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A suicide crisis among veterinarians

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Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#301

Post by whartung »

Exuma wrote: post #207
heyoni wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the worst things about society right now is we don’t share the burden amongst ourselves. The dirty work so to speak is delegated to specialists and our hands stay completely clean. I’m not saying pet owners should euthanize their animals but staying there in the room while the vet did their work probably helped, and the article mentions that owners leaving is part of the problem.

One of my favorite cats has a bad tumor and a 3 month expected life span. I found out a few days ago. I’m shattered and the thought of having to be in the room or not is just super depressing. I’ve never lost a pet before or even someone very close to me. I’m scared for how bad it’s going to hurt Part of me (most of me) wants to be there to feel the pain in the deepest way and not bitch out. To be there for the last…

I remember when a friend of mine had to let go of his dog.

Paraphrasing, he said something like "I've been there since almost birth, commanded and controlled every aspect of his life, but who am I to choose this."

It's a dreadful responsibility, but it is just that -- a responsibility. When the pet goes to their forever home, this is part of forever.

I have personal issues with it being "scheduled", that just tears me up. That at 12pm there will be this life, and 12:01, there won't.

But at the same time, it's on us as caretakers to not let the slow decline turn into a spike of severe suffering. Sudden, crushing pain. Struggles breathing, etc. Crisis may well dictate when the time has arrived, some escalation (like not eating). Sometimes its just "We have an opening on Tuesday".

This is not what we necessarily signed up for, but it's the job.

As the others say, be there, hold them, hold them and let them go. You are their everything. This process is part and parcel to loving them.

Fond farewell as they cross the rainbow bridge.

Sorry about your cat.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#302

Post by Zee38484 »

> showed male veterinarians are twice as likely... than the general population to die by suicide

This may come as a bit cynical, but gender on its own has bigger correlation for suicide, than being veterinarian! 80% of suicide victims are males. That gives 3x higher rate over general population.

It would be nice, if all people who cry here over veterinarians, could give some sympathy to men as well!

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#303

Post by oooyay »

julianeon wrote: post #296
oooyay wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was lucky enough to own a house next to the vet clinic that ended up being my first dogs final veterinarian. Her sickness was very gradual; a boil grew on her neck and started aspirating blood, she became anemic, and somewhat lethargic. I supplemented her diet as the vet walked me through everything I could possibly do and was willing to afford. She gave me her number to text when weird things happened with the cav…

I'm curious, since you mentioned this, and I've never really understood the alternative to euthanasia. Your vet said to take the dog in when it wouldn't eat for more than 3 days, and you did. What would've happened if you didn't take the dog in? If you kept leaving food out for it in case it did eat, but expecting that it probably wouldn't. I imagine the dog would die on its own, but I have no idea of the time frame…

Good question. During that time we didn't know exactly what was wrong. I brought her in for the boil, we ran lots of tests, and the only thing we could determine was that she was anemic. If she ate more she was anemic less as long as the wound continued to aspirate. I cleaned it up every night, kept a patch on it, and fed her whatever would make her eat her dog food. That ended up being lots of hot dogs, burgers, and pumpkin puree but it varied by the day. Sometimes she really liked this gut flora powder. If I didn't add this stuff, she plainly just wouldn't eat. By the team she wouldn't eat food with the additives for three days is when I brought her in. At the time I didn't know it, but the cancer she had was sending her into a sort of liver failure.

When she passed away her abdomen relaxed and the vet was able to feel her liver. It was covered in tens of tumors. Without a way to clean her blood her body was expelling the blood. On the day I put her down had I not given her a blood transfusion her tiredness would have shifted towards being weak and achey, probably pretty painful, and she would've been susceptible to severe infection, stroke, or a seizure. After the blood transfusion she would've immediately needed surgery to attempt to remove the largest tumors and chemotherapy to attempt to rid her of the cancer.

