They say it takes a village to raise a child – so what about raising five children and running two vet clinics? Well that takes a community.
This is the opinion of Dr Sean and Dr Sarah McGrath whom will this week reflect and celebrate 10 years in business together in the Millicent community.
July 1 marks 10 years that Dr Sean and Dr Sarah McGrath have owned and operated the Millicent Veterinary Clinic, and over the 10 years there has been many achievements and growth for the local couple.
Moving to Sean’s home town of Millicent in 2014 with their two children, they took over the practice that had been previously operated for the past 30 years by his parents Toni and Dr Kevin McGrath.
Since taking over Sean and Sarah have welcomed three more children in to the mix, purchased and developed the Kingston Veterinary Clinic, extended into Meningie with a monthly satellite clinic, all with providing after hours services to all of these areas.
Needless to say, it’s been busy.
The couple had met while studying at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales.
After their graduation, they worked for a few years at practices in Terang and Esperance and then Dr Kevin signalled he was ready to retire.
Dr Sarah said following the values of hard work and dedication to community, as shown by her father and mother-in-law have contributed to their continued success.
“Our staff and community have been very supportive of us in learning about small business ownership and when you are also learning to be parents, this can be really hard” said Dr Sarah.
“We have worked hard to find employees that want to be a part of this community and make it their own. Dr Sarah said “Every employee should feel their role has purpose and meaning and we value each and every one of our now 27 staff, which started out as six, 10 years ago”.
Dr Sarah is amazed by the clients who travel from Melbourne and Adelaide because they appreciate our attention to detail, and care that all of our staff provide, which in incredibly humbling.
“With respect to small animals, we are aware of the bond between humans and their animals. This is important as more people are becoming socially isolated nowadays and the role of the family pet has changed so much.”
Large animals are the forte of Dr Sean and he does not merely provide treatment, his expertise now expand beyond the farm gate, consulting with farm producers to gain the best result for their business.
Farm Consultancy and benchmarking groups for farmers in conjunction with working with organisations such as, the Australian Veterinary Association, MacKillop Farm Management Group and Australian Wool Innovation are also areas that occupy Dr.
Sean’s time.
There is every possibility that veterinary science will beckon the next generation of McGraths.
After all, Dr Sean’s younger brother Malcolm is also a vet in Ireland.
Veterinary science was also a passion of Sean’s late maternal grandfather.
It will be interesting to see if there will be a third generation of vets in this family.
Perhaps the eldest who, as a four year old informed a farmer he needed to check for a spare when attending an after hours calving with his father.
Sean and Sarah are grateful for the patience their children have shown during the times when one parent mysteriously goes missing in the middle of the night for an after hours call, or the weird samples they find in the fridge and the odd smells that enter the lounge room when Dad gets home.
Dr Sean and Dr Sarah would like to thank their staff and the entire community for helping them to get to this milestone and learn so much about small business ownership over the last 10 years.
