Dr. Patty Khuly tells us about her remarkable journey from associate to practice owner and candidly talks about the struggles of selling a practice. This week on the Cone of Shame Podcast, Dr. Patty Khuly and Dr. Andy Roark reminisce about their days writing for Vetstreet. Patty opens up about her decision to become a practice owner, emphasizing her determination to maintain creative control and high standards. They explore the challenges of practice ownership, such as hiring the right people from the start. Patti also talks about her decision to sell her practice, aiming to return to her writing roots and focus on books. Gang, let’s get into this episode!
You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
LINKS
Dr. Patty Khuly: https://www.drpattykhuly.com/
Article by Dr. Patty Khuly: https://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/myvpnplus/why-owning-a-veterinary-practice-is-still-a-smart-move
Article by Dr. Patty Khuly: https://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/production-pay-perks-pitfalls/
Uncharted at HiVE in Minneapolis: https://unchartedvet.com/conflict-management-training-navc-hive/
Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Patty Khuly is a 1995 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s vet school and a 1997 graduate of its Wharton School. Dr. Khuly is an award-wining veterinarian known for her independent thinking, her spirited pet advocacy, her passion for the veterinary profession and her famously irreverent pet health writing.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got a great one for you here today. I am talking to my old friend, Dr. Patti Khuly. For those who don’t know Patti, she is one of my favorite writers in vet medicine. She writes for so many different outlets. She writes for pet owners. She writes for veterinarians. She’s in veterinary practice news. She’s at the Miami Herald. She just does all of these things as far as sharing ideas through the written word and she’s so creative.
And I recently ran into her and she was selling her practice, which she had gotten a lot of joy from. And she said it was time she felt like that chapter in her life was coming to an end. And then she talked about the challenges of selling her practice to other veterinarians.
And that’s what we talk about today. It’s a, It’s a lot about her decision to become a practice owner, to give herself more freedom. And we talked about, is that real? Is that how it worked out?
And then do it for 10, 12 years and decide that. That she’s done and there’s no reason for her to be done other than she wants to be done. It’s time to be done. Then the challenges that she found when she decided to go down that path. Guys, I hope you’ll enjoy it. Let’s get into this episode.
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Kelsey Beth Carpenter: This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Patti Khuly thanks for being here.
Dr. Patty Khuly: Thank you, Andy.
Good to be here.
Dr. Andy Roark: It’s my pleasure to have you here. You are someone who I have looked up to and admired for over, well over a decade. You, I, it’s true, when I, back in the day, when I was just starting to write, I was writing at vetstreet. com and doing stuff like that, and you were also writing over there.
Dr. Patty Khuly: I was working at Vet Street, too.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, and you had, you had a wonderful reputation, and the first time that I talked to you, I said, you know, I really enjoyed reading some of your stuff, and I said, well, how much writing are you doing?
And you listed the most writing engagements I have ever seen. Ever since I’ve never heard anyone who had as many things going on as you. You had multiple regular columns. You were working on all these different things. You were doing just freelance work, and just, I was feeling good because I was writing an article a week and still a lot of people are like that’s incredible amount of stuff you put out and you just work circles around me in the stuff that you make and it’s
really good.
You were literally publishing daily and and and you were practicing as a veterinarian. So you’re practicing doctor and you’re publishing literally daily and it’s good. And I just I don’t I don’t think I’ve ever I mean I I I I work hard, and I have made, I make a lot of stuff.
Buddy, I, I still am just in awe of, of your creativity and your productivity and how you’re able just to, just to, to turn it out. so, so Vet Street kind of went away, and you and I kind of went our separate ways, and I didn’t hear from you for a long time. And it’s because you decided that you wanted to be a practice owner.
Dr. Patty Khuly: I fell into it. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Okay, so tell me about that. How did, how did that happen? So here you are, you’re a practicing doctor, you’re, you’re, you’re writing, you’ve got a fairly rich life as far as doing a lot of different things that you enjoy. How did you end up in this practice owner seat?
