Veterinary Practice Management is written by 4 British veterinarians with experience in mixed and companion animal practice. It comprises 42 succinctly written chapters covering a broad range of management topics in 248 pages. The 3rd edition touches on a vast array of topics from getting started in practice to financial aspects of retirement, and everything in between. It has also been expanded to include veterinary nurse clinics, pharmacy management, staff appraisals, and management accounts. Each chapter averages approximately 4 to 5 pages in length. This format provides a quick reference to a management problem, requiring little time to read.
The Veterinary Nurse chapter is a welcome addition to the 3rd edition. It provides useful tips to incorporate the veterinary technician in practice revenue generation and client bonding. Practitioners under-utilizing technicians in their hospitals will surely appreciate the ideas presented by the authors.
The Staff Appraisal chapter outlines the method of appraisal preferred by the authors, which includes induction, and mini and full appraisals. In this chapter, the author provides an example of the appraisal interview questions that he uses in his practice. Although the example is helpful, this reviewer would like to have seen the inclusion of behavior-based observations as a method of performance appraisal. The legal implications of such an appraisal system are well documented and would be a valuable addition to this chapter.
Although comprehensive in nature, Canadian veterinarians may find the British terminology in this book a little awkward, especially the legal and accounting issues. Chapter 32 deals exclusively with Value Added Tax, which closely resembles our GST. Chapter 33, titled PAYE and National Insurance, is the British equivalent of unemployment insurance and income tax deduction from the Canadian employee paycheck. The retirement regulations also differ from our Canadian rules to the extent that Capital Gains T4 allowances are not the same. For those beginning in practice, additional source material would be required to fully understand the Canadian legal and accounting issues as they relate to practice requirements.
Apart from the aforementioned differences, Veterinary Practice Management provides a broad overview of veterinary management issues and would be of particular interest to those contemplating establishing a veterinary practice. For those already entrenched in practice ownership, this book may not be as beneficial, but certainly it would prove helpful in fine tuning or clarifying many of the management headaches encountered in veterinary practice. As a practice owner of 20 years, this reviewer found plenty of information that could be incorporated into present management protocols. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 22 entitled The Business Plan. In this chapter, the author asks 3 questions: 1) where is your practice now?, 2) where does the practice want to be and when?, and 3) how do we get there? Questions that we, as practice owners, should probably ask ourselves at least once yearly. The author goes on to flesh out a brief overview of a business plan to answer these questions.
Veterinary Practice Management covers such a wide array of management topics in a concise fashion that it would be unrealistic to say that it will provide all the answers to your management problems; however, as a road map to the oftentimes tricky management landscape, this reviewer found the book to be more than satisfactory.