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"Why I'm ashamed to be a vet" - Daily Mail

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Reply 40
chazilton
Exactly. Nobody is saying every vet is like this, but nobody can deny some vets do take the p*ss. Same as in every profession. Ever seen the BBC's Rogue Traders? Just because the article was published in a newspaper that it's fashionable to hate doesn't make everything they publish invalid.


What benefit will the article be to people or their animals?
They will simply not trust their vet, and not have their animals treated. The 'information' in this article is biased and has not been my experience of the veterinary profession.
Reply 41
Why deliberately draw attention to an article you thought was crap in the first place?! :dontask:
Reply 42
Because its an interesting issue

i think everyones problem with this article is that this vet is giving a biased view of his experience that will lead to people, particularly new animal owners struggling in the recession, to not trust vets, when they should really be making up there own decision about their particular vet. This article is good at pointing out that yes some vets take as much as they can get, but fails to advice on how to go around finding a suitable vet and instead just puts people off taking their animal to the vets at all.
I don't think this will tally with most people's experience. I know the surgery I took my pets to was perfectly ready to suggest euthanasia for smaller animals with little chance of recovery.
Reply 44
chazilton
You make no sense. You suggest he does something about it, but his writing about it in a national newspaper to let people know it happens makes you mad? :confused:


Sorry, I think my post wasn't clear. I suggested he does something *constructive* about it within the veterinary profession, rather than just quitting and running off to the tabloids. Writing articles about how bad/money-grabbing/unethical vets are helps nobody - not the owners, not the vets, and particularly not the animals.
alegría
I didnt say you shouldnt communicate with clients and develop a relationship with them. All I said is that at the end of the day my obligation is first and foremost to the animal, not the client, and i think a lot of vets seem to forget that.

If " a lot" of vets didn't put the animal first then there would be a lot more complaints every year to the RCVS than there is at the moment. The vets you are talking about are very much in the minority, people go into the profession with a strong desire to improve animal health and welfare and if " a lot" of them were like the ones you speak of then the profession would be doing much worse than it is now
katierattray
My vet tried this everytime we take my dog in, We took her in for an ear infection and the vet found a Phantom Pregnancy a major skin infection and other minor things. My dog ended up on 5 different tablets all costing £50 but to be honest my dog was fine and all she needed was ear drops. So some vets do try to make money. Its not all vets though some are honest.

It sounds like your dog genuinely had these problems and therefore your vet treated them accordingly. They wouldn't make up illnesses (especially ones that have visible symptoms such as a 'major' skin infection!), neither would they give your dog drugs that it didn't need. Also, if the vet diagnosed a phantom pregnancy then your dog, i assume, went on to change its behaviour and possibly produce milk for puppies it wouldn't have. would you rather that the vet ignored the symptoms and further down the line you believed that your dog was pregnant or ill? Vets will inform you of the things they see before them, if it is something minor they will tell you if only so they can't be sued when the condition gets worse !
This article p*ssed me off so much. Its just so bigoted, and doesn't even try to consider the other side. I saw an RTA cat which had some pretty major reconstructive surgery to repair a broken mandible; yes this caused the animal pain. However, she has made a complete recovery now and is expected to live out the rest of her life. The owner couldn't have afforded it without insurance.
Lil Piranha
Hmmm tricky. Whilst I agree that euthanasia is not always the best answer, I have come across this kind of behaviour before. This time last year my labrador had a biopsy and investigation on a lump in his nasal canal / sinus. We told the vets explicity that if they thought it was anything sinister, then to just let him go as he was already very old and we didn't want to put him through extensive stressful treatment.

However they didn't, they sent the samples off and it came back as a particularly virulent form of cancer, which we had suspected all along. We ended up dragging the poor thing back and forth to Cambridge for a month to have scans (which revealed the tumour was right in his brain) and to have a course of radiotherapy.

This extended his life for 6 months, but he was obviously not happy. We would have rather the vets had just let him slip away when they were conducting the biopsy. It would have been the kindest option in the long run. It was pretty obvious that it was a severe tumour.