Dr. Patty Khuly: I, I always worked at a practice. Since I was 10, I’ve been working at the same practice, and I, I’ve had a lot of relief and emergency gigs here and there in between, but I had always worked at this one place because they let me do whatever I wanted. You know, I am, I am not a good employee in general.
I think we were talking about that earlier. I’m not a good employee because I’m going to do what I’m going to do. You know, I’m going to practice the way I’m going to practice and I’m going to order, I’m going to get the drugs I want to get and order anything I want. And if you don’t do this, I’m just going to be unhappy.
If you don’t let me refer to the specialists I want to refer to, you know, I’m, I’m annoying. I’m just like not the easiest veterinarian and they would let me do anything I wanted. If my kid was sick, I would just be like, okay, I’m going to figure this out. I’d call the clients myself and tell them, Hey, let’s reorganize.
You know, I was, I basically ran things for myself through that practice. And so when they were getting ready to retire, I kind of figured that somebody else would buy it and, you know, but at that point it just kind of fell in my lap. And I bought most of it, and a small percentage of it I had my office manager buy in.
And non veterinarian, and she has been the best partner. She has done all the hard detail work that I haven’t liked. And I’ve done all the practicing and the hiring and the big picture stuff. And you know, it’s, I, we never even did a lot of marketing. It just kind of grew organically. I didn’t have to work too hard at it, except that, you know, it got bigger and bigger and bigger.
And so we renovated, we did all these things and I was exhausted. So I always stayed working for VPN and for the Miami Herald and the Miami Herald, I let go of a couple of years ago because that paper is getting smaller and smaller and frankly, they kept changing editors. So, but yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years, managing COVID, the whole disaster that was, and all the crises of a hurricane that we had.
And that was, so things got stressful because I renovated and I doubled the space and then, you know, COVID people kept showing up and I, I mean, I make it sound like it’s a bad thing. No, it was a good thing. I just haven’t gotten back to my roots, which I feel are just writing nonstop. And hopefully. Within the next three years, I will be getting to the point where I will be back up to my original writing schedule and mostly for myself, not so much online.
I am, I’ve decided to write the books that I always wanted to write. And that’s where I’m at.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I have a friend who’s a, who’s a dear friend and he owns a practice and he had to sort of reevaluate his life at one point because what he said to me was, he said, you know. He said as practice owners, we have created jobs that no one else would want to have. And I thought that that was really sort of sad.
But the thing I’ve always liked about, the other thing I’ve always really liked about you is you, you, you’ve always been that person who’s kind of done her own thing. When I thought about you owning a practice, I’d always kind of imagined it as something that would, you know, fit into your life and sort of support and sort of get I don’t know I just don’t see you being I see you making it into what you want it to be to support you. What do you think about my friend’s statement?
What do you think about the idea that you you can make a practice, you can own a practice in a way that gives you freedom instead of takes it away from you. Do do you buy
Dr. Patty Khuly: that?
I think that’s possible. I do think that’s possible. I just don’t think it’s possible for me. Because I am, I kind of, when I’m doing something, I kind of like throw myself into it entirely. So it’s very hard for me to, it was very important for me to do it properly, the way I thought whatever my definition of that was, and the same as with my writing.
And I, so it was like, it’s almost like I had to do one thing or the other. I thought I would be able to do it, both do them both, but no, not possible for me. Cause then I feel like I would have like a crappy this and a half assed that and I, that I felt like I, I really needed to do whole blog.
Dr. Andy Roark: What have you learned that you wish you knew when you started into this? Like if you could go back and tell yourself something as you were getting started as a practice owner and you were, you’ve made this, this sort of transition, you’re writing, you’re like, I’m going to do it. This practice kind of falls into your lap.
Yeah. What, what advice knowing what you know now, do you wish you had then?
Dr. Patty Khuly: Surround yourself with the right people. And not that I didn’t, I did, I just didn’t, I just didn’t work as hard to pursue veterinarians early on. I always thought, okay, I’m just going to grow organically. And, but you know, the crunch, I mean, obviously this hindsight is 2020, but the crunch of, of where we couldn’t find veterinarians to hire I, I wish I had gotten in earlier before that cycle hit, before there were so few veterinarians to hire.
