13 + Interesting Veterinarian Facts

Did you know that the word “veterinarian” is Latin for “working animals”?  Thomas Browne introduced it to the English language in 1646. Today, millions of Americans bring their furry friends to vet clinics to receive medicine, grooming, and treatments. Veterinarians are essential to supporting our animal friends and family members.

Since so many people and their pets need veterinary services, how can you get them to your clinic? Below, our Weave team reveals some exciting veterinarian facts and information that you might want to use as marketing content on your online website, blog, or social media posts. Then check out how Weave’s Veterinarian Software can help support your online marketing, (to read more, click here).

5 Things Veterinarians Do on a Daily Basis

Let’s start with five things that vets do daily:

1. Most vets treat only small animals every day, with just a quarter dealing with mixed or wild animals.¹
2. Many vets focus their work on veterinary science, including disease research, disease control, and medicine. Some people assume that all vets handle animals every day, though veterinary scientists do not.²
3. Vet offices often purchase used machinery since dated models still work well, unlike machinery for humans.²
4. Veterinary care professionals risk their lives daily to promote animal health, resulting in a 50% injury rate.²
5. Each vet specializes in particular veterinarian services, like internal medicine, animal diseases, emergency animal hospital services, and infectious disease control.²

Top 5 Facts About Veterinarians

1. 1. 62% of Americans are animal owners, whether it be a cat, dog, farm animal, or something more exotic. ²
   2. Dogs are America’s top choice of companion animals, with almost 77 million dog pets in the U.S. and only 58 million cat pets, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.³
   3. Dog vet appointments cost more than cats at an average of $242 per visit versus $178.⁴
   4. Americans pay a lot for their furry friends, reaching a total of $31.4 billion for vet visits, pet insurance, and animal products in 2020. ³
   5. Houston, Texas, pays vets the most, with an average of six-figure salaries.³

What Are 3 Things a Veterinarian Does That Might Be Challenging for Most People?

Working in veterinary medicine may sound fun, though dealing with pets offers many challenges. Not only do you need to pass veterinary school, but you must care for unpredictable animals every day. Some top challenges include the facts that:

1. Vets work demanding schedules: Many who work in the veterinary profession work on-call, meaning they must be available all day, every day, for pet owner emergencies.^²
2. The veterinary clinic environment is harsh: Vet clinics are usually loud, smelly, and dangerous. Dog or cat bites happen frequently, and one in every two vets suffers severe injuries.^²
3. Veterinary school is challenging: The American Veterinary Medical Association mandates that vets obtain an American college bachelor’s degree and complete veterinary school with a difficult veterinary assessment.^²

Facts About Being a Veterinarian in Different Specialties or Jobs

The United States has over 32 veterinary medicine schools that offer different study areas of animal science.¹
Vets can choose between 46 veterinary medicine specialties when attending veterinary medical colleges.²

Private clinics employ 77% of vets that care for domestic cats, dogs, and other household pets.¹
After their veterinary school graduate programs, many American Association certified vets choose to work in public health sciences and veterinary clinical sciences.

Day-to-day jobs differ significantly between these varying animal specialties. A cat veterinarian practices different medical skills than an animal disease researcher.

Because of the demanding work environment and challenging curriculum, all vets are in high demand, especially for the less common practice areas. The United States can expect to see a 17% growth in veterinary jobs in the next few years, with about 4,400 new positions opening each year.¹

Besides the doctors, it takes many other skilled people to run a vet office. The jobs of a veterinary technician, veterinary assistant, or any other veterinary professional differs between specialties and job titles. Below, we discuss some of the types of veterinary specialties.

Small Animal Veterinarian Facts

When you think of taking your pet to the vet, you probably imagine the typically small animal medicine practice because those are the most popular animals to own.

Pets are popular worldwide. Aside from the U.S., where 50% of people own dogs and 39% have cats, other countries leading in pet-owning, according to a GFK study, include Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil.³ Other commonly found small pets include fish, ferrets, birds, snakes, lizards, frogs, and farm animals.

If you’re looking for a new furry friend on a budget, cats typically cost less than dogs since they are smaller, eat less food, and their medicine costs less. Cats are so popular that in 2020, people adopted 292,704 feline friends.³

Equine Veterinarian Facts

Equine veterinarians work solely with horses, typically caring for farm horses and racehorses. These vets must learn an entirely new set of skills to deal with such large animals. Equine medicine practice requires attending particular specialty veterinary medical colleges, like North Carolina State University.

While you may think horse medicine is in high demand, only 6% of all veterinarians specialize in horses.¹

Zoo Veterinarian Facts

While most vets work for private practices, many people do not realize that veterinary professionals can also work in government roles. For example, over 3,200 vets received employment from the United States government just in 2018.¹

Typically, government roles include caring for agricultural animals, exotic animals, and zoo animals. The zoo veterinarian specialty involves ample knowledge of a wide variety of different species.^²
Zoo vets must be able to understand how to best care for each animal within their habitats.

Zoo vets not only promote excellent family fun, but they help protect many different endangered species. They may work for public or private zoos. Their average salary is $126,558, according to Indeed.¹

Marine or Aquatic Veterinarian Facts

When you think about an aquatic vet, you may wonder why anyone would bring their goldfish in for medical attention or checkups. Marine veterinarian professionals deal with much more than your average house fish, including all underwater creatures that live in aquariums, zoos, or collectors’ homes.^²

Fresh and saltwater animals’ bodies differ significantly from those of a standard house pet. These biological differences mean that these vets must acquire a specialty degree to learn how to care for marine animals adequately. Luckily, this degree will be worth it since the average marine vet earns $102,464 a year, according to Indeed.¹

Facts About the Veterinary Industry

Weave surveyed over 510 medical professionals in February 2022 to understand the impact of labor and staffing shortages on small healthcare practices. Here are some of the findings that were found about the veterinary industry:

• 67% of veterinary practices expect staff turnover within their practice in the next 12 months.
• 76% of veterinary practices had 25% of their staff leave during the pandemic.
• 51% of small veterinary practices get complaints about their front office staff at least monthly
• During the pandemic, 30% of healthcare workers left their jobs because they were unhappy with their compensation.

You can read more about the state of the veterinary industry in this ebook.

Keep Your Pet Parents On Schedule With Weave

Every animal owner wants the best for their pets, and often, this means learning all about what goes into their pets’ care and treatments. As a vet, you can work to boost your clinic’s growth and bring in new customers by building content around what animal lovers search for often.

At Weave, we want to help your practice grow and flourish through our veterinary practice management integrated software solutions. Watch a demo or call us at Weave today at 833-572-2139 to streamline your business and keep your practice running smoothly!

Resources:

1. 1. Career Cornerstone Center
   2. DuraPro Health
   3. U.S. pet ownership statistics
   4. American Pet Products