One of the most disappointing trends I saw in 2025 veterinary medicine was the transition of some private equity-backed practice groups from their initial, positively-framed missions to strictly “extractive” models. This change was usually marked by a drastically reduced focus on patient care, firing of medicine-focused executives, aggressive cost-cutting measures, and a push for a significantly higher volume of appointments with fewer staff. The impact on the medical professionals when this shift occurred was really heartwrenching.
(Note that I’m not talking about corporate medicine in general here, or even all private equity groups. You can read my thoughts on corporates versus independent practices here. I’m talking specifically about investor-driven practice groups that awkwardly shifted towards their exit models while discarding or ignoring the leaders who cared about medicine.)
This transition is not unexpected, of course. Private equity has repeated the cycle of fundraising, investment, and “harvesting” over and over across industries. It’s just sad to see it actually happening to my fellow clinicians who pursued medicine for mission-driven reasons are now seeing their purpose overshadowed by the drive to maximize investor profits.
I think it’s important to note that veterinary medicine is a business, and a focus on being profitable is a good thing. If we want to have practices that can support their staff, maintain and upgrade their equipment, and enable ongoing training and education, then we need to generate revenue. Still, the stories I hear from clinicians who have been told their worth is no more than the number of dollars they can bring in on a given day leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’ve always thought people are willing to work much harder if they believe in the “why” of their efforts. I see people online saying they don’t care about anything from their employer except a paycheck, but I’ve always questioned if this could be true. Yes, people need to earn a living that meets their needs, but I don’t buy the idea that people are equally happy, motivated, and engaged when they are working for a purpose that matters to them versus when they are only working to maximize shareholder value.
In 2026, I expect to see more private-equity groups dump medical leadership and awkwardly shift into extractive phases. In these practices, there will be more conversations about profit, less emphasis on patient care, more appointments added to the schedules, and less help to get the work done. The clinicians will feel increasingly that their work is disconnected from serving patients and families, and more that it is all about driving profits. (Again, this won’t be every PE-backed group.)
My number one question going into 2026 is thus, “when mission and a focus on medicine go out the window, what are clinicians going to do about it?”
I’m not trying to have a call to action here. I’m genuinely curious about what is going to happen. Will veterinarians and technicians leave these practices to work elsewhere, or will they suck it up and get on board with the revenue focus?
I ask this question for two reasons. The first is that I’m genuinely curious about human behavior and how willing people are to uproot themselves when changes they don’t like occur. The second reason is that I think the culture of veterinary medicine will ultimately be determined by what veterinarians are willing to put up with.
In every organization, culture comes from the top. If veterinarians are willing to work for practice groups that prioritize (or seem to prioritize) quarterly earnings over patient care, I think that will change the culture of our profession. I’m not saying it will ruin everything or even that the change will be bad in the long term. I’m just saying the culture of our profession will be different than it has ever been.
If, on the other hand, veterinarians leave practice groups that allow revenue generation and operations to dominate the organization’s culture, then I suspect those organizations will either change or disappear. Right now, veterinarians as a group have enormous power in this regard. There simply isn’t a big supply of practitioners and thus if doctors respond to cultural changes by voting with their feet, they have the ability to affect what the industry becomes.
In 10 years, when there are 10+ additional veterinary schools turning out new grads and/or when mid-level practitioners enter the industry, I suspect this math will be different. But who knows what the world will look like in 10 years? For now, veterinarians still have great power to affect how private equity influences vet medicine. Will they use this influence by selecting employers based on culture, or are they going to be okay enough staying in organizations that de-prioritize medicine to operations? I think this question defines what medicine will be in the coming years. It really all comes down to the question of “what will veterinarians put up with?”