And I think a lot of it is Miami too, because if you go to a major metropolitan area up North, there’s, there’s a wider variety of people who want to work independent, who want to make, cause, you know, We’re offering as good or better money than corporate. So there’s no reason why we couldn’t find anybody, but having access to those people it’s been, it’s been really difficult until very recently.
So I wish I had known more about how to approach those people. And now I feel like I’m better, way better at that, but it wasn’t something that came natural naturally to me. So that aspect, the human resources, wow, what a huge stress that is. And it’s almost like I should have hired somebody just to do that all the time.
And instead I have a practice manager or the, who balances her time and then a bookkeeper and, you know, these things. But. Not a dedicated human resources person. And so there’s that too. And, and I wish I had hired more certified techs upfront. That too. Just to hire talent early.
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, how did you, how did you come to the decision that you wanted to sell your practice? Was that an, was it a thunderbolt that, you know, was there something that happened? Was this a gradual decision? How did you come to this?
Dr. Patty Khuly: Well, we always said it would be a 10 year project and I’ve been realizing that, you know, the 10 years is up. I started realizing that two years ago. And I. I, I felt like, okay, I, I know we missed the mark where all these practices were being offered like big cash, but I didn’t want to go with that anyway.
I, that was like, it always felt kind of icky but it was clear to me that I needed to get back to writing because I was, I was not as happy anymore and even with all the stress of COVID and the stress of everything, I still felt happy and satisfied with my job, even. There were days I didn’t, obviously, but overall I did.
And then towards a couple of years ago, I started to feel uncomfortable in my skin again and just feeling the need to, to do something else. And yeah, those 10 years are almost up. And then my business, my partner, she said, I’m out, you buy me out, please. I got to get out of here. And so that was it. We said, okay, we got to sell this place and we got to figure it out and we’ve got two years to do it. And and we’re right now, we are in, in negotiations with someone. It’s looking positive and I’m happy with it. So happy with the process and everything. I didn’t think I would be.
Dr. Andy Roark: Tell me about your experience with, with deciding to sell it. So you and your partner, you say, look, we’ve, we’ve come to the end of this. We said we want to do it for this amount of time. It’s like, we’re feeling the need to sort of step out. Talk to me about start picking up there.
Tell me the story about your experience. And you had decided to, you were like, we want to give this, we want to sell this to other veterinarians. Talk to me, talk to me a little bit about why that’s important. I mean, that was clear. That was clearly a conscious choice that you made.
Dr. Patty Khuly: Yes. And I’ve always. Envisioned the idea. I love the idea of several veterinarians coming together to buy a practice and to just keep, keep it owned by veterinarians. Veterinary medicine for veterinarians has always felt like the smartest thing. Because, frankly, you get somebody in the middle, and who gets the money?
It’s never the veterinarians. I mean, sure, the veterinarians who work there, they’re going to do well, but they’re never going to do great, right? And I think that everybody deserves more of an upside than just production pay. but the reality is that we as professionals tend to be risk averse more so now that we have such debt.
add debt into the mix and veterinarians are very scared to make financial decisions and understandably, I mean, take, it’s a huge leap when you’ve got, you know, you still have 150, 000 left to pay off. It’s, it’s a really big leap. And I understand, trust me, I was still paying off my student loans until a couple of years ago.
So I had. A lot of loans. So, my risk was less because I was buying a very small practice. So, at the time, it was a very small practice, but again, my idea was like, hey, you get like four or five vets come together and buy this thing, and you guys are, you know, it’s yours forever, and you, but trying to get veterinarians together is like herding cats, right?
We, we, we all say this. It’s like trying to get like five cats into a small room together, forget it. It’s really hard. It’s hard. I talked to a few who were actively looking for practices to buy and I want, and everybody either wants their own thing. And that’s a very common thing. I had three veterinarians who worked for me, who wanted to become practice owners, who, what they really wanted to do.
