I agree entirely with the above post. I'm an equine vet and when I first qualified I used to dread those OOH calls. I was entirely on my own after my second weekend on call as a new grad. It was really tough and so much for those promises of support when I joined my first practice. I also never found OOH to be the most endearing of weekends even after many years of experience. I think a lot of the stress is down to client pressure. After having worked in practice, I worked in research (50% office/50% clinical). The organisation I worked for owned the horses I was treating and I really felt the OOH pressure totally disappear. I thoroughly enjoyed this environment but the job I was in did not hold much promise in the long term in advancing in my career, although I did my cert whilst I was there.
I moved, now live abroad, still work in the equine world as vet advisor in an office based role and I thoroughly enjoy it! It's far more varied than any of my practice jobs were. Although I still work long hours and it has its frustrations at times, I get better paid than practice owner/diplomat etc, have a fabulous working environment, work conditions, great colleagues, world wide business trips and my evenings, nights & weekends are never disturbed by a ringing phone and neither do I check emails.
Since your practice is so busy, if you feel the workload during regular hours is really wearing you down, do consider a change. It's not worth risking your mental health or a burnout. If you feel that OOH is stressing you to the extent of wrecking the weekends when you're not on call, I would support considering a role with no OOH. Maybe a smaller practice could be worth considering too?
If you make a change to a new practice but than feel practice is not for you, there are many other roles to consider: government, pharmaceutical & nutrition industries, welfare advisory roles for charities and organisations, education (vet, vet nursing, related animal sciences), scientific research centres, academia, public health, epidemiology, OIE quarantine, regulation etc.. There are also international organisations in related areas e.g. FAO, UN.
I would suggest keeping an eye out in the Vet Record for the feature at the back which spotlights on careers. Maybe even contact some of these people and have a chat to them. I would never have thought I would end up in my role and it was only through keeping an open mind, chatting away to people and being a bit nosy!
I hope all works out well for you. I'm sure you will find your niche. The vet degree is very versatile and the sky's the limit!