The vet would never have conducted any of that treatment without the owners full permission. I'm sorry but if you or your parents explicitly wanted the animal put down if the prognosis was poor they had more than enough opportunity to do so.

VL86
That article makes me so mad. If he's so concerned about animal welfare, why did he not stick around in the profession trying to do something about it, rather than writing articles in national papers slating vets?


Exactly.

There are 1000s of practices out there, charities, advisory bodies, research, etc where he could have improved veterinary care if it was that important to him. Why didn't he? Because animal welfare wasn't an issue to him before and that wasn't the reason why he left the profession. The only reason why this is coming to light now and not however many years ago is money.

steph_v
I just think the worst thing is the effect this article could potentially have on pet owners.. I know he wasn't saying 'all vets' but the way he argued his case could easily sway people who know little about the profession. Terrible, terrible newspaper :tongue:


Exactly, he's undermining patient care which is understandably going to have a negative effect on animal welfare (which is something which he apparently holds very dearly).

bikipip
I'm sorry to say that some of the issues brought up in this article are the exact reason I dropped out of VetMed at the Royal Veterinary College. Unfortunately they do teach this way ('extend life, use as much treatment/experimental treatment as possible') but just because they teach it it does not mean you have to follow it. However it was too much for me, and I am much happier where I am now. I had no idea VetMed was taught in that manner. There is a lot of focus on experimenting and bringing new information to the field (e.g. by trying a new, experimental treatment regime at the owners expense) rather than actually doing what's best for the animal.


Maybe at RVC but it's certainly not something I've heard of and/or experienced elsewhere.

Cj-Tj
Our dog had a quote for some work, and when we told them we couldnt pay and it would have to be put down, they suddenly came up with a quote half as much...... for pretty much the same job! Dog wouldnt know the difference between a £300 dental job and a £125 job.


Often there are many different options for treatment and sometimes at different costings. Most vets will outline the different options available to you.

At the end of the day it depends on what funds you have and how much you care about your pet. Generally cheaper treatment is going to be cheaper for a reason. Maybe the drugs have greater and/or wider ranging side effects, maybe instead of running a full set of diagnostics and accurately diagnosing a complaint the vet hedges his/her bets and goes for the most likely cause, perhaps the treatment has a lower success rate, etc.

Su_e
I took my dog to the vet with a large lump on her neck. The vet shaved the fur to find a boil that was making the fur stand up alarmingly. She proposed giving the dog a general anaesthetic and x-raying it, even though an x-ray would almost certainly show nothing, and cutting it out. When I protested it was only a boil, she said she could just cut it open to evacuate the pus, but most owners expected the full works (presumably they all have their pets insured). We went down the local anaesthetic and evacuating the pus route; a week later you could see nothing other then growing fur. Cost: £25 rather than £100s.


Abscesses typically form around a foreign body and/or infection - if you x-ray maybe you can guage the extent of the problem and adjust treatment as necessary. Or you could just jump in and do a bodge job and hope for the best.

Su_e
I think it is an issue that should be discussed, not dismissed out of hand merely because it was published in the Daily Mail.

Had I found further examples and published it in a quality paper, the discussion here might be rather different.


It's in the Daily Mail because it has little or no factual basis. Hell they even censor overly critical comments. If you were from a reputable paper you wouldn't investigate it because there simply wouldn't be a story in it. Maybe there is an element of truth to what he says but he has blown it completely out of proportion. Yes, some questionable things do go on but it is incredibly rare and not representative of the whole in any way shape or form.

I've worked with a lot of people at a lot of different practices (and I bet most of the people here could say the same thing), I have never heard or seen anything of what he describes going on - if it was that much of a problem why is it that nobody here can add testament to it? Why is it that he didn't report such goings on to the RCVS if they did indeed happen?

