With all of the layers of dismay present in vetmed, (and life), today it might be the perfect time to start asking some very hard/challenging questions. It might be time to start questioning the accepted excuses and practices others have told us are "just part of the job."
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| My beloved Raffles |
For me, 20 years into private practice, it is time to start asking if economic euthanasia costs us all too much? Is it even ethical? Is breaking everyones heart and denying our patients value worth what we are asked to concede for profitability?
Now I know some of you are going to start chiming in about suffering, and your God complex, but, if you want to practice medicine without the liability and responsibility ownership provides than I would ask you to be a pet parent and a consumer before being the judgemental pessimist with the ability to end a life that might be the most important part of another human beings life?
The degree of conflicting inconsistencies and our redirected aggression because of the pitted opposition between profits and compassion is crippling. We know this, we just don't admit to being able to change, or even influence it. How did we become so powerless to the forces that motivated us into this profession? How did we lose our inner purpose to meet others agendas?
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| Butterfly |
We, ok, all of us in the small animal arena, came here to save animals. To make the lives that comfort, console and inspired the longs days, and nights, of study worthwhile. We accepted the debt, the dedication, and the sacrifices vetmed asked of us. For too many these sacrifices brought with them concessions. Maybe a contract with a boss you never really meet? A doctrine of numbers to adhere to. A whole bunch of subliminal whispers that taste like Kool-Aid and wash over your soul seeking solace.
How did we get a place where a pyometra surgery in a middle aged, mid-size dog at a big corp specialty can be $18,000 while the experts at the HVHQ clinics call it a spay with a $200 price tag? There is no way that any of us would tolerate being the pet parent/consumer on the other end of this quandary and not be pissed off when we cannot produce the 18k and weren't told the $200 option existed. I have hundreds of similar examples. Each one fiercely and furiously debated on both sides. The problem is that within each is a pet who likely was someones everything. The bigger problem is that this part of the equation is not held as the ultimate factor in deciding how to get the care that matters to the pet parent. If you think economic euthanasia is an acceptable reality in vetmed than you would be offering it before you offered a treatment estimate with a comma included. Any profession that wants to tout itself with the ability to provide organ transplants, dialysis, pacemakers, and every other medical specialty has elevated their own sense of power to a place that cannot also include death by lack of transparent, full disclosure options at the onset. (,, and where is that social worker who works only for the patient?). The dichotomy and incongruity has cost us the most important part of any medical toolkit; trust. I'm not even sure we can trust ourselves anymore to look into each patients eyes and see the power their presence brings to our own humanity.
With the passing of Jane Goodall it is even more clear. Every single life holds the power to shape everything that follows. There is no greater value than life and we are all equal in our reliance upon each other.
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| Nexus |
I wonder how many of us really challenge the inherent inconsistencies we get asked to swallow? The foie-gras of the corporate stockholders expectations? Is it possible to wear your vulnerable heart on your sleeve everyday and still know we are a hero because of it? Do we see ourselves as the little girl facing the posturing, charging bull, head on fists squarely on our hips, chin up and mocking; "I dare you to budge." Is it possible to pay down that debt without surrendering your soul in the process?
I know it is. I know it is possible to challenge the ethics of bebarking, declawing, terminal surgeries, adoption of the lab beagles after the study is complete, and feel good about the life after the normal accepted practices are abolished and retired. Our vet clinics can still be financially secure if we don't provide the ear cropping/tail docking. We can save ourselves as we decide to "do no harm." So many of the once "acceptable" practices have fallen into the history books. Why now can't "economic euthanasia" fall away with them?
Can we all join our collective hopes together and start a wildfire of change in the current climate?
Maybe only because we haven't felt broken enough, angry enough, brave enough, or kind enough?
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| Cookie |
