Where Are All the Vets?

There are two similar posts have been making the rounds on social media and through online vet communities. While I love being a veterinarian, and overall, my professional experience is a positive one, these are some of the difficult truths affecting the veterinary industry.

This well-written article in The Atlantic explains some of what is currently occurring in small animal clinical practice. I experience it myself every day I work. The schedule is already full, even if I am functioning as a relief doctor that the clients don’t know, sick patients are added to the schedule until the practice reaches a point that good care can no longer be provided, and then cases are referred elsewhere. Some practices are not accepting new clients in order to continue to provide service to current patients.

Regularly, I will have a patient who would benefit, if not desperately needs, referral to a specialist. And, yes, there are veterinary specialists for orthopedics, oncology, cardiology, internal medicine, ophthalmology, just to name a few. But these specialists are so overwhelmed that it may be months to get a newly diagnosed cancer or heart disease patient to the expert who could provide the best options. In those cases, myself and other general practitioners are left to figure out secondary options that may be less than optimal.

Sometimes it is puppies who fit in my pocket!

Urgent care and ER services are overwhelmed and short-staffed. We frequently have to turn a sick animal away or tell owners it will be a 2-4 hour wait simply because there is a limit to how many cases one doctor and a few techs can manage at one time. Sometimes the owners are understanding, but more often they are frustrated, and some even become irate to the point of verbally abusing already overwhelmed staff. This sounds a little different than cuddling puppies and kittens all day, huh?

These challenges extend to large animal practice as well. AAEP, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, has been addressing the shortage and high attrition rates head-on, but there are no easy answers. Here's the link to an article about a commission created in response.

I loved my days as an ambulatory practitioner, but the time demands of the profession with lower financial reward led me to change to the more consistent schedule of small animal clinical practice. I knew I needed to optimize both my time and income as a mother of two young boys. It simply didn’t make sense to continue to be available any hour of the day or night, sometimes being in the vet truck over 18 hours on particularly rough days.

Once upon a time, I was a unicorn vet.

People can argue that “the new generation doesn’t want to work,” “all the women just want to have babies,” and so on. Yes, the mostly female gender shift in veterinary medicine does have an impact and should be recognized and addressed. However, everyone, male, female, parent or not, deserves to be able to work as well as enjoy time away from work in whatever capacity they desire, without being accused of entitlement or laziness.

When students graduate with 6 figure loans, it’s no surprise that they make employment decisions to help decrease the crippling debt. Equine veterinarians currently earn considerably less than their small animal counterparts, often with longer hours and regular on-call commitments. Not exactly the idyllic lifestyle James Herriot described, is it?

As a result of these profession-wide challenges, animals and animal owners are also affected. Price of care is increasing, wait times for appointments are longer, and the desired veterinarian may not be available, making good regular animal husbandry a challenge.

These facts alone cause me daily stress. I can't help everybody I wish I could. I could book myself for work 8 (yes 8!) days a week if I wanted to. I also feel guilty for being one of the vets who left equine practice and leaving more work for my large animal colleagues. Heck, I’m writing this while on vacation and thinking about all the animals and clients I could be helping instead. But wait - I need to stop this insane cycle in my brain. Rest and vacations are imperative to continuing to be a good veterinarian.

I certainly don’t have the magic answer to these challenges, and I barely scratched the surface of the complicated reality of veterinary medicine: mental health concerns, increased suicide rates compared to the general public, student debt and interest rates, the shift to corporate ownership, chronic understaffing, and the list goes on. All I can do is care for my patients to the best of my ability without unnecessarily compromising my family and personal life, support my colleagues, and be an advocate for positive change within the profession I love.