He's very careful with what he says, not committing to anything which can be proven/disproven. Why? Because if anybody was able to look into it more deeply they'd find out that there was little or no evidence that what he alleges goes on or is as prevalent as he insinuates.
hannah_vet
It sounds like your dog genuinely had these problems and therefore your vet treated them accordingly. They wouldn't make up illnesses (especially ones that have visible symptoms such as a 'major' skin infection!), neither would they give your dog drugs that it didn't need. Also, if the vet diagnosed a phantom pregnancy then your dog, i assume, went on to change its behaviour and possibly produce milk for puppies it wouldn't have. would you rather that the vet ignored the symptoms and further down the line you believed that your dog was pregnant or ill? Vets will inform you of the things they see before them, if it is something minor they will tell you if only so they can't be sued when the condition gets worse !


I see your point and your probably right but It seemed that my healthy dog had all these problems when her behaviour was the same as usual.
katierattray
I see your point and your probably right but It seemed that my healthy dog had all these problems when her behaviour was the same as usual.

maybe her behaviour had changed in only small ways, or slowly over time (so more difficult to notice). she must have been scratching more at the skin infection though?
Reply 51
ch0c0h01ic
Often there are many different options for treatment and sometimes at different costings. Most vets will outline the different options available to you.

At the end of the day it depends on what funds you have and how much you care about your pet. Generally cheaper treatment is going to be cheaper for a reason. Maybe the drugs have greater and/or wider ranging side effects, maybe instead of running a full set of diagnostics and accurately diagnosing a complaint the vet hedges his/her bets and goes for the most likely cause, perhaps the treatment has a lower success rate, etc.


I not daft, I know the vet involved very well, know his boss and have worked at the practice. I also know how they work, and that they could have offered a cheaper alternative to begin with. But you dont go from one small practice to 6 in under 12 years without charging for expensive procedures.
Reply 52
this article makes me very angry. hes basically blaming vets for the whole pedigree dog issue when its the breeders fault. vets can offer advice and maybe refuse to treat etc. but at the end of the day they cant stop breeders and they wont be able to.

in every profession there are cowboys, with no exception for the veterinary profession. however, this is no reason to condemn every vet in the country as greedy and insensitive to animal welfare. after all isnt this why people become vets?? because they care about animal welfare?

and this is why i want to be a vet. to prove him and all the other cowboys wrong. if you really want to change something you cant just moan about it to crappy newspapers. you have to do something about. he should have tried to change but hes clearly very bitter or feeling very guilty about something in my opinion.otherwise why would he write that?
Here is a radio interview between the author and the head of the BVA.
ch0c0h01ic
Here is a radio interview between the author and the head of the BVA.

Great points made previously and thanks for the link to the radio interview!
that man is a total arse. his arguments in the radio interview are complete rubbish and flawed.
love the BVA lady though! she actually spoke sense.

ughh that man should seriously shut the hell up
hannah_vet
that man is a total arse. his arguments in the radio interview are complete rubbish and flawed.
love the BVA lady though! she actually spoke sense.

ughh that man should seriously shut the hell up


Only just had the time to listen to it - cracking stuff!
well he's not very articulate. Anyone would think he didnt know he was going on the radio. Silly man.
tigercallie
well he's not very articulate. Anyone would think he didnt know he was going on the radio what he was talking about. Silly man.


:p:
Rather than quitting, he should have continued being a vet so that there would be 'one more honest vet' in the neighborhood. While i'm sure some vets put making money before animal welfare, that's not always the cost. Pet insurance is necessary for long term diseases which require medication for the rest of the pet's life. If your dog needs eye drops twice a day for the next 6 years, it can cost a fortune, but with insurance you dont have to euthanase him just because you cant afford his treatment.

Humans are willing to go through 'barbaric' treatments for half a year extra life, so why wouldn't animals? It's a controversial matter, but I think killing an animal to save him the pain is just as unfair as forcing him to go through with the treatment.

I can't help but wonder weather he was just submitting the article for attention or publicity. Either that or he has the completely wrong idea about vets.

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