There is a quiet crisis playing out in exam rooms across the country. Practices are short-staffed, teams are stretched thin, and the people most often caught in the middle are veterinary technicians. They are credentialed, skilled, and in high demand. And they are leaving.
In a recent interview with dvm360, Megan Chadwick, CVT, academic director at Penn Foster, laid out exactly why vet tech turnover keeps happening and what practices can actually do to stop it. Her answers are worth sitting with.
The Shortage Is Not Just a Pipeline Problem
The conversation around vet tech shortages usually focuses on supply: not enough people entering the field. That is real. Demand for credentialed technicians is outpacing the number of graduates, and that gap is not closing quickly.
But Chadwick points to something practices can address right now, independent of the pipeline: utilization. "Technicians just are not being utilized to the top of their license, and that's discouraging," she told dvm360. "We work really hard to go to school, do rigorous externships, we put a lot of time and effort into it, and we want to help."
When a credentialed tech spends most of their shift doing tasks that a veterinary assistant could handle, it does not just feel like a waste. It reads as a signal that the practice does not value what they trained for. That feeling compounds over time. It becomes a reason to leave.
The fix is not complicated in concept: audit what your techs are actually doing day to day, and close the gap between their credentials and their responsibilities. In practice, that requires intentional scheduling, trust, and a willingness to let go of old habits about who does what.
Pay and Burnout Are Still the Big Levers
Utilization matters, but Chadwick is clear that pay and mental health remain the core retention issues. "Some states and some clinics are just not there yet," she said of competitive technician compensation. "A lot of us enter this profession because we have a love of animals and we want to help, but we also have to live and make enough money."
Burnout compounds the pay issue. Long hours, the emotional weight of difficult cases and euthanasia, and the guilt of calling out sick when the team is already short stack up. Chadwick describes technicians who feel they cannot take earned time off because the practice is so understaffed that being absent feels like abandoning their colleagues. That is not a sustainable culture.
What practices can do:
- Invest in mental health resources for the whole team, not just DVMs. Access to counseling, peer support programs, and honest conversations about workload go a long way.
- Protect time off. A team member who feels guilty for using vacation is a team member counting down to burnout.
- Be transparent about pay. If a tech is underpaid relative to their skills and the local market, they will find out and they will leave when they do.
Invest in the People You Already Have
One of Chadwick's most practical suggestions is also one that is easy to overlook: support your current team members in growing their credentials. Practices that partner with programs like Penn Foster to help veterinary assistants become credentialed techs are building loyalty and continuity at the same time.
"They already sometimes are familiar with your clinic and have some knowledge," Chadwick noted, "so there's a better rate of success." An employee who moves from assistant to credentialed tech at your practice has been invested in. They have a reason to stay.
Tuition support does not have to be extravagant. Even partial support sends a message: we see where you want to go, and we are going to help you get there.
What This Means for Your Practice
The vet tech retention problem is solvable, though not by any single action. The practices that will hold onto their best people are the ones that:
- Use techs to the top of their license, every shift
- Pay competitively and transparently, benchmarking against regional data
- Take mental health seriously with real resources, not just wellness perks
- Invest in career growth, whether through tuition support, CE funding, or expanded responsibilities
- Staff for sustainability, so no one feels guilty for taking a sick day
None of this is revolutionary. But taken together, these practices signal something that vet techs need to hear: you matter here, and we are building something worth staying for.
Keep Your Team Together with Rally
Retaining great technicians starts with understanding how your team is doing before they decide to leave. Rally by Hound gives practice leaders real-time insight into team engagement, so you can act on problems early rather than scrambling after someone gives notice.
Sources: "Q&A: Retaining veterinary technicians," Kristen Coppock Crossley, MA, and Megan Chadwick, CVT, dvm360, June 10, 2026.