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Looking up the ownership structure of your local vet clinic in Europe may be complicated . It's likely that your clinic is part of a sprawling European portfolio, controlled not by the people working in the building, but by private equity funds in London, Stockholm and New York, or by global conglomerates whose real business is pet food, junk food for people, and financial engineering. Just as in Australia [ see Corporate Greed (Part 4) in this series ], this is less a tale o

In earlier parts of this series about corporate greed, I’ve argued that the rapid consolidation of veterinary practices into large corporate groups and private equity structures is reshaping our profession, for better and for worse. I’ve raised concerns about transparency of ownership, pressure on clinical autonomy, and the way return-on-investment expectations can shape decision making in the consult room. A reply to the following blog post from someone who’s worked on the c

Walk into many Australian veterinary clinics in 2025 and the signage still whispers family practice : familiar names, smiling vets on the wall, the reassuring language of local care . Look behind the logo, though, and you often find something else entirely. A global private-equity fund in Stockholm, New York, Sydney or Toronto, quietly extracting returns from the love Australians have for their animals. This is not a morality play about good and bad ownership. It is a caution

Veterinary medicine, once a calling driven by compassio n, community , and a deep sense of duty to animal welfare , is facing a quiet but growing crisis. A crisis rooted in corporate greed . Over the past two decades, a wave of consolidation has transformed the profession. Small, independently owned veterinary clinics are being swallowed up by private equity firms and large corporations. The consequences, for pets, their owners, and the professionals who care for them, are be

(Part 1 of Canine Brains, Human Profits was published in November 2025 here: https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/canine-brains-human-profits-part-1-toward-fair-collaboration-in-neuro-oncology-455 ) Veterinary neurosurgery now sits at a crossroads where clinical care , comparative oncology , and commercial innovation increasingly overlap. Laser interstitial thermal therapy, high-frequency electroporation, and systemic mRNA platforms are no longer theoretical tools. They are b

Every year, tens of thousands of veterinarians file into convention centers, hotel ballrooms, and exhibition halls to fulfill their CE requirements. We trust that what we hear in those rooms is guided by science, not sales. We assume that topics are chosen because they’re important for animal health, and that speakers are selected for their expertise, not for their logo affiliations. But here’s the uncomfortable surprise I ran into when I went looking for hard data on this to

George Orwell  gave us a useful little word for a very modern problem: Doublethink . The ability to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time, and to believe both. In Orwell’s 1984  it sounded extreme: “2 + 2 = 5” and “2 + 2 = 4” living side by side in the same brain. Today, we don’t have a 1984 Ministry of Truth , but we do have something more polite and better dressed: University leaders who are expected to be wholly dedicated to the public good, while also s

In both settings, the veterinary resident is in the middle of a quiet crisis. But the shape   of that crisis, and the forces driving it, look different in a university teaching hospital than in a private specialist practice. Think of them as two parallel worlds with the same young clinician at the center, pulled by different kinds of gravity. Who is the Resident? In a university teaching hospital.   The resident is, officially, a learner  and a teacher .   Patients and client

When your dog is vomiting at 2 a.m. or your cat suddenly stops eating, you aren’t thinking about private equity, holding companies, or corporate structures. You’re thinking about trust . You want a veterinarian who listens, explains, and puts your pet ahead of profit. But behind the friendly faces at the front desk, the ownership of veterinary hospitals has changed dramatically. In many countries, a growing share of clinics are now owned or funded by large corporations and pr

In the past few months, three papers using dogs as models for brain tumor research have landed on my desk, and they’ve been hard to stop thinking about. The first , by John Rossmeisl and colleagues, explores how high-frequency irreversible electroporation (H-FIRE) reshapes tumor-derived extracellular vesicles and nudges the brain’s immune landscape. https://www.scilit.com/publications/4f97ed7da675ba231c52663a0d387ed9 The second , led by Sheila Carrera-Justiz, reports a system

