We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paula J Broadfoot a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Paula J, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

My husband, Jeff, and I found ourselves in Arkansas, mid winter, 7 months out of vet school with half a dozen horses, 4 dogs, 3 cats, and no job. It was either pack up that menagerie and go back to Kansas, or embark on our own. Fortunately, I had worked on a mini-series, “The Blue and the Gray” and had put some money aside to keep us afloat until we could get started. We started in a little rented building, in which Jeff constructed walls, and put our sign on the road in May 1982. Jeff went to work for the USDA, so we could actually eat. It takes a while to get established. Within a few years, we bought property on that same highway and built a clinic. Best thing that ever happened to us, professionally. It gave me the latitude to go where the medicine took me- supplements, complex homeopathics, nutritionals…. and, with time, lecturing around the world, creating supplements and developing the absolute best network of friends and colleagues I could dream to have.

If I were to give any advice, it might be to build what you can rationally afford, with an eye to expanding later. Don’t get so bogged down in the finances that you don’t have time to enjoy life. And, if given the opportunity to expand your horizons, do it. I once turned down an opportunity to lecture in Africa, because I didn’t have any relief help. I never made that mistake again. And, my practice survived without me for 7-10 days at a time, perhaps because I didn’t owe vast amounts of money to the bank. We raised 4 kids on a modest salary, paid our properties off early, and now that I am old enough to retire, I can do that if and when I desire. It’s all about balance. And, I may practice until I am too old to drive to the clinic. (or, maybe, I’ll hire a driver….)

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an Integrative Veterinarian, so I use conventional medicine and complementary therapeutics, which is skewed heavily toward the complementary side. After too many years of college, my husband and I graduated and moved to Arkansas. My passion has always been to find the best ways to improve the health and well being of my patients and their owners, by extension. I like to think that our clients feel like we treat their fur babies as individuals, with unique histories and needs. We strive to find the best approach to give them long and healthy lives, or if they have dire illnesses, to maintain quality of life, rather than quantity of days. We have developed supplements based on experience with nutriceuticals and foods that have proven to be helpful in treatment of dis-ease, or useful to promote vibrant health.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

Although practice has had ups and downs, I can’t feature doing anything else. Early on, I thought I had to be able to do “everything”, as a general practitioner. At some point in time, I realized that I just don’t like some aspects of practice and there are others who like that work. e.g. surgery, emergencies, etc. I am busy enough doing other things, that I can happily refer patients to veterinarians who like and are talented at, things I don’t enjoy. I don’t consider care of pets to be a “competition”, where we have to scrap for every patient and client. Many of my clients use other clinics for some things, and come to me for holistic care or followup. Sometimes, we get to be the “line of last resort”, when nothing else has worked. But, we still strive to find the best course of action for those patients. I will note that NONE of my four children elected to be veterinarians, perhaps d/t being dragged out of the house at all hours of the night, back when we were doing emergencies. LOL However, 2 of them ARE in the medical field. So there’s that….

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start?

Actually, this is probably not that helpful. When we started out, we couldn’t get a bank to loan us $500 to rent a building and get started. I think that qualifies us as dinosaurs. LOL We borrowed money from Jeff’s parents, rented a building, and started on a shoestring. We survived. People heard about us via word of mouth, and we grew steadily. There was no internet, social media, et.al. We may have had an announcement in the paper. When Jeff went to work for the USDA, we weren’t strapped for cash and what the clinic produced, went back into the business. As I noted earlier, within a few years, we bought property (2.5 acres) a few miles down the road, and built a small clinic. We paid back Jeff’s folks within a year, and have never looked back. I got a laugh years later, when I was at a conference considering a purchase of blood analysing equipment. I called the bank to inquire about a loan, and got “how much do you need, and when do you need it?” A far cry from the refusal to loan us $500 in 1982!

Contact Info:

• Website: drpjb.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BroadfootVeterinaryClinic/