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A suicide crisis among veterinarians

bbc.com

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Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#101

Post by CommieBobDole »

protastus wrote: post #59
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…

I have yet to see evidence that it's out of whack. Vets are are doctors, have to employ staff, and have training, processes and tools analogous to human medicine. There's no vet industrial complex, so no administrative/insurance/legal parasitic overhead like in human medicine (in the US).

I would question that second assertion; given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex.

Seems like the usual suspects have realized that there's a ton of money to be extracted by the veterinary industry and we're seeing the direct (hey, our CFO did some analysis and we can raise prices 500% and only impact sales 20%!) and indirect (hey, since there's a lot of money in this industry now, we've developed a new veterinary surgical instrument that improves outcomes 10% for only 20x the cost!) effects of that process.

And in this case, veterinarians are caught in the middle since they don't have a powerful cartel to protect them like human doctors; they end up with all of the stress and none of the profits.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#102

Post by coding123 »

bgandrew wrote: post #6
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

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.

Or doesn't get along with humans too well. Which can be a sign of underliyng depression.

Many people are pretty mean, so it's also a sign of a dis-functioning society that causes a lot of underlying depression.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#103

Post by pc86 »

naniwaduni wrote: post #64
stef25 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that 10K would be Mercedes money ? It goes without saying that a vet should have higher than average income considering the length and cost of study and responsibility etc. Not at all trying to say that they're greedy.

Not sure why this goes without saying.

More training. More required expertise. More investment - opportunity cost, schooling, etc. The mental/emotional burden.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#104

Post by throwaway5752 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #72
lotsofpulp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Frankly, if a vet can, as a matter of practice, afford to do procedures probono but only if the owner surrenders their pet, it means they are making an absolutely staggering profit from those who are emotionally extorted to pay. That is predatory. I miss the days when vets got into the business to run small practices for a reasonable profit and middle class lifestyle. Few of them wanted mercedes money . It's kind of…

You sound like you don't personally know many vets, you don't know what it was like to operate a vet practice back in the day, and you don't know what they drive.

I do, and going on about this (incorrectly) on an article about a veterinarian suicide crisis is unseemly. This isn't about you. If vets are so greedy and amoral, why are they committing suicide, for all the reasons listed in the article, at 4-8 times the rate of the general population?

You might find it interesting and beneficial to learn more about this topic firsthand. Vet practices, shelters, and vet schools often operate in coordination and are always looking for volunteers and donations. You may find more understanding and empathy with more exposure to the people this area.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#105

Post by neuronerdgirl »

freedomben wrote: post #80
protastus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see evidence that it's out of whack. Vets are are doctors, have to employ staff, and have training, processes and tools analogous to human medicine. There's no vet industrial complex, so no administrative/insurance/legal parasitic overhead like in human medicine (in the US).

No, but costs are artificially higher than they need to be because the government restricts who can go into business by requiring advanced degrees, and the schools that provide those degrees make a lot of money doing so. It's certainly not an industrial complex anywhere near that of people medicine, but it's definitely out of whack thanks to regulatory burdens.

I personally agree with the government that you should probably have an advanced degree before being allowed to cut into or administer drugs to a living creature.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#106

Post by lotsofpulp »

reisse wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 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. You don't have to be an expert when you can compare vet prices in US and in other parts of the world. And unlike human healthcare, vet is not subsidized anywhere, so the comparison is fair. With the price tag of 10K$ I'd say it would be wo…

Comparing prices in different locales makes no sense, especially in an un-arbitrage able scenario like time sensitive emergency surgery.

What if tort costs are higher in one country than another, requiring higher insurance premiums? Real estate is more valuable, resulting in higher rents/mortgages? Labor costs higher due to more stringent labor laws/less supply of labor. The list goes on and on.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#107

Post by qohen »

I_Am_Nous wrote: post #61
candybar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, suicidal attempts are often impulsive, so any barrier (in this case literally) even if it's relatively easy to get around, reduces suicide rates. Here's another study, this time on firearms: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner... > The researchers found that people who owned handguns had rates of suicide that were nearly four times higher than people living in the same neighborhood who d…

I remember reading about how "sticking your head in an oven" was a legitimate suicide method when using coal gas ovens. When people switched to natural gas/electric, the suicide rate dropped drastically: >The switch from coal gas to natural gas also had one unexpected effect. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, about half of the suicides in Britain were by coal gas. By the ‘70s, when the transition to natural gas was complete,…

For those unfamiliar with Dorothy Parker[0] and/or that punchline, here's the poem, Resumé, that it's from[1]:

Resumé

By Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44835/resume-56d22415...

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#108

Post by dwater »

naniwaduni wrote: post #64
stef25 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that 10K would be Mercedes money ? It goes without saying that a vet should have higher than average income considering the length and cost of study and responsibility etc. Not at all trying to say that they're greedy.

Not sure why this goes without saying.

Because in the US, higher education is largely a personal investment against future earnings, and vets have longer and more expensive education requirements that most jobs, so they need to have higher salaries to justify the initial investment and to incentivize people to pursue that career path.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#109

Post by lowbloodsugar »

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…

We have pet medical insurance. It’s about $30/month per pet.

If you can’t afford medical costs for your pet then your pet will die if something bad happens.

Likewise if you take some magical fairy “society owes me taking care of my pet” then you’re going to be as disappointed as if you walk into a Chanel store and demand a free purse.

Pets are a luxury, not a fucking right. It’s not anyone’s job to keep it alive if you can’t afford insurance or costs.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#110

Post by runlaszlorun »

This article hit me pretty hard. But I really wish we could find a better term than 'mental health crisis'. I think it's a polite form of victim blaming.

At what point are we just gonna admit that we've built a crap world and we oughta have an honest conversation about fixing it?

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