Who Owns the Microphone (Part 2)? Corporatization and the vanishing vet voice (#446)

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 it isn’t patients. And it isn’t the profession.

Let’s talk about corporatization.

Corporatization isn’t just about Who Owns the Clinic.

Corporatization is about Who Owns the Risk.

When you work in a truly independent practice and you post a critical comment online, you are mostly risking your own reputation and relationships.

When you work for a corporate group, you are also, whether you like it or not, risking the brand.

Brands are allergic to controversy. They prefer uplift to argument. They like awareness more than agitation.

So, corporatization doesn’t need to send out a memo saying:

Please don’t publicly criticize our protocols, our pricing, or our industry partners.

It just needs to make it clear that public controversy = reputational risk.

The result is predictable:

• You hesitate before questioning a popular but thinly evidenced treatment online.

• You think twice before publicly challenging company guidelines.

• You soften your comments on LinkedIn, or you say nothing at all.

  
  

On paper, you’re a clinician.

In practice, you’re also a brand ambassador.

And ambassadors do not start arguments.

Policies, Contracts, and the Quiet Art of Self-Censorship

Modern employment contracts and staff handbooks often include:

• Social media policies about not bringing the company into disrepute.

• Non-disparagement clauses that are broad enough to drive a horse trailer through.

• Codes of conduct that can be invoked whenever a post makes someone uncomfortable.

  
  

No one must enforce these aggressively.

They just must enforce them once.

A single colleague being called in for a chat over a LinkedIn comment is enough to send a message to everyone else:

Bold public critique is dangerous. Keep it bland.

That’s how self-censorship becomes a habit.

Not because veterinarians are cowards, but because the personal downside becomes too high and the upside feels purely abstract.

When Clinical Standards Become Untouchable

Corporate groups often roll out:

• Standardized clinical guidelines.

• Care pathways and gold standard packages.

• Approved formularies and preferred product lists.

On their best days, these documents are thoughtful attempts to raise minimum standards and reduce wild variation in care.

On their worst days, they function as dogma in corporate letterhead, tied up with revenue targets, industry partnerships, and marketing slogans.

Here’s the problem:

If publicly questioning a guideline looks like disloyalty,

and quietly ignoring it looks like insubordination,

then open debate evaporates.

Instead of:

Is this protocol truly supported by the evidence?

we get:

Let’s not talk about this in writing.

The conversation moves to the tea room, the car park, and encrypted WhatsApp groups.

Backstage, people are skeptical and thoughtful.

On stage, everything looks harmonious and pre-approved.

To the outside world, including students and younger colleagues, it appears there is no debate.

Who Owns the CE, Owns the Conversation

Corporates and industry now underwrite a huge slice of:

• Continuing education.

• Conference sessions.

• Sponsored webinars.

• House journals and internal newsletters.

Again, this is not inherently evil. Somebody must pay for rooms, travel, software, and speakers.

But sponsorship quietly shapes:

• What topics are amplified.

• Which experts are invited.

• Which controversies are politely ignored.

If you’re being paid to speak, you are acutely aware of which remarks will be warmly received, and which will generate stiff emails afterwards.

In the old days, a cutting letter to the editor might irritate an author.

Now, a cutting post might irritate an employer, a sponsor, and a marketing department.

That is a different level of pressure.

The Backstage Argument Problem

Corporatization hasn’t stopped veterinarians from arguing.

It has simply moved the argument out of sight.

• Clinical governance committees debate protocols, but their minutes are confidential.

• Internal message boards hum with disagreement, but no one outside the company sees it.

• Private social media groups host fierce discussions, but they are preaching to the choir.

So yes, we still challenge each other.

We just do it where no student, no early-career vet,

and no outsider can see how.

A profession that only argues backstage eventually forgets how to argue on stage.

We lose something precious:

• The public record of how a controversial idea was tested, refined, or rejected.

• The modelling of respectful dissent for the next generation.

• The reassurance to clients and society that veterinarians are capable of scrutinizing our own house.

This Is Not an Anti-Corporate Rant.

It’s a Pro-Conscience One.

It would be easy to write this as a simple morality play:

• Independent = good, honest, brave.

• Corporate = bad, controlling, cowardly.

Reality is messier.

I’ve met corporate leaders who are genuinely committed to high clinical standards and welcome robust internal debate.

I’ve also seen independent owners shut down staff who dared question how we’ve always done it.

The point is not that corporates are villains.

The point is that corporatization amplifies the cost of public dissent unless someone consciously counters that tendency.

If a large group wanted to, it could become a champion of open professional debate:

• Explicitly protecting employees who raise evidence-based concerns in good faith.

• Publishing anonymized internal case debates as teaching material.

• Encouraging staff to write signed letters and commentaries about evolving standards of care.

• Sponsoring independent fora where vigorous argument about drugs, diagnostics, pricing and ethics, is not just tolerated but celebrated.

But that requires a philosophical shift:

From protect the brand from discomfort

to protect the profession from complacency.

So, What Can an Individual Vet Do?

If you’re working under a logo and you want to keep your voice, what’s realistic?

A few thoughts:

• Know your contract.

• Understand the social-media and non-disparagement clauses.

• Fear is often worst when everything is vague.

• If necessary, ask for clarification in writing.

• Distinguish critique of ideas from attacks on institutions or individuals.

• The evidence for routine use of X is weak is different from Company Y is unethical.

• Stay on the clinical and scientific ground as much as you can.

• State your perspective clearly.

• These views are my own, based on current literature and my clinical experience.

• It won’t magically protect you, but it frames the discussion correctly.

• Choose your platforms strategically.

• Use closed, profession-only spaces (VIN, specialty forums, listserves) for very sharp or very technical critiques.

• Use public platforms (LinkedIn, conferences, published letters) for carefully worded, high-signal contributions that you’d be comfortable reading aloud to your employer.

• Support and amplify others who speak sensibly.

• When someone posts a thoughtful critique, engage constructively.

• Silence leaves them exposed.

• A few calm, supportive voices change the tone of an entire thread.

• If you’re a leader, say so out loud.

• If you are a practice owner, medical director, or corporate leader, explicitly tell your team: You will not be punished for respectful, evidence-based disagreement, internally or externally.

• Then prove it when the first uncomfortable post appears.

Profession First, Logo Second

Corporatization is not going away.

The question is not How do we go back? but How do we grow a spine inside this new body?

Imagine a future where:

• Corporate clinics proudly advertise that they support open professional debate.

• Letters to the editor are alive again, some from independents, some from corporate staff, all written under real names.

• Industry-sponsored CE includes openly critical voices on stage, not just on the sidelines.

• Younger vets see that it is normal to question, refine, and sometimes reject the prevailing wisdom, without losing your job.

  
  

That would be corporatization with a conscience.

Not a muzzled profession wearing a shiny badge.

Rick’s Commentary

In Part 1 I asked:

Are we still writing the letters?

In this part, let me sharpen it:

When your clinic belongs to someone else,

do your words still belong to you?

If the honest answer is not really, then we have work to do.

Because veterinary medicine does not just need more investors, more consolidations, more logos, and more marketing campaigns.

It needs something much rarer:

Clinicians who are willing and allowed to say:

I respect you. I respect our patients. I respect the evidence.

And for that reason, I disagree.

Corporatization can try to own the microphone.

But the voice? That’s still ours, if we choose to use it.

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