The odds of surviving the surgery and chemotherapy were relatively low. I didn't listen to much the vet said as I just kind of zoned out while she explained the options that day. What I do remember is the vet noting that both of those options would result in a lot of pain that she wasn't going to understand and that the odds of survival were very low while the cost was going to be high. In my mind, humans have the privilege of letting a pet leave this world with marginal suffering - a privilege we don't even really extend to ourselves. In the end, I made the choice that I'd want for myself.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#304

Post by ShamelessC »

alexashka wrote: post #231
nimih wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 81.8% is out of the 5.4%. (In fact, it is out of a subpopulation of the 5.4%--it is the rate at which, given that the person died by suicide, but survived the first attempt, died within the subsequent year). From the study: > During the study period, 81/1,490 enrollees (5.4%) died by suicide. Of the 81, 48 (59.3%) perished on index attempt; 27 of the surviving 33 index attempt survivors (81.8%) killed themselves…

Ok I've had to double check to see where we've gone wrong. 5.4% is the number of people who died by suicide out of the studied sample. It is not the number of suicide attempts resulting in death, as implied by the original parent. It is actually 59.3% success on first attempt, and of those who failed on first try, 81.8% succeed in subsequent attempts within a year.

> Ok I've had to double check to see where we've gone wrong.

It's okay to admit you're wrong without these sort of "include everyone else involved" type of statements.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#305

Post by saberdancer »

linuxftw wrote: post #155
loeg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal gas purportedly has much higher levels of carbon monoxide than natural gas, which would be sufficient.

I'm just talking about the connection to the overall suicide rate. Obviously if natural gas doesn't kill you, or as quickly, that method of suicide will go down. But the overall rate can be explained by many other phenomenon.

Yes but there is a much larger effect on gas oven suicides than overall.

Suicide prone population dying out would not cause one type of suicide to reduce in a much quicker rate - as is implied here.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#306

Post by swatcoder »

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…

What do you expect surgery to cost?

It's not like it was 1/10th the cost a while back and has suddenly became exploited by Big Veterinary or something. It was always expensive and you just wouldn't even ask unless you were especially wealthy or were unusually willing to sacrifice.

What's changed (perhaps for the better) is the sense that pets are worth the sacrifice. If you're younger or from a more wealthy background, you may not have a good intuition how much more accepted it was that pets (and people) simply don't get all the care that they might. The idea that intense medical intervention is a right for people, let alone animals, is actually pretty new.

Vets are NOT being predatory just because their work continues to be expensive.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#307

Post by s1artibartfast »

KittenInABox wrote: post #215
ndriscoll wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would rather euthpanize my dog than subject it to quack vets.

The good news is that nobody would force you to. They could go to quack veterinarians and you could go to certified ones.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#308

Post by phone8675309 »

InSteady wrote: post #254
FrankoDelMar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's an extremely easy thing to say from a place of privilege, and of course there is some truth to it. On the other hand, how many chronically broke and miserable people out there are only hanging on for love of a pet (perhaps the only consistent source of love and meaning in their adult or entire lives)? I'll bet its a lot. But fuck them, they're poor so I guess they should either tough it out alone or die. Sorry…

Back when I was broke I owned a cat. There were literally times in my life that the only reason that I didn't paint the ceiling with my brains was because I was worried what would happen to that cat.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#309

Post by Zee38484 »

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.

Many "pets" are just farm animals. Nobody will fork out day wage to save some cat, that is catching mice at barn.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#310

Post by s1artibartfast »

Fomite wrote: post #29
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…

Also, as for "Once that cash cow is gone maybe vet school prices will come down to earth." - the source of the rising cost is a combination of two things, neither one of which has anything to do with small animal medicine: 1) The loss of industry support for large animal vets 2) The loss of state funding for veterinary schools, which has put pressure on the one remaining dial available to those schools, which is tuit…

Also, regulatory and insurance capture.

If anyone could perform veterinary medicine out of their garage, I imagine costs would come down significantly.

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