maintaining the status quo through new legislation that permits pharmacies to sell veterinary drugs or non-veterinarians can become owners of veterinary practices.

We can turn once again to the Greeks to provide us with the word ‘paradigm’ to help us to understand the patterns or models of change and its application to science and soci- ety. thomas Kuhn in his book ‘the structure of scientific revolutions’ used the word par- adigm to define it in the scientific context as ‘universally recognised scientific achieve- ments that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of researchers’. Kuhn saw the sciences experiencing ‘normal science’ when an existing model of reality dominates how to solve problems and then ‘revolution’ when the model changes suddenly with a ‘paradigm shift’. it is therefore crucial if we want to con- tinue to be a successful veterinary practice that we are aware of the changes that are taking place that will impact our practice in veterinary medicine, in technology (mobile communications, 3D printers etc.), in the economy (boom or bust), with new legislation and to the environment. We need to be aware of change and decide for our practice how to change and succeed or we may be forced to change by outside pressures with new demands from our pet-owning clients or competition from new forms of veterinary practice.