Veterinary Science Professionals: An Exploratory Case Study of Women Navigating Careers as Veterinary Practice Owners

Although many studies have focused on women being underrepresented in science, technology, and math fields (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004; Dickhauser & Meyer, 2006), there is a gap in exploring the experiences and beliefs of women in the veterinary science profession, which was once male-dominated and has shifted to become highly feminized. The rising feminization of veterinary science was noticed as far back as 1962 when the University of California at Davis initially became aware of the rising number of female veterinary students. However, the desire for practice ownership decreased for women, showing only 38% of established female veterinarians desired to own a practice, while 61% of males still wanted practice ownership (Anonymous, 2012). Contrarily, in other fields of study, women entrepreneurs are responsible for substantial progress in terms of business education, corporate experience, and business expertise. Even with such advances in understanding women business owners and their progress over time, veterinary science continues to graduate and enroll more women than men, but there are significantly fewer women practice owners than men.;This study addressed the feminization of veterinary science and the gap in literature focusing on the perceptions of women veterinary practice owners by utilizing a feminist lens and the Possible Selves framework (Markus & Nurius, 1986) to examine how women veterinarians form views of themselves as practice owners and thereby enabling them to navigate through their careers within veterinary science. Each woman veterinarians' experiences surrounding their careers in veterinary practice ownership, depicted their successful navigation of their careers through the utilization of experiences and qualities found as underlying support for five major themes including: being self-driven and a desire for autonomy, an animal upbringing, experiences with mentors and other practices, hurdles of doubt, finances, and business knowledge, and awareness of gender within their career choices. . Additionally, this study discovered some women veterinarian practice owners obtained their professional achievements and strong Possible Selves by highlighting a gender specific characteristic of empathy to better themselves as practice owners.;This study aids existing theory by confirming assertions that gender, in some way, impacts the construction of possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Lips, 2004, 2007), but more importantly gives further understanding of how these women persevered to practice ownership. Additionally, this study provides recommendations for future research and educational practices.