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A suicide crisis among veterinarians

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Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#191

Post by groby_b »

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…

"Hey, you can't afford to care for your pet. I'm willing to spend several thousand dollars of my own money, but there's likely more care in the future, and I'd like to ensure the animal then lives with somebody who can afford any future care"

"You predatory monster!"

Do you think even for a moment through what you're saying, or is this just reflexive on your end?

Also, in what world is a median annual income of $100k, for a job with expensive and long training, "mercedes money"? If you have actual evidence of most vets making "vast sums", maybe it'd a good time to share that.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#192

Post by _ea1k »

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).

As much as I wish that were true, it isn't really true. There is definitely a complex of businesses behind veterinarian offices with the intent of driving up prices.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#193

Post by makeitdouble »

watwut wrote: post #54
makeitdouble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'd argue not having the means to deal with emergency situations would make someone unfit to own a pet. I get that circumstances can change and costs increase, but I also feel too many people assume a pet doesn't cost much or isn't muc…

Or we accept that sometimes pets die and that if the operation costs 10000 then fit owner can still decide for the pet to die. That goes for fish, dogs or tarantulas.

We're back to the article situation though, the with owners being bitter and unsupportive and the vets in depression and suicidal.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#194

Post by zargon »

latchkey wrote: post #151
zargon wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I self-insured my previous cat. About a year after she passed of cancer, when I felt I was ready for another pet, I did the math for insurance. I would have paid a lot less with the insurance plan I found. So my new cats have insurance. The costs for my previous cat were heavily skewed to the end of life period. But if there is ever an an accident or other emergency situation during their youth, the insurance would w…

You can't get insurance for an end of life cat. The comparison doesn't work against a young healthy pet. If you never have to use it, you've just wasted a bunch of money. Don't think you can outsmart rooms full of people who are doing the math against much larger volumes of input data.

My comparison is to a young healthy pet who reaches end of life, as pets tend to do. I did the math, including interest on self-insurance savings and deductibles and co-pays. In my circumstance, insurance would have saved me thousands of dollars. Of course, I might not have needed it. Or it might have saved me $20,000. It's risk management. Pay a medium amount to hedge against the possibly having to pay an exorbitant amount.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#195

Post by ndriscoll »

neuronerdgirl wrote: post #105
freedomben wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why? The effect of that is that it becomes too expensive to treat that living creature, so it gets euthanized instead. Or just let the creature suffer until it dies on its own.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#196

Post by birksherty »

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,…

Just living without dying is not a good life. If anyone wants to stop suicide they should prevent the root cause that leads to it, not just stop giving a less painful way to do so. It's inhuman and many forced to die horribly because of this. It's always the privileged who decides to make suicide harder.

They think life is always going to be good at after waiting. For many it's not true. Privileged people think just because they themselves have it easier, people who are willing to die just mentally ill and don't know how to enjoy life.

If we are brought to life easily without thinking and no consent, then there should be a way to leave if anyone wants to. Life should not be a one way hell trap, suffering for long time just so that well off people can feel better and not hear about suicide.

Nobody actually does anything to prevent root cause, but it's completely ok for them if people suffer long time without dying. Media will also never show humans whose life is still miserable after not dying. It must be a feel good story.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#197

Post by verteu »

warner25 wrote: post #132
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…

Great comment. I've had an interest in suicide prevention for many years and I think you're right on the mark. I'm in the US military which has a suicide rate much higher than the general population[1], so prevention is a high priority, and hence my interest. A common thread is clearly that military service members are people who are willing to kill, and think differently about killing and death, and often have acces…

> My understanding is that after you adjust for demographics, because most service members are young males, the rate actually isn't higher, but the reality is what it is: we lose more people from suicide every year than combat operations.

Interesting note, I didn't realize this. Apparently, demog-corrected military suicide rate was previously below civilians [1]. In a few recent years this may have reversed, per the graphs on https://chrisfrueh.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Smith-et-a... .

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=13069467757696393...

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#198

Post by _ea1k »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #101
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).

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…

It is worth adding the drug companies and their lobbying groups to that list.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#199

Post by ruined »

FrankoDelMar wrote: post #145
pc86 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absolute amount of money is irrelevant, it matters what percentage of a person's disposable income it is. $10k is nothing if you making half a million dollars a year and have $200k in credit with no balance, because your disposable income is probably $400-450k/yr. $200 is a ruinous amount of money if you make minimum wage and take the bus to work because your disposable income is very likely negative.

Yeah, well if someone can't swing $200 they probably shouldn't own a pet.

one's financial situation may change very rapidly, and humans have an innate need for companionship and comfort.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#200

Post by _ea1k »

bb611 wrote: post #115
samtho wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner and I have a number of animals and volunteered at a shelter for many years pre-pandemic. We worked with vets and vet techs and are roughly aware of the associated costs. $10,000 feels high at first glance but consider the size of the skewer compared to a small animal. There is likely damage done to other areas including major internal hemorrhaging which is not super straight-forward to track down completel…

I think your guess here is pretty much spot on. TFA links another article explaining the $10,000 bill is a combination of $3,000 of completed tests the original owner had already paid, the surgical procedure, and aftercare costs.

TBH, the only part of that which sounds high is the $3k for pretests. But I don't know what all had to be done, so I'm just guessing.
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