Parental Leave in Veterinary Medicine: The Data We Still Don't Have

There is a conversation happening in veterinary medicine that usually happens in private messages and closed Facebook groups. Women (and some men) are asking: if I want to have a child, what happens to my career? Do practices offer parental leave? What does it actually look like? How do I navigate this without destroying my professional trajectory?

Nobody has good data on the answers.

Three veterinarians who are also mothers have decided to fix that. Marieke Rosenbaum, DVM, MPH, MS from Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine; Emily Singler, VMD, R-PLC, a veterinarian, writer, and certified RETAIN parental leave coach; and Colleen Best, DVM, PhD, CCFP, a veterinarian, epidemiologist, and communication consultant, are conducting the first comprehensive research on parental leave policy in independently owned and non-profit veterinary practices in the United States.

They need your help.

Why This Research Exists

The question is simple. The answer should be straightforward. But in veterinary medicine, it is not.

How many independently owned and non-profit veterinary practices offer parental leave? What does that leave actually look like in practice? What barriers do practices face when trying to offer parental leave?

These are not theoretical questions. They are career questions. They are life questions. They are the questions that determine whether a veterinarian can become a parent without sacrificing their professional identity or their financial stability.

For decades, the profession has not had systematic data on the answer. Individual practices have made individual decisions. Some veterinarians have navigated parental leave successfully. Others have left the profession. Most have made the decision to become a parent based on incomplete information about what their practice would actually offer.

That gap between the profession's knowledge and individual veterinarians' needs is what this research is trying to close.

The People Behind the Research

Marieke Rosenbaum is a veterinarian and epidemiologist at Tufts University. Emily Singler is a practicing veterinarian and a certified parental leave coach trained through the RETAIN program, which specifically addresses parental leave issues in veterinary medicine. Colleen Best is a veterinarian and epidemiologist with expertise in communication and implementation science.

All three are mothers. All three are veterinarians. All three care deeply about whether the veterinary profession can actually support working parents without burning them out or forcing them out.

That combination of expertise and personal stake is what makes this research possible. They are not studying parental leave from the outside. They are studying it as people who have navigated it themselves and who understand what is at stake when practices do not offer it.

"We know veterinary leaders are balancing many competing priorities," they write in their outreach letter. "We truly appreciate you considering sharing your experience and perspective with us."

That acknowledgment matters. This is not research about what practices should do. It is research about what practices are actually doing, what barriers they face, what works and what does not.

What the Survey Actually Measures

The research is straightforward. The survey takes less than twenty minutes to complete online. It asks about parental leave offerings in your practice, what those benefits actually look like, what barriers your practice has faced in offering them, and your perspective on how important parental leave is to recruitment and retention.

All responses are kept completely anonymous and secure. The study has been reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board, which means the research meets ethical standards and your privacy is protected.

The goal is simple: build data on how commonly independent and non-profit veterinary practices offer parental leave, what those benefits look like in practice, and what barriers practices face when offering them.

That data does not exist yet. The profession operates without it. Individual veterinarians make career decisions without knowing what their peers' practices offer. Practice leaders make policy decisions without knowing what other practices are doing. The result is a patchwork of individual solutions to a systemic problem.

This research is meant to change that.

Why Your Practice Matters

If you are a practice owner, associate veterinarian, or practice manager at an independently owned or non-profit veterinary practice in the United States, your experience matters to this research. The survey is looking for perspectives from all roles because parental leave affects everyone — the person taking leave, the practice covering that person's work, the colleagues managing that transition, the clients whose care continues during parental absence.

Your practice may offer generous parental leave. Your practice may offer none. Your practice may have tried to offer leave and found barriers you could not overcome. All of those experiences are valuable data.

The research cannot answer the question of what parental leave policies look like in independent and non-profit veterinary practices without hearing from the people actually running those practices.

What Happens With This Data

Once the survey closes and the data is analyzed, the researchers plan to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals and share them with the veterinary profession broadly. The goal is to create a baseline understanding of parental leave in the profession — what percentage of practices offer it, what it looks like, what works, what barriers exist.

That data can then inform conversations about practice policy, industry standards, and professional support for working parents in veterinary medicine.

It can help practice owners understand what other practices are doing and what is realistic to offer. It can help veterinarians know what to expect when they are navigating parenthood and career. It can help the profession understand where the gaps are and what needs to change.

None of that is possible without data.

How to Participate

The survey is open now at https://tufts.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4MfpC8Xwwq4CTA2

It takes less than twenty minutes. It is completely anonymous. It is secure.

As a thank-you, participants can opt into a raffle to win a $250 Grubhub gift card to buy lunch for your team.

More importantly, you will be contributing to the first systematic research on parental leave in independent and non-profit veterinary practices. You will be part of building data that the profession actually needs.

The survey closes soon]. If you run or work at an independent or non-profit veterinary practice, take twenty minutes and share your experience.

This research is being conducted by Marieke Rosenbaum, DVM, MPH, MS (Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine), Emily Singler, VMD, R-PLC (veterinarian, writer, and certified RETAIN parental leave coach), and Colleen Best, DVM, PhD, CCFP (veterinarian, epidemiologist, and communication consultant). The study has been reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board. Survey link: https://tufts.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4MfpC8Xwwq4CTA2