They’re very ambitious people, but they just wanted their own thing. And then I kind of scoured around looking to see who in the area was, was looking to buy. I kind of like tried to get in asking brokers, like, who are you talking to? That kind of thing. And recruiters trying to find recruiters.
Okay. Like, do you know anybody who’s looking to buy a practice or who wants a structure something with a, with a deal to buy in? So I thought I was being very creative and clever trying to find these people. But anybody I did find was no, it was a no go.
Hey guys. A couple of years ago, I made a card game with my team. It’s called a What’s On My Scrubs. And a lot of you guys know it because it’s sold like crazy. I ordered multiple shipments and they just, they sold out as soon as I got them. I was thrilled that people liked the game.
I really liked the game. I decided recently that I wanted to make something else. Maybe not another order of What’s On My Scrubs, maybe something totally different. If you are a fan of What’s On My Scrubs. If you are looking for something fun to do with your team, that is also educational and we’ll make them laugh and we’ll do a little bit of team building. I’ve got something really fun and it is coming your way.
Okay. I can’t tell you what it is just yet, but if you’re not on the Dr. Andy Roark mailing list, check it out. Head on over to drandyroark.com jump on our mailing list. I write every week for that mailing list, you’ll get letters from me on Friday and then you’ll be up to speed,
as soon as we drop some information about this new project that’s coming out anyway. You ready to laugh and have some fun? I hope that you’ll like what we made. Alright. Let’s get back into this episode.
Dr. Andy Roark: So you feel like, it sounds like there was sort of a mixture of, of, of pain points, right? So, so you pointed out the, the, the financial leap. So you’ve got veterans that are carrying a lot of debt and the idea of taking on more was scary. I don’t know, do you consider it to be like an aversion to partnership?
I mean, or do you think that a lot of the vets who’s like, I would like to be an owner, is this because they have a specific vision in their head of what they’re going to build and, and having others involved would dilute that? Yeah.
Dr. Patty Khuly: Exactly. And, and I understand that because I’m, I, I’m like that too. I don’t feel like I’m the kind of person who couldn’t, who can work with other people I don’t know on a project. I have to be able to, you know, know who I’m dealing with and know them for a long time. I knew my, Partner for 20 something years before I started working with her.
So, and you have to have a certain level of trust in order to take that leap.
Dr. Andy Roark: What is your overall impression of practice ownership now? I mean, do you still think of it as as sort of a, an outlet
that can be positive in practice? I
Dr. Patty Khuly: Oh yeah, it’s brilliant. It’s the only, it’s the only, okay. Number one, if you’re not good at working for others, it is the only way.
Dr. Andy Roark: It is the only way.
Dr. Patty Khuly: Number two is, I mean, unless you get really super lucky like I did. I loved working for the two old guys. I call it, we call them the two old guys, loved working for the two old guys because they let us do whatever the hell we wanted.
And and I, I mean, that’s, that’s the reality, but in most places there aren’t that many mom and pops out there that you can just kind of. You know, work with and then get along with the owner. It’s still like, it’s their baby, right? It’s, it’s hard to kind of get in people who are always saying, oh, I want to buy in to a practice.
But then, you know, it’s like when two people who want something that’s, that’s their own come together, it’s inevitably it’s hard. So my recommendation is that definitely that veterinarians get into practice ownership and that they, and that they either start something in an up and coming neighborhood, but do it, do it low cost to begin with
or you buy something that somebody, an old timer really needs out as a small practice and build it.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.
Dr. Patty Khuly: So.
Dr. Andy Roark: I You’ve, when we’re talking about, you know, sort of, like, bumps in the road as far as selling and stuff. You, you’ve given very pragmatic answers about, you know, people collaborating and you, and, and access to capital and things like that. Patty, do you think the mindset of veterinarians today is different than it used to be as far as ownership, or is it purely just a financial, is it purely financial?
