Many veterinary professionals frequently experience a phenomena known as “moral distress”. This occurs when someone is prevented from doing something that they know is right, and leads to increased stress levels. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including if a client is unable to afford the cost of treatment, or, if a client wishes to continue treatment despite a poor quality of life for the animal in question. A study found veterinarians experience this type of moral distress several times per week and continues to impact them throughout their career – regardless of the number of years they have been practicing medicine. On a scale of 0 (not at all stressful) to 10 (most stressful), the median rating for moral distress by veterinary professionals was a 9. That means that several times each week, veterinary professionals are experiencing some of the most stressful circumstances that they can imagine.

Student Debt

Veterinary professionals often struggle financially, living paycheck to paycheck. Despite completing the same number of years of medical training, the pay for veterinarians is lower and the cost of the degree is equivalent to their human medicine counterparts – approximately $200K. Additionally, human medicine relies on insurance to pay for services and veterinary medicine requires the same equipment and procedures to diagnose, but insurance is not factored into the cost of treatment nearly as much. More than 20% of veterinarians and over 50% of support staff report poor financial compensation as the largest stressor in their lives.

Cost of Treatments

Just like any profession, there are overhead expenses associated with operating a veterinary practice. The cost of medications, supplies, and equipment can be astounding. Hiring and training staff that is knowledgeable and compassionate also comes at a cost. Veterinary professionals go into this field because they love animals, and most volunteer their time and knowledge one way or another. However, even if staff worked for free there would still be the material expenses necessary for treatment. In fact, more than half of veterinary practices in one study would have difficulty paying off their business expenses.

Cyberbullying

In the internet age, client interactions no longer end when the veterinary professionals go home. Most hospitals and practices maintain online presences to spread the word about the great work they do. Unfortunately, this can be co-opted by people that send, post, or share negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else. Business cyberbullying includes: using direct comments to or about individuals, naming individuals, or using their photos online in ways designed to harm their professional or personal wellbeing. Cyberbullying has real and detrimental effects on the wellbeing of those targeted, and at least one in five veterinary professionals has reported being one of them.

Cost of Care

As mentioned above, the cost of care is driven by the cost of medicine, not the individual clinics. Low-cost clinics are often non-profits and receive grant subsidies to help offset their operating costs. Alternatively, private practice clinics have to pay for all their own medicine and equipment.

Appointment Availability

Advances in veterinary medicine are allowing animals to live longer than ever before. But as animals age, they are more likely to develop complicated health histories that require lots of time and attention. Sometimes these patients might need more time than a typical appointment allows. As they do their best to respect the time of all their patients and clients, many veterinary professionals will make up for this time by working 7 days a week, not taking lunch, skipping bathroom breaks, and otherwise not taking breaks. 

Often when talking about veterinary teams, people imagine local private practices that treat pet dogs and cats. However, all animals need medical care and some vets choose to study and treat other species like horses, cattle, and other large animals that need much more space to thrive. Unfortunately, the economic environment for veterinary graduates described above encourages them to seek employment in areas with more affluent clients. This creates an excessive demand for veterinary professionals that service rural areas and large animals. They must travel further to provide treatment–it’s easier to bring the doctor to the cow than the cow to the doctor, after all–which also serves to reduce the number of patients that can be seen. 

The US Department of Labor projects that the demand for veterinarians and related staff will grow 17% by 2030. This is more than twice the rate of most professions, and nearly 42% more than human medical practitioners. At the same time, veterinary educational debt is growing 4.5% faster than income. Combined with other stressors on veterinary professionals detailed on this webpage are leading to remarkable rates of staff turnover. Frequent staff turnover often leads to too few staff on site for a given day, increasing the stress on the individuals. As anyone with experience working in an environment with too few people knows, this creates a vicious cycle of too much work for the people on site leading them to quit, making it incredibly difficult to maintain a stable staff.

Triage

In any situation where there is a greater demand than resources available, triage processes are used to efficiently determine when, where, and what to address first. In medicine, this means determining which patients are seen before others based on the severity of the situation. Veterinary teams, especially in emergency and urgent care settings, need to triage every case to maximize each patient’s outcome. Longer wait times are not because the veterinary teams care for some animals more than others, but because some animals need more care. In the case of ambulatory veterinarians, distance and area of coverage also plays a role, especially when clients are unable to trailer horses, cows, and other large animals to the veterinary hospital. 

Off-hours Consultation

Licenses and mental wellness are at risk when pet owners ask “quick questions” of their friend, family member, neighbor, or other acquaintance that works in veterinary medicine. Many veterinary professionals report a poor work-life balance, and asking them to work on their time off–even answering a question that seems simple to a pet parent– can contribute to that.