Most veterinarians will tell you the profession is welcoming. Tripp Oliphant, DVM, says the same. But he also makes a sharper point: the profession being accepting and your hospital being accepting are two different things. And that difference shapes careers.

In a recent interview with dvm360, Oliphant, who is openly gay and married, reflected on how hospital culture influenced his earliest years in vet med. He was fortunate. His first position, a specialty emergency hospital, was unambiguously welcoming. He never had to wonder whether he was accepted. That freedom let him focus on something that actually mattered: becoming a better clinician.

"When you're comfortable and you feel that safety and you feel like you're accepted for who you truly are, then it's a growth environment," Oliphant told dvm360. "You can grow. You can evolve as a veterinarian."

The Profession vs. the Practice: A Gap That Matters

Vet med, as a field, skews toward acceptance. Oliphant acknowledges this. But he also names something practices don't often reckon with: clients are a different story. Walking into exam rooms can mean coming out, repeatedly, without ever being asked. Clients notice. Some adjust. Some don't.

For LGBTQ+ veterinarians, this creates a tax on their attention. A portion of every workday goes toward scanning the room, reading the situation, deciding how to present. That's energy that doesn't go into the patient, the diagnosis, or the team.

What Oliphant describes isn't an experience unique to identity. It's a version of something that happens across many dimensions of belonging: when team members spend cognitive bandwidth on whether they'll be accepted, they have less bandwidth for the work. The practice that eliminates that question, for everyone, gets a more focused, more present clinician in return.

What Belonging Actually Does for Clinical Growth

There's a tendency to treat belonging as an HR problem or a retention metric. Practices measure turnover and point to culture as a factor. But Oliphant's story suggests something more specific: culture shapes growth, not just retention.

He wasn't describing a hospital that kept him from leaving. He was describing a hospital that let him become a doctor. That's a different claim, and a more valuable one. Early career veterinarians, especially new graduates still developing clinical confidence, are forming habits and building competencies during years when the environment around them matters most. A hospital that requires them to manage identity alongside clinical demands is slowing that process down.

This applies beyond LGBTQ+ identity. New graduates navigating impostor syndrome, team members from underrepresented backgrounds, veterinarians with non-traditional paths: all of them carry an invisible load when the culture doesn't clearly signal that they belong. The ones who stay and thrive tend to find the environments where that load is lifted.

What Practice Leaders Can Do Today

Creating genuine belonging isn't about policies alone. It's about the daily texture of how teams interact, how leaders model inclusion, and whether staff see themselves reflected in the people around them.

Oliphant grew up in a rural community where he didn't see veterinarians who looked like him. He found acceptance when he entered the profession. Not every veterinarian has that experience. Practices that actively create safety, rather than assuming the profession's general openness covers them, are more likely to develop the kind of clinicians who stay, grow, and invest in the team around them.

What practice leaders can do today:

  • Normalize belonging as a clinical effectiveness issue, not just a culture talking point. Use that framing in team meetings and in performance conversations.
  • Conduct stay interviews that specifically ask whether team members feel comfortable being themselves at work, and listen to what they share.
  • Examine your onboarding and mentorship structures. New grads are forming professional identities during their first years. What is your practice communicating to them about whether they belong?
  • Review how leaders handle client behavior that makes team members uncomfortable. Having a clear, practiced response protects the team and signals that belonging is defended, not just encouraged.

Building Teams Where Clinicians Can Actually Grow

Belonging isn't a checkbox. It's the foundation that clinical development sits on. Practices that invest in genuine inclusion, not the buzzword version but the kind that actually removes the cost of belonging, get back a team that can direct all of its energy toward the patient and toward growth.

Rally by Hound helps veterinary teams build and sustain the culture that makes belonging real, not just aspirational.