MentorVet
Dr. Addie Reinhard founded MentorVet in 2021 to help early-career veterinarians. After practicing full-time for four years as a primary-care companion animal doctor, she had experienced severe burnout several times. Recognizing that her mentors in those years had made a significant difference in her ability to stay in the profession as long as she did, she developed the MentorVet Leap program, which combined professional skills training, online learning, and peer support meetings.
MentorVet’s mission is to “create programs leveraging evidenced-based approaches to empower veterinary professionals, transforming veterinary medicine into a healthy profession for individuals and communities.” MentorVet Leap includes five online self-paced learning modules focused on these professional life skills: self-care, leadership, conflict management, ethical decision-making, and incremental care. For five months, upon completion of each module, participants meet virtually with program peers to discuss module content, compare in-practice experiences, and deepen their understanding of how to apply lessons learned. The program is open to veterinarians who have graduated in the past five years.
AAEP Board member Stacey Cordivano, DVM, served for several years as an equine group facilitator for the monthly MentorVet LEAP meetings. “Meeting 10-12 young equine veterinarians each year through the MentorVet Leap program has been such a rewarding experience. I continually learned about the active struggles recent graduates face. The topics that MentorVet Leap covers provide a great foundation for the start of a successful career in equine practice in a short-format program,” she said.
Decade One
In 2015, I founded Decade One to provide business education and peer networking for equine veterinarians in their first 10 years of practice or practice ownership. The original three-year program included two in-person meetings a year, each with 6 hours of practical focused content important to a successful, satisfying career as an equine practitioner. The 16 Decade One groups, each with an average of 20 members, formed lasting bonds and have become leaders in the equine veterinary industry, serving the AAEP in multiple roles as well as spearheading new initiatives such as the Sustainability in Equine Practice Seminar and The Whole Veterinarian podcast. Serving as mentors to early career veterinarians, these veterinarians are collectively strengthening our industry by adopting new paradigms and showing how successful they can be. The traditional program has touched more than 320 equine veterinarians, representing about 8% of the 4,000 equine veterinarians in the United States today.
In 2025, Decade One 2.0 was initiated with the leadership of Drs. Misty Gray, Stacey Cordivano, and Kelly Zeytoonian. The new iteration provides members with short video modules of the 36 hours of RACE-approved content as well as a plethora of related resources that members can access asynchronously on the learning platform. Monthly online meetings provide discussion and connection. An in-person meeting with additional content centered on well-being takes place annually. Each year, a new cohort begins the three-year journey. The transition team will take the reins in 2027 to lead Decade One into the future.
As members of the last traditional groups reached the end of their experience in 2026, one said, “A special thank you to Decade One for unwavering dedication to making this profession better for every one of us. I would not be the veterinarian and person I am today had I not found Decade One!”
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Related Reading
- Equine Veterinary Sustainability: Supporting Equine-Track Students
- Performance Horse Ethics for Early-Career Veterinarians
- The Business of Practice: Results from the AAEP’s Early-Career Practitioner Survey
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