Just Vetting with Peter Tanella, ESQ.
This program fills the gap in veterinary education by focusing on non-clinical skills like communication, leadership, confidence building, and real-world readiness — all essential to long-term success in practice.
Just Vetting with Peter Tanella, ESQ.
14 | Dr. Craig Mohnacky | Scaling Care and Culture: Lessons from a Multi-Hospital Veterinary Leader
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🌿 Episode Description
In this episode of Just Vetting, host Peter Tanella sits down with Dr. Craig Mohnacky, founder and CEO of Mohnacky Animal Hospitals in Southern California, for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about entrepreneurship, reinvention, and what it really takes to build a veterinary organization that endures.
Starting with his unlikely path into the profession, including fainting at the sight of blood before eventually becoming a surgeon, Dr. Mohnacky reflects on launching a practice immediately after graduation, burning out within five years, leaving veterinary medicine entirely, and returning with a radically different mindset. He shares how stepping outside the profession to learn sales, technology, and real estate reshaped his approach to leadership and ultimately laid the foundation for a multi-location hospital network.
With refreshing honesty, he discusses the dangers of trying to do everything yourself, the discipline required to delegate, and why building “something bigger than you” is the only sustainable path to long-term success. He also opens up about designing a life alongside a career, including spending summers away from his practices while learning, over years, how to create teams and systems capable of thriving without his constant presence.
Throughout the conversation, he reflects on:
✨ Launching a practice straight out of school — and the burnout that followed
✨ Leaving the profession to gain business skills rarely taught in veterinary training
✨ Returning with a new philosophy focused on leadership, not just medicine
✨ Why delegation, trust, and structure are essential to avoiding owner overload
✨ Building strong workplace culture through clear, unwavering core values
✨ Creating career pathways that inspire loyalty and long-term retention
✨ Managing multiple hospitals while maintaining consistency and identity
✨ The importance of calculated risk and adaptability in uncertain times
✨ Harnessing technology and change rather than resisting it
✨ Using success as a platform for service, including support for military families
Dr. Mohnacky offers a perspective shaped by decades of experience across clinical care, business ownership, mentorship, and philanthropy. His story highlights that sustainable success isn’t about working harder, it’s about thinking differently, empowering others, and aligning purpose with practice.
Whether you’re an aspiring owner, a seasoned practice leader, or simply trying to build a career that doesn’t consume your life, this episode delivers practical wisdom from someone who has navigated both failure and extraordinary growth.
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