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I work in a veterinary school, and it's remarkable to see how worn down veterinarians are compared to my colleagues in "people medicine" (and my comparison group are infectious disease folks - they're not exactly a cheerful group). To be honest, at this point, between how hard it is to get into vet school, the debt load, and how you're signing up for crushing compassion fatigue your whole life, and a career of hoping…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Sounds like you met a bunch of junkies that are so determined that they picked their career around drug-access.
Hard to believe it isn't widespread in the industry.
I imagine vets go into the business because they like animals. Hard if you bond with every patient. Not sure how to get out of that particular catch-22.
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A lot of people do hard drugs - I've seen conservative estimates at ~12% of the of the adult and teenage population.
> One of the most common criticisms veterinarians receive is that they're greedy. Doctors and staff are often asked to give discounts or waive fees, and owners can get upset when the answer is no. Clearly, we need universal pet health care.
I know you're joking, but it wouldn't hurt to have a nationwide nonprofit pet insurance offering.
I work in a veterinary school, and it's remarkable to see how worn down veterinarians are compared to my colleagues in "people medicine" (and my comparison group are infectious disease folks - they're not exactly a cheerful group). To be honest, at this point, between how hard it is to get into vet school, the debt load, and how you're signing up for crushing compassion fatigue your whole life, and a career of hoping…
I'm sorry, but vet costs are completely out of whack with reality these days. The truth of the matter is that most people cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a pet, no matter how much they are loved, and that DOES NOT make them bad or unfit owners. The story quoted $10k to remove a skewer a puppy swallowed, and then pressured the owner give the pup up when they couldn't afford that. Can you not see how that would be viewed as insanely predatory? For profit companies should not be involved in human or animal medicine. Once that cash cow is gone maybe vet school prices will come down to earth.
Anyway, I bring this up, one because it's funny but two because it highlights how emotionally tough the job is for vets - most people can easily empathise with how hard a surgeon or doctors job must be but can struggle more when it comes to vets. But to these guys these animals are their patients and they feel the same level of responsibility to them that doctors do to humans. It's got to be tough when you have to put so many of them down week after week after week.
I work in a veterinary school, and it's remarkable to see how worn down veterinarians are compared to my colleagues in "people medicine" (and my comparison group are infectious disease folks - they're not exactly a cheerful group). To be honest, at this point, between how hard it is to get into vet school, the debt load, and how you're signing up for crushing compassion fatigue your whole life, and a career of hoping…
> hoping someone will pay for a procedure to save their pet's life while being braced for "I guess we should put them down..." I'm sorry, but vet costs are completely out of whack with reality these days. The truth of the matter is that most people cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a pet, no matter how much they are loved, and that DOES NOT make them bad or unfit owners. The story quoted $10k to remove…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know you're joking, but it wouldn't hurt to have a nationwide nonprofit pet insurance offering.
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I'm sorry, what? Isn't pet ownership pretty universally distributed across all classes? We have a dog in the white house.
I work in a veterinary school, and it's remarkable to see how worn down veterinarians are compared to my colleagues in "people medicine" (and my comparison group are infectious disease folks - they're not exactly a cheerful group). To be honest, at this point, between how hard it is to get into vet school, the debt load, and how you're signing up for crushing compassion fatigue your whole life, and a career of hoping…
> hoping someone will pay for a procedure to save their pet's life while being braced for "I guess we should put them down..." I'm sorry, but vet costs are completely out of whack with reality these days. The truth of the matter is that most people cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a pet, no matter how much they are loved, and that DOES NOT make them bad or unfit owners. The story quoted $10k to remove…
Most vets I know (I also work for a state school, not a for profit company) are very sympathetic toward very large and expensive bills, and have always been up front about cost in a way that human medicine is not. There's also a myriad of ways they try to reduce bills when they can.
The toll is from folks who aren't spending much smaller amounts of money on life saving procedures.