A few weeks ago, I saw a cat that needed a surgery his owner couldn’t afford. I did everything I could for the cat then and provided the owner with medications that would keep his pet comfortable for a few days while he tried to gather the necessary financial resources. It was a Saturday morning, and we wouldn’t be able to do surgery for at least 48 hours anyway.
When the client got to the front desk to check out, he announced that he didn’t have enough money for the medications or examination. He was declined on all forms of financial support our practice offers. The front desk asked me what to do. I decided to bend hospital rules and let the guy take the drugs home and pay for them when he came back for the surgery. He solemnly agreed to do so — “Pinky promise.”
Three days later, the client was leaving messages on our answering system. He was irate that we would not allow a surgery payment plan. He accused the practice of only wanting money and taking advantage of pets in need. He repeatedly called our clinic “greedy” and even insulted our website, which felt like a cheap shot because ours is great.
Management wanted to know what happened with the case and what I told the client. I didn’t have the nerve to ask, “He didn’t happen to come in and pay for those medications, did he?”
It’s Going to Get Worse
I hate to say it, but the vilification of veterinary professionals is going to get more frequent. Numerous media outlets and even a few U.S. senators are telling pet owners that:
- Venture capitalists and giant corporations have bought many veterinary hospitals.
- The cost of veterinary care is rising much faster than inflation.
Both statements are undeniably true. The percentage of veterinary practices owned by venture capitalist groups or large corporations has risen dramatically in the past 10 years and continues to grow. Second, the cost of veterinary medicine is obviously climbing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of urban veterinary services rose by 7.9% from February 2023 to February 2024 and by nearly 60% over the past decade. Pet owners are not so oblivious as to miss those kinds of increases.
Inside the industry, we know that the same inflationary pressures other professions face have driven up our prices, wages (which have long been troublingly low) and educational debt. We see veterinary practices working to retain staff while keeping patient care as affordable as possible.
Outside the industry, however, a much less generous narrative seems to be winning the day: Veterinary clinics have fallen to corporate greed and are screwing over pets and people for profit.
While I don’t buy that cynical view, the chances of us escaping the public perception are bleak in the short term. After all, people like simple narratives. Online posts that spark anger are most likely to go viral. As a society, we’ve lost massive trust in our institutions over the past few decades. Police officers, politicians and priests are a few groups that have lost the public trust they used to enjoy. My sad prediction is that declining trust and stories of greedy veterinary clinics are just getting started. As a profession, we must find ways to cope with the new reality.
No Good Deed …
When I was a young doctor, behaviors like the angry cat owner’s took a toll on me. I listened to irate clients and internalized their pain. I struggled with imposter syndrome and saw their anger as the truth I had been barely hiding: “I am not good enough to be in this role.”
Over the years, my confidence solidified through practice and repetition. I came to understand that pet owners’ frustration is much more about what they feel and face than about me or anything I did. Most of the anger we see from pet owners is actually guilt, shame, fear or impotent rage at the unfairness of life.
Sure, clients sometimes have a legitimate complaint about something we did or a decision we made as caregivers, but those instances are relatively few. And in the case of the cat that needed surgery, I had done nothing but skirt the rules to try to help the owner and his pet.
Fortunately, knowing I had been as supportive as possible was all I needed to find peace and serenity after hearing his angry messages. Like the Buddha or a yoga influencer on Instagram, I felt enlightened and could maintain a healthy perspective through breathing and mindfulness.
I’m joking. I got very upset.
I felt a guilt I knew was unwarranted and frustration toward pet owners in general. I mean, I bent over backward to help this person, and all I got was grief. I felt betrayed.
In the following days, my feelings of irritation ate at me. I knew I should let it go and continue to assume the best about people, but I couldn’t. I don’t care how good of a person you are or how even-keeled your emotions tend to be. At some point, we all wear down in our ability to assume the best about people and not take things personally.
I found myself looking at the world and asking, “How can we keep happily serving people when it feels like pet owners are becoming increasingly adversarial?”
Hurricane Helene
I’m writing this column on a laptop that I charged with my gas-powered generator. It’s been 96 hours since my house lost power, and I suspect it will be at least another week before we get it back after Hurricane Helene ravaged South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Don’t feel sorry for me, though. My family is safe, and aside from some water in the basement, our house is intact. That’s not true for many of my neighbors.
While the street where I live looks like a war zone, the rest of the world has continued. I left home this morning to fly to California and speak at a veterinary event. While here, I’ve met dozens of very nice people who have no idea what is going on back east.
It’s a strange feeling to have a natural disaster at the very top of your mind when almost no one around you is aware that you were affected (or that it happened). I take the experience as a reminder that we have no idea what those around us are experiencing. We are all fighting battles that others know nothing about.
I have no idea what the cat owner or any other client is up against. Coming to truly understand and believe that reality has been the most helpful part of letting my frustration go.
