The Ginkgo Divide: A metaphor for Vet Med (#454)

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.

That’s where the metaphor deepens. The veins are the shared channels that feed both lobes:

• The same veterinary schools and internships.

• The same licensing exams and standards of care.

• The same commitment to evidence-based medicine, compassion, and ethics.

Whether a veterinarian works in a one-doctor clinic or a 200-hospital corporate network, those veins of training, mentorship, and professional values still carry the lifeblood of the profession outward.

But the leaf also reminds us of tension and imbalance.

If one lobe becomes disproportionately thick - say, corporate ownership expands while independent clinics thin out - the shape of the leaf changes.

The profession risks losing diversity of models, local ownership, and the deeply personal, community-rooted style of practice that independent clinics often embody.

The stem may still hold, but the outline of the profession looks different.

Finally, that fan of tissue holding memory at the edges is a good way to think about history and culture in veterinary medicine.

At the outer edges of the leaf are the stories clients tell: the vet who came out at midnight, the nurse who sat on the floor with their old dog, the clinic that changed hands and suddenly felt different.

Those stories accumulate in both lobes.

The question facing us now is what kind of leaf we want to grow:

One where independent and corporate practices coexist in some kind of healthy symmetry,

or one where the weight of one half pulls the whole thing off balance.

The ginkgo doesn’t choose between its lobes.

It simply insists that they remain attached to the same stem.

Perhaps that’s the quiet challenge to veterinary medicine.

Whatever ownership model we favor, we can’t afford to sever ourselves from the common stem of professional integrity and patient-centered care.

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