The ginkgo leaf holds two distinct lobes on a single stem. You can think of one lobe as the independent practice  and the other as the corporate practice . They look separate, even pull in slightly different directions, but they’re joined at the same base: the veterinary profession’s oath to relieve suffering, protect animal welfare, and serve the bond between people and their animals. Hold the leaf up to the light and you see those veins radiating out like a river delta. Tha

In climate science, we talk about tipping points , externalities , and a just transition . These are not just abstract terms for melting ice sheets and coal plants. They are also a remarkably accurate vocabulary for what is happening to veterinary medicine in 2025. Veterinary care, like the climate, is being reshaped by powerful economic forces that gather momentum quietly and then suddenly feel unstoppable. The question in both arenas is no longer whether change is occurring

There aren’t many marketing professors who become household names, fewer still who manage to turn balance sheets and antitrust policy into compelling storytelling. Scott Galloway , NYU Stern professor, serial entrepreneur, podcaster, columnist, and now commentator on masculinity, has somehow done exactly that. At a moment when tech feels untouchable, politics feels tribal, and a lot of young people feel lost, Galloway has positioned himself as a kind of blunt, data-driven unc

In Marvel Comics, the Juggernaut  (aka. Cain Marko ) has a brutally simple power set. Once he starts moving, he cannot be stopped. Gifted with mystical strength by the entity Cyttorak , he becomes a living avalanche. Walls crumble, streets tear open, heroes scatter. And yet, for all his brute force, he has a weakness. Remove his helmet and telepaths can pierce his mind, slow him, even bring him down. The Crimson Gem of Cyttorak: Where the Power Comes From Juggernaut was not b

In Part 1 , I asked a simple question: Where, in 2025, does our profession openly and respectfully challenge one another’s ideas? We talked about the demise of letters to the editor, the rise of VIN and WhatsApp groups, and the strange new world where LinkedIn has become a kind of global hallway conversation for veterinary medicine. But there’s another question sitting behind all of this, and it’s more uncomfortable: Who benefits when veterinarians say less in public? Because

Once upon a time, if you wanted to challenge an idea in veterinary medicine, you wrote a letter. You read an article in a journal, you disagreed with the conclusions, or the statistics, or the ethics, and you put pen to paper. A few weeks or months later, your letter appeared in print alongside a reply from the author. The whole profession could see the debate, in black and white, preserved for the record. It wasn’t perfect, but it was authentic  and ours . It was slow, thoug

In veterinary medicine, as in many professions, we often celebrate the stars . The surgeon with flawless hands. The diagnostician who spots the zebra in a herd of horses. The researcher whose name appears first on a publication. But in doing so, we sometimes forget that modern veterinary care is not a solo performance. It is a symphony. One that falters if even a single instrument is ignored. The Problem with Stardom in Veterinary Culture Most clinics and teaching hospitals

Artificial intelligence has entered the world of scientific publishing with astonishing speed. What began as a convenience for grammar correction and language polishing has evolved into something far more potent: an analytical assistant , a reference engine , and, increasingly, a silent reviewer . The appearance of AI-generated text in manuscripts, and even AI-assisted peer reviews, has raised fundamental questions. What happens when artificial intelligence becomes not just a

For much of the late 20th century, veterinary neurology and neurosurgery were disciplines dominated by the United States, driven by large academic centers, NIH-funded comparative studies, and the early establishment of the Neurology Specialty of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) . Yet, over the past two decades, a quiet but unmistakable seismic shift has occurred. Europe has not only caught up but now appears to lead the world in research productiv

The White House stands with its East Wing demolished beside a veterinary hospital partially destroyed. This is a shared metaphor for the erosion of dignity in both governance and medicine, and the hope of restoration through integrity.   I have been following the destruction of the White House East Wing with sadness and reflection. Then it occurred to me. Could this be a metaphor for what is happening in veterinary medicine? The Meaning of the People’s House There’s a certain