Three Questions
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that a lot of life is about finding the advice you need at the moment, then forgetting it because you don’t need it anymore, and then eventually needing it again. I felt guilty about the cat that wasn’t getting surgery and the owner who thought my clinic had let him down, so I asked my veterinarian friends for advice.
In separate conversations, two of them referenced something I came up with years ago and had forgotten: the “three questions for guilt.” Guilt is often an irrational feeling. The three questions help us look at situations objectively to determine how much responsibility we have. They are:
- Did I want this?
- Did I cause it?
- Do I benefit from it?
In the case of the cat, I did not want the patient to be hurt, to need surgery or to be unable to get it. I did not cause the illness or the owner’s inability to afford care, and I certainly don’t benefit from the situation. Reviewing those facts helps me feel more confident in the steps I took and provides clarity on how to feel.
As veterinary professionals, most of us care a lot about our patients and have a habit of internalizing guilt and feelings of responsibility, even when they don’t make sense. This tendency can weigh us down with burdens we don’t deserve, especially if angry or irrational pet owners tell us we are to blame for an unfortunate situation.
Whether you use the three questions or a different set of benchmarks, looking objectively at emotional situations is a vital skill for keeping client interactions in perspective.
Lowering Our Expectations
A good friend was telling me how proud she was of herself. She is a veterinarian who burned out in practice, left and returned to the exam room. She recently had a day in the clinic that would have been very hard on her when she started her career, but now she handled it beautifully. She shook off a pile of potential frustrations around client behaviors and went home with a smile.
I asked my friend what was different now versus when she left practice. Her answer was, “I lowered my expectations of people.”
I want to pause here and emphasize that she didn’t deliver her response in a cynical or condescending tone. My friend went on to explain that, throughout her life, she has held herself to very high standards. In areas like emotional control, punctuality, communication and personal responsibility, she demands excellence from herself.
While it’s good to demand a lot from ourselves, my friend found great relief in deciding that we can’t hold others to the standards we set for ourselves. After all, it’s one thing to be a perfectionist. It’s something else to expect perfection, as we define it, from others. Letting go of high expectations, especially where we have no control, is one of the fastest ways to stop being disappointed and frustrated.
We’re All Distracted
I was driving my family somewhere when the car in front put on its left-turn signal and got halfway into the left-turn lane. Then, the car turned its signal off and made a sharp right-hand turn. I said to my wife: “Can you believe that guy?! Where does he think he’s going?!”
My monologue continued until we got to the next traffic light, where my wife politely interrupted me to say, “Aren’t we going to the grocery store?” At that point, I turned off my right-hand turn signal, drifted back into the straight lane and rolled through the intersection.
We all hold people to standards we can’t live up to continuously. When I say it’s been helpful to lower my expectations of people, I’m not talking about thinking less of them. I’m talking about remembering that, with rare exceptions, people don’t frustrate us because they are malicious, greedy or stupid. They frustrate us because they are distracted, stressed, flawed human beings — just like us.
Giving Grace for a Better Career
In the coming years, some aspects of working with pet owners will become significantly more challenging. However, the meaning and purpose of our work and the potential to make a real difference for families that love their pets will be unchanged.
To enjoy this profession, we must make peace with a world where some people won’t trust or treat us fairly. We cannot base our happiness on being uniformly celebrated. We will need coping mechanisms to allow us to make our days enjoyable.
Remember that everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Know that you don’t need to feel guilty just because someone says you do. Consider holding other people to a lower standard than you aspire to yourself. None of these approaches is meant to make us less empathetic, nor do they detract from the care we deliver to pets and families. They are simply increasingly vital tools to help us navigate the human aspect of our jobs.
THE PROOF IS IN THE POLL
Veterinarians are highly regarded for their honesty and ethical standards. A 2023 Gallup poll placed nurses at the top and veterinarians second. The next three professions, in order, were engineers, dentists and human medicine doctors. Dead last were members of Congress.
DID YOU KNOW?
On Sept. 3, 1967, Swedish motorists moved from driving on the left side of the road to the right side. According to Autoweek, “Swedes tend to be good at avoiding chaos and lunacy, and nobody died.”
STORY ARCHIVE
Veterinarian and award-winning columnist Dr. Andy Roark has contributed to Today’s Veterinary Business since 2017. Among his articles are these:
- “Our Profession’s Growth Spurt,” go.navc.com/growth-TVB
- “Rekindling the Love of Work,” go.navc.com/love-TVB
- “Strategic Stress,” go.navc.com/stress-TVB
BE A BETTER LEADER
Dr. Andy Roark has partnered with VetFolio to release the Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate. The program provides training appropriate for anyone who leads or manages others. The topics covered include setting a team’s vision and values, building trust, achieving team buy-in, delivering feedback, understanding communication styles, setting priorities, delegating effectively and managing time. Learn more at bit.ly/Uncharted-VetFolio.