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A suicide crisis among veterinarians

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Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#91

Post by pc86 »

Fomite wrote: post #20
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…

So one of the things that comes up a lot is that it's not actually that correlated with cost. 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…

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.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#92

Post by jncfhnb »

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…

Medical doctors have a higher suicide rate

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#93

Post by CommieBobDole »

hvs wrote: post #43
vector_spaces wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it like that though? Like what are the economics of performing the procedure that it's possible for it to be free if the owner gives it up? Does someone different ultimately foot the bill?

The new owner pays for it.

How does that work, though? Is there a constellation of dog-seeking people hovering around veterinary offices that only want dogs that cost $10k and have recently had major surgery? People who are willing to donate $10k to save a dog's life but consider it very important that the current owner no longer have the dog anymore for some reason?

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#94

Post by deadbeeves »

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…

In reply to your other comment that was flagged:

Well, the reason why the Holy Grail killer rabbit is funny is precisely because a rabbit could never jump onto a man's neck and nibble his head off. If killer rabbits were actually a serious yet somehow obscure danger, maybe you'd find it initially funny, but you'd find it much less funny once you've found out many people are losing loved one to the buck-toothed menace. If you hear two people in white robes talking about how they lost a patient to cancer earlier today and how devastated the family was, and you laugh when you find out they're talking about a cat, what does that make you?

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#95

Post by jncfhnb »

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…

Surrenders their pet to someone who can pay

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#96

Post by Doe-_ »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #39

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 insuran…

I looked into pet insurance. The best cover I could find would have cost me £250/year, and would only cover up to £7500.

It cost me £7000 for my cat to spend 2 days in "ICU", nothing surgical, though they did do a _cat scan_ and put him on oxygen.

I found the cost of insurance ludicrous given how expensive the vet was and how little the insurance would cover. Granted ICU is expensive, I would still expect there to be an option which would wouldn't cap out at such a low figure.

For such a measly cover, I would prefer to self-insure.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#97

Post by jncfhnb »

mynameisash wrote: post #62
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…

* FTC acts against private equity firm's acquisition of veterinary clinics[0] * Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates [1] I'm not opposed to people making money and having a comfortable life, but the fact that private equity is capitalizing on vet clinics is telling. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31728350 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36313967

Private equity companies frequently purchase struggling businesses, not prosperous ones

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#98

Post by samtho »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #53
watwut wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non predatory thing then is to help the owner to put the pet down painlessly and quickly for reasonable price. Without guilting the owner into 10000 operation.

I do not see any evidence of guilting. > The incident involved a four-month-old German Shepherd puppy who'd swallowed a skewer and needed emergency surgery life-saving surgery. The cost of the complicated procedure and after care was close to $10,000 – more than the owner could afford. As a last resort, to avoid euthanasia, the clinic offered her the option to surrender the puppy to a new owner who could cover the co…

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 completely (even in humans). If the skewer was single-use bamboo (which I suspect given how much wood will retain food smell and how puppies love destroying garbage cans), the puppy would have likely chewed on it a bit causing splintered mess internally.

This would result in a multi-hour procedure with at least 2 surgical staff (surgeon and tech) and anesthesiologist (due to the complicated nature of this, we can’t have the animal regurgitating as well as active life support monitoring). In addition to the standard tools, they would be using X-rays, dyes, internal (dissolvable) sutures, etc. Internal organs would be mended, stomach fluid would need to be removed from the abdominal cavity, and there would be at least 12 hours of monitoring post op.

Expensive, yes, but I don’t think it’s that unreasonable unfortunately.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#99

Post by pandemicsyn »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #39

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 insuran…

What's a good pet insurance carrier/plan, that's not just a straight up scam that just cover's the yearly stuff and some select things? Legit asking because with two super active GSD's I'd sign up in a heart beat if I found one.

Re: A suicide crisis among veterinarians

#100

Post by graypegg »

pydry wrote: post #35
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/

That actually gives me some appreciation for some seemingly pointless vertical posts my city put into a bridge near me.
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