A Research on some socio-demographic characteristics of companion animal veterinarians and economic structures of companion animal clinics in Istanbul

Abstract

Having a pet has become an important phenomenon in recent years and Istanbul stands out as the largest market. The aim of the study is to shine a spotlight on both the veterinarians working in this field and the students who plan to work by examining the economic status of clinics and the socio-demographic structures of veterinarians in Istanbul. Studies were conducted mostly face-to-face in 225 clinics between April 2019 and April 2021. The questionnaires were sent to a small number of veterinarians via e-mail. The first findings were that 42.4% and 63.6% of the mean age of the clinicians are male and the majority were Istanbul University graduates with 77.3%. Vast majority had a negative attitude towards the opening of new faculties (24.9% Bad -75.1% Very Bad), and the majority (79.1%) had a negative attitude towards the provision of veterinary medicine education in foundation universities. According to the study, for the year 2020 the average monthly earning was 17618 TL (2499 USD) and 28.4% were less than 10000 TL (1418 USD). The largest income item was vaccination with 28.8%, and the largest expense item was drug expenditures with 23.9%. It had been determined that the average rental price paid was 9569 TL (1357 USD). According to the results, the average annual expenditure was 2822 TL (400 USD) for cats and 4516 TL (641 USD) for dogs. In addition, the annual average uncollectible receivables per clinic has been determined as 28444 TL (4034 USD), which meant a large loss of approximately 21 million TL (approx. 3 million USD) on a provincial basis. In general, the research concluded that veterinarians were satisfied with their professions with deficiencies in basic business information and could spend little time on their social lives due to long hours of work. From this point of view, it is of utmost importance to regulate the working conditions and to increase education programs in business matters during university year and beyond.