Dr Liesel van der Merwe is a small animal medicine specialist. Send her your questions: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Dr Liesel van der Merwe

The year has started on a sour note for me as I lost a patient due to a poor judgement call. All procedures have recognised complications and even though I was aware and had warned the owner about these, I should have retained the patient for post-procedure observation in hospital for a few hours longer.

The complications set in at home and the dog died. I am distraught at the suffering and stress this has caused both dog and owner and I didn’t sleep properly for many nights, replaying various “what if” and “if only” scenarios.

Vets and doctors are only human. We try, in each situation, to make the best decision based on many factors including medical information, prognosis, impact on quality of life, emotional impact on the owner, and time and cost constraints of the treatment.

Vets often have to try to fix patients without using the best diagnostic tests or methods available because of cost constraints. This is stressful as you are balancing the ideal against what is possible with that patient. You are always running the risk of missing something in these situations.

Doctors in general are not 100% correct every time, and when this happens the consequences can unfortunately be dire. Various publications have shown that veterinarians suffer the highest suicide level of any other professional occupation. They are generally type A personalities, struggle to delegate, so become burnt out, and some are not well equipped to deal with people.

In many instances youngsters become vets because they do not communicate well with people. When you start practicing, you quickly realise that every patient has an owner and that effective owner communication is vital in patient management and is a major component of each day.

Vets are often confronted with the decision to euthanize a patient. When this is to end suffering from disease or old age it is a relatively easy decision, but when this is due to cost constraints in a patient with a good chance of recovery it has an emotional impact on the vet. Vets cope with this in different ways but it is never something we truly get used to.

One of the major suicide risks in vets is the availability of the euthanasia injection. We often perform this procedure, have become desensitised to it, and see it as an end to suffering.

Client expectations are often very unrealistic, and disgruntled clients add to the stress levels. I have heard people complain if they had to wait even 15 minutes after their allotted appointment time; clients insist on visiting their pets at all hours and expect long discussions with vets and nursing staff; clients have been extremely irate when they are not phoned the day a laboratory result become available.

Yet these same people patiently wait in doctors’ consultation rooms; won’t dream of barging into a hospital and demand visitation rights outside of visiting hours; and will happily phone their doctors to find out about blood results and not expect their doctors to contact them.

Several times a year most vets will be confronted by a client accusing them of animal cruelty and of “just wanting to make money”. Where does this lack of respect for vets stem from?

Vets, unlike doctors, also have to manage hospitalised patients and perform consultations.
Radiographs and blood tests are performed in-house and not by an outside institution. Unplanned emergencies or events in the ward will often cause delays in the appointment schedule. Emergencies are scheduled ahead of appointments and need to be stabilised prior to continuing with the more routine consultations.

The vet has to juggle all these demands every day. So, for 2012 – be a bit more understanding. Give your vet a hug!