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A suicide crisis among veterinarians

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Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#31

Post by ericbarrett »

Dig1t wrote: post #21
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>and then pressured the owner give the pup up when they couldn't afford that My wife is a vet and I hear about this often. From the vet's perspective, if the owner gives up the puppy then they don't have to put the puppy down. Putting down a puppy is heart-wrenching. You can't give out free medical care, she regularly gives as many discounts as she's allowed to give away, even some she's not supposed to, especially f…

> You can't give out free medical care

Is this asserting a legal or professional requirement? Or rather a "rule of business"?

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#32

Post by lotsofpulp »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #16
Fomite wrote: post #4

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…

> Can you not see how that would be viewed as insanely predatory?

I assume you must be an expert in the cost structure of operating a veterinary practice in that location, at that time, in order to determine a predatory and non predatory price.

If you are not, I am not sure how you can make any claim about the prices.

>For profit companies should not be involved in human or animal medicine.

What kind of quality of life do you think veterinarians and doctors deserve? Should they be able to buy a Mercedes? C Class or S Class? Should they be able to buy a home in the better school district? How many square feet?

These questions are relevant for determining the predatori-ness of the doctors’ prices. Even more relevant is whether or not you want the top caliber people spending years studying one of the most complex machines. Or they could go study how to deliver ads to people.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#33

Post by 9991 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #16
Fomite wrote: post #4

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…

> no matter how much they are loved

I don't buy it. If their kid needed a couple thousand dollars to live, a lot more people would be able to scrounge it up. If they can't do the same for their pet, maybe they actually do love their pet less ... and that's OK.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#34

Post by egypturnash »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #15
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're joking, but it wouldn't hurt to have a nationwide nonprofit pet insurance offering.

[flagged]

"No matter how cute the pets, they cost money. In fact, pet ownership rates increase with household income.

Close to 60% of households with incomes of more than $80,000 a year have pets compared with 36% of households with incomes less than $20,000."

- https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/02/spending-on-p...

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#35

Post by pydry »

candybar wrote: post #24

We can talk about other negative aspects of being a vet, but the primary factor is that they know how: > But that reality of the job can also colour the way veterinarians view human lives – including their own – and for those already experiencing suicidal ideation, it can provide a simple justification: death is preferable to suffering. In a 2021 survey by pharmaceutical company Merck, 12.5% of the veterinarians surv…

This reminds me of bridge fences being successful at bringing down overall suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610560/

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#36

Post by burnished »

Dig1t wrote: post #21
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>and then pressured the owner give the pup up when they couldn't afford that My wife is a vet and I hear about this often. From the vet's perspective, if the owner gives up the puppy then they don't have to put the puppy down. Putting down a puppy is heart-wrenching. You can't give out free medical care, she regularly gives as many discounts as she's allowed to give away, even some she's not supposed to, especially f…

Why does the owner have to give up animal in that case? If its to prevent people from casually claiming they are unable to pay for treatment then why is putting that animal down for want of treatment something that they do?

Not trying to hold you accountable for the practice of course, but it seems like you might know

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#37

Post by rcarr »

rcarr wrote: post #17

I'm not really an animal person and I briefly dated a vet once and it always used to crack me up how when she was telling a story she would refer to the animals as patients. Like I get it, animals are sentient, have emotions, are intelligent, have ways of communicating etc. But there is still something inherently funny about this to me, like a sketch show where you're zoomed in on what you assume are two doctors in w…

[flagged]

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#38

Post by datameta »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #32
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Can you not see how that would be viewed as insanely predatory? I assume you must be an expert in the cost structure of operating a veterinary practice in that location, at that time, in order to determine a predatory and non predatory price. If you are not, I am not sure how you can make any claim about the prices. >For profit companies should not be involved in human or animal medicine. What kind of quality of li…

I wholeheartedly disagree. After seeing the prices of basics like saline in hospitals, I'm not surprised to learn of inflated prices obfuscated from the general public.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#39

Post by GlenTheMachine »

My wife is a vet.

One big issue is that most people don’t have pet insurance. But they do have medical insurance. As a consequence they are completely surprised by the out-of-pocket costs of medical procedures.

Hip surgery (to pick something at random) is hip surgery, even if it’s for a dog. It still costs thousands of dollars. But a significant portion of the population expects to pay what they would pay for insurance-covered human surgery, eg a couple hundred dollars at most. And when they see the bill they accuse the vet of “only being in it for the money” if they won’t significantly discount the price.

Meanwhile, the vet is paying back $150,000 in student loans, same as a human doctor, but only making a third of the pay.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#40

Post by randmeerkat »

Dig1t wrote: post #21
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>and then pressured the owner give the pup up when they couldn't afford that My wife is a vet and I hear about this often. From the vet's perspective, if the owner gives up the puppy then they don't have to put the puppy down. Putting down a puppy is heart-wrenching. You can't give out free medical care, she regularly gives as many discounts as she's allowed to give away, even some she's not supposed to, especially f…

> …do the procedure for free but then the owner has to give up the animal.

Why go through the trouble of rehoming the pet when it already has a home that loves it..?

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