Patient Ownership Amongst The Veterinarians

There is a secret to medicine that you only learn with decades of passage. The secret is to remain vulnerable. Remain hopeful, kind, and adoring to the companions that fill your life with gentle inclusion. Look into their eyes and feel what is reflected back. Be compassionate as the guide to healing both them, and yourself. The patients will never let you down, therefore, keep reinvesting in them. 

These patients that I am entrusted with, the small, the weak, the voiceless, they are my WHY.

Honey's Story Here

There are a multitude of reasons why vets stay at one practice for decades, or, their lifetime. I can tell you that with 20 years in, I will never leave JVC because my roots are so deep in my patients/clients lives that I can no longer dissect one from the other. These patients and families are my glue. They are my roadmap, compass, and cadence. They are my time, my waking moments, my daily guide and my nightly whispers. They are the first thing I check before bed. The first thing I wake up to, and the delightful fluff of the middle. My pets are an extension of who I am as much as everyone else's pets remind me how important they are to their family.

Last night I sat with a mid-20's guy who cried buckets of uncontrollable tears over the loss of his 6 year old cat. It was raw, and tragic, and gut-wrenching to be a part of. It was also the best example of a real moment of this life I am so honored and privileged to be a part of. It is a perfect reminder that all of us need to spend more time within. If you cannot feel empathy for a loss, as insignificant as others might think a cat's life is, then you are missing the only WHY that will ever give your life true color and beauty. 

Snoops Story Here

The WHY in medicine has to be more than the paycheck and the initials before or after your name tag. The WHY in medicine has to be so powerful that it gets you through the long, exhausting and grueling days. It has to be so powerful that you willingly and knowingly give up the yearning for beaches, and fast cars, and possessions as a way to remind others that you have achieved something envious. It has to be enough to be almost everything. Medicine is that way. The trick is to outwit it with willingness to accept its terms on your own. The trick is to adore it for all of its glory and ugly.

The WHY is all that matters when everything else is breaking your heart.

When the WHY takes the form of a fluffy kitten, a bouncing puppy, the client that you wait excitedly to see in your daily roster, or the cat that you spent months trying to save their leg and/or life, you get invested so deeply that you risk the green-eyed-monster of jealousy. Maybe we shouldn't admit this, and maybe, (in rare cases), we only mean it half-heartedly, but, veterinarians absolutely take ownership of their clients and patients. 

When you tread on that WHY we get seriously protective.

Dexters Story Here

You will a hear robust, boisterous, outcry if one of the other vets walks back holding a patient that another one of us has grown fond of. You will almost see bodily harm if we perceive that the pet parent is forming new bonds with another vet. Fistfights, or the bitter air of plotting passive-aggressive vengeance comes next. There have been occasions where (mysteriously?) one patient's appointment is switched with another's so that the vet can see the one they know and adore, versus the one they do not. It is a game of barter and bribe when one vet won't release possession of the others patient. You can almost get a day off if its the right patient on an otherwise difficult day. Our patients, and clients bring so much to our days that we bicker over them. We absolutely take it personally when one client chooses another provider, or, worse yet, refuses to see you. 

Sure, we take our jobs seriously, and our patient claims vehemently, but, there is a lot to this job, so don't infringe upon our own emotional needs. We need to feel like we have purpose. That our patients rely on us. We need to feel needed. With that comes ownership. It is impossible to not be personally invested and not jealous when the care falls into another camp. That our cup o'WHY is kept topped off.

Me and Goose.
I adore him as much as his family..
They are my WHY just as much as Goose is

Too often clients who say to me, "I know you are busy. I wanted to see you, but, I didn't want to ask for special treatment." This is most often because they have some need to be seen within the next few days or hours, and I am almost always booked weeks in advance. We have pets who we saw for all of their puppy visits. The cats who needed multiple urinary unblockings. The dogs who swallow socks; repeatedly. The cat with the leg that took 3 months of time, love, and dedicated worrying ourselves to pieces of harrowed existence, but is now walking on that leg that everyone else said to "just amputate." We take our little victories, our previous challenges, and we hold them near and dear.  These patients become our obsessive labors of love. If you went into small animal veterinary medicine you did it because dogs and cats compel some little piece of your soul which is meant to care for them. It is the best part of everyday to be with them. I live for these cases. I throw myself into them. When we win our war against their ailment we regale! We never forget these patients. As an extension of these cases we bond to the pets parents. We all go through this together. I feel for them as they feel for their pet, and maybe, just a little bit, for me. Don't all teachers, doctors, caregivers, hair stylists, manicurists, everyone who has to provide care or a service face to face with someone repeatedly, don't we all feel some sense of friendship past the business transaction? 

Allie, who is always this happy to see me.

I know I do. It's only human to get your feelings into the work you are passionate about.

"You can't add days to your life,

but you can add life to your days."

The best part of my job is all of the feelies. It isn't easy living a life based upon, and within them. Propelled, compulsed, and revolving around them. But, it is the heart/soul/integrity of medicine/rescue/life, so, you might as well embrace it and dive full on into it.

Anna Mollie.
A visit from her newly adoptive mom, many years ago,
 started a friendship that has become the one I treasure most.

Every great pet parent wants to have a veterinarian who knows what their WHY is. One who makes that WHY visible, palpable, obvious. The sticky-feely-WHY also makes us more human, more capable of being the companion our companions inspire us to be. 

Pippa. Whose family has become a part of my own.

P.S. I want to add that we have abandoned the ability to decline providers in an emergency. We all live within the same WHY here at JVC. None of us is here to diminish or infringe upon it. We are a team of equally emotionally burdened powerhouses. If there are open options for picking and choosing a vet, for example, we have multiple openings available with different vets, you can choose who you prefer to see. But, if you are in need of a same day appointment and you want to try to cherry pick providers when only one is offering to see you, you are out of luck. We have collectively decided to support each other and not permit the hard feelings declining a provider brings.