Kindness and understanding

Veterinary medicine can be exceptionally difficult at times, involving making judgements about situations that are often influenced not only by clinical factors but by economics, moral standards, practice protocols, professional skill levels, the patient's behaviour and sometimes time and staffing levels. This is not a definitive list, but what the animal presents with and what we deliver in its treatment is not always clear cut. Unfortunately it is becoming quite common on social media that even professionals are not always kind about some clinical decisions that others make when reaching out for help. It is important to remember, you might not know the whole story, you might not know the pressures from owners, what the mitigating circumstance were at the time.

We do have different moral standards: would your practice be happy seeing a dog that had its ears cropped as a routine vaccination appointment? What would you do if your practice had a blanket ban on dogs with cropped ears, the owner registered with your practice online, so no one has seen the dog, and then it presented as an emergency? Under the RCVS guidelines, all animals should be offered at least analgesia. The practice's morals might be that they don't want to encourage cropped ears, but I'm sure the dog didn't give consent to the barbaric procedure, so should it be suffering at the actions of the owner? What if the owner has rescued the pet, and rehomed it later in life? How would a neighbouring practice be viewed if they then did see the dog? Were they being nice and concerned about the dog, or did they only see the dog because they just see everything for the money? Our expectations, opinions and prejudices do taint our thinking processes, even if we do not act on them. Reading this editorial you might wonder if I am writing this just to get you thinking, but I'm sure we can all recall situations that are similar.