The Veterinary Economics archive: What a trip
In putting this issue together, the Veterinary Economics content team had a couple of opportunities to delve into the archives to check facts: one to verify the title of an article by Dr. Ross Clark in the early 1980s, and another to check the year that our 2012 Hospital of the Year last won a Hospital Design award.
In putting this issue together, the Veterinary Economics content team had a couple of opportuniies to delve into the archives to check facts: one to verify the title of an article by Dr. Ross Clark in the early 1980s (see "Veterinary practice management by the open book"), and another to check the year that our 2012 Hospital of the Year last won a Hospital Design award.
Kristi Reimer
Trips into the archive are often entertaining, especially when we spot a familiar face with more hair, a fabulously woolly 'stache, or glasses the size of dinner plates. It's also interesting to see what people were riled up about: student debt, too many veterinarians entering the marketplace, changing vaccine protocols ... has anything really changed in the last 20-plus years?
Of course, some things have changed dramatically. I looked at one 1987 ad for a fogger for flea-infested homes. The advent of topical flea products in the mid-1990s transformed the battle against ecto-parasites, allowing veterinarians and pet owners alike to attain a previously unheard-of level of control over these itchy pests.
Presenting this year's Hospital of the Year, Coral Springs Animal Hospital in Coral Springs, Fla., as the "hospital of the future" got us to wondering what it will be like when future generations of Veterinary Economics editors look back through the archives and find this issue. What will their reaction be? Will we—and the hospitals we single out for honor—have aged gracefully? Will our hairstyles draw howls of laughter? Will today's cool, cutting-edge trends prove in a couple of decades to have missed the mark entirely? Is there some development just ahead that will turn the industry upside-down? And, of course, of utmost importance: Will veterinarians and team members swoop around their hospitals with jet packs strapped to their backs?
These are the burning questions invoked by the magazine archives. What are your predictions for the future? Let us know at the e-mail address below, or post them online at dvm360.com/comment/.
Kristi Reimer, Editor
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