What is the average salary of a veterinarian?

Average veterinarian salary?

• What can I expect to earn after I complete my DVM degree? What about if I open my own clinic? Is it profitable or better to co-own or even work for someone else? I've researched it quite a bit. I always come up with $40,000 to just under $100,000. The average being $70,000. But really I'm just looking for a quota from someone who is a vet and knows best.

• Answer:

  $40,000 sounds extremely low. I would expect a DVM (even a newly graduated one) to be making at least $55,000. Perhaps the $40k figure is for the shelter sector? If you open your own clinic, expect overhead costs to kill you for at least the first few years. If you want to want to be a companion animal practitioner, I'd suggest co-owning or working for an emergency/specialty clinic. You could probably make a substantial amount of money (over $100,000) by working overnight at an emergency clinic. Usually just walking through the door leaves people $100 poorer before they even see the vet, where at a "regular" clinic an office call is usually less than $40.