Because all this is really about, you know, being able to access the capital to, to, to do what we’re talking about, or, or to yeah, or or to or to feel comfortable accessing capital when you’re already carrying debt. I mean, do you think like philosophically it do you think that that the modern veterinarian has different ideas about ownership than they used to?
Dr. Patty Khuly: mean, it’s inevitable. Everybody sees the, the ideal practice is they want to practice the way they practice in vet school. So they want to practice at a place that has all the, the bells and whistles, all the toys and all the, all the access to the best labs. And I mean, not that you wouldn’t a small practice, but you want to work in a place that has certain very high standards and it’s, and it’s hard. It’s hard to start a practice like that, you’re gonna, it’s really hard to own a practice that’s already that established, that big, and, and yeah, a lot of, a lot of my associates, they work part time, they’re moms, they can’t buy a practice.
Dr. Andy Roark: So, so now that you’ve kind of, you’ve kind of, you’re optimistically, we’re coming out in a good place. It looks like, like you’re sort of working on a solution. You said it makes you feel good. You feel happy. Where do you go from here?
I mean, does this, do you, are, are you going to ride off into the sunset? Are you going to stay around and,
Dr. Patty Khuly: Oh yeah. I’m going to stay in practice and I’ll probably practice like 10 or 15 hours a week and I will probably also, and I’ll, and I’ll take longer vacations. And I will live off the interest of my earnings.
Dr. Andy Roark: Gotcha.
Dr. Patty Khuly: Yeah, and, and then, you know, maybe in two or three years just work exclusively as a writer. So phase myself out so that I can spend all my time writing.
Dr. Andy Roark: You write, you write everything that I’ve seen you write has some touch on vet medicine or animals. Is that always going to be the case? Or do you think you’re going to, may even move into, into other areas and just, and just, put vet medicine on it?
Dr. Patty Khuly: Nope, I don’t think so. You write what you know, don’t you? And, and I really know science fiction, but why would I write, you know, your standard science fiction when there’s so much material there in veterinary medicine, you know? I really know animals, so. Why would I write anything else?
I mean, it’s what I love. I live, I live right now on an acre with two goats, six chickens. I have four dogs, there’s cats, raccoons, squirrels. I have like animals all over this property. I, I, we have crazy lizards now, crazy reptiles on our property. So this is, this is the best. So why, why would I write about anything else?
Dr. Andy Roark: I’ll be looking forward to reptile science fiction from Patty Cooley coming up.
Dr. Patty Khuly: Oh, that’s an idea. I like that idea. You keep giving feeding, feeding me ideas. I could, I could write some reptilian science fiction. Well, you know, my chickens are just like the reptiles. They, they just, you know, Oh,
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. They’re just dinosaurs. Yeah.
Dr. Patty Khuly: They’re so cute. I could probably show you them if I picked up the laptop, but I’m not going to.
Dr. Andy Roark: Dr. Patty Khuly, where can people find you. If people are like, I’ve got to read some of her stuff, where’s the best place for people to find you?
Dr. Patty Khuly: Dr. pattycooley. com. Dr. Patty. K H U L Y P A T T Y K H U L Y dot com and although there’s that’s kind of old stuff, but I should I’ll start updating it now that you’ve given me the push and also Veterinary Practice News. I have a lot of old stuff up at the Miami Herald, USA Today, Huffington Post that’s pretty much it for right now the stuff that you could easily find that’s That’s not boring.
Dr. Andy Roark: I’ll link up some greatest hits. How’s that? And
Dr. Patty Khuly: Yeah! Good. You do it. Some of my angry stuff.
You do have some really good angry stuff. All right. Thanks for being here, guys. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. Take care of yourselves. Okay.
Bye. Thank you, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s it. That’s what I got for you guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks to Dr. Patty Khuly for being here.
Thanks to you for listening. Gang, take care of yourselves, everybody. If you loved the episode please feel free to write me an honest review wherever you get your podcasts. It’s how people find the show. It means the world to us. Anyway, gang, take care of yourselves. I’ll talk to you later.
