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[deleted] t1_j19kf1x wrote

[deleted]

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PollenThighs t1_j1a38z3 wrote

This is wild info. The irony of a company that makes chocolate now focusing its efforts on veterinary care is hilarious.

"If the dog eats our chocolate, it's gonna need our medical services!"

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CockercombeTuff OP t1_j1a8gml wrote

I asked for personal experience with the vets and services here, not an opinion about corporations. I read through a bit of that article, and honestly, it's a bit of garbage journalism. Plenty of people have issues with their HR. Plenty of people work tough jobs of various kinds. Most do not commit suicide or even consider it. Framing it through a single person's suicide or the rates of vet suicide is just a weird angle that says more about the writer's intent and skewed hypothesis than the larger reality. Adding your own judgment of people choosing services based on price rather than this writer's opinion is ludicrous.

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alittlemouth t1_j1abkrx wrote

So, not to get off-topic, and I didn’t see the link this commenter posted, but suicide among veterinary professionals is a HUGE problem.

For more info, please check out Not One More Vet. It’s a real problem, it’s industry-wide, and it doesn’t get nearly enough attention.

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CockercombeTuff OP t1_j1ad93e wrote

I don't mean to dismiss the issue of suicide. However, if it's a larger issue in the industry, it doesn't really tell me about the experience of going to these particular practices and suggests that it's not Banfield (or Mars, Inc) in particular that is the problem. As a former psych stats researcher (well, undergrad/grad assisting my advisor once upon a time), I suspect there's a third cause (or multiple third causes) related to this unfortunate high correlation.

(Side note: give me a moment, I'm working on the puppy pics)

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Edit:

This Time article does a bit of clarifying:

Dr. Will McCauley had just finished his shift at a small Dallas animal clinic when he went home, fed his pet pot-bellied pig and then held a loaded handgun to his head.
The 33-year-old veterinarian was wracked with student debt and worn down by the daily demands at work, which included euthanizing dogs and cats and being vilified by pet owners for not meeting their expectations. “I was tired in this miserable state of mind,” he says. “It just drained me so much.” For reasons he attributes to either fear or hope, McCauley didn’t kill himself that summer day in 2016, and he quit his job later that week and stopped practicing.
“I knew I had to make a change,” McCauley says. “I was dead on the inside.”

I work in a field (libraries) that isn't as stressful, but still deals with the general public that treats my co-workers and I like shit very often and we often enough get thrown under the bus by management, who've typically risen to their position by proving how much of a dedicated people-pleaser they are.

I'm not trying to claim it's on par, but my experience with demanding and entitled people makes it easy to imagine how some (too many) pet owners can be. I've had animals put down before. I've done nothing but thank the vets/technicians for their help. I don't know what makes some people so evil in these situations.

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alittlemouth t1_j1aealj wrote

Again, I didn’t read the article before the comment was deleted, but I’m gonna assume the point was that mega-corporations certainly don’t help the situation by caring for employees or providing a good work/life balance, which leads to unhappy veterinary staff and worse patient care. There are certainly multifaceted reasons for the mental health crisis in the veterinary profession, but the megacorps certainly aren’t helping (despite their nice and fluffy PR!).

And yes, puppy pics, please! 😍

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