Dr Justin Ward is a veterinarian and practice owner from the Gold Coast in Australia. He grew up in South Africa where he studied veterinary science before heading to the UK for a 5 years stint of locuming and travelling, eventually putting down roots in Australia. After 4 more years of working as an employed vet, he had his first crack at practice ownership. In this episode, Justin shares his experience and the lessons learnt from when this first venture didn't go according to plan. But it was with his second attempt at ownership that fate took him to all the right places. Fast forward 9 years, and he is now the co-owner of a thriving practice that has gone from 1 vet and 1 and a half nurses to 9 vets and 22 staff, plus a stint as the AVA's brach committee president. We dig into Justin's views on what makes a good practice, what a good partnership looks like, and how to find the balance of financial sustainability without sacrificing your values. Beyond his own practice, Justin is also actively involved in trying to bring about sensible positive changes to make our profession better. In our conversation, we pick at the loose threads of the multiple issues that vets around the world are facing to see if we can unravel some solutions, and Justin gives some very solid insights on the stories we tell ourselves and the many GOOD things about being a vet. Visit https://thrivingvet.com.au/ to learn more about Thrive 2021 - AEA's 3-day team conference that has been opened up to the rest of the vet world. Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ for the show notes and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. If you want to lift your clinical game go to https://vvn.supercast.tech for a free 2-week trial of our short and sharp high-value clinical podcasts. We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) And if you like what you heard then please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening and sending a link to someone who you know will enjoy listening.

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