Dear Georgina,
The Veterinary Nurse 2(2) 2017 A compassionate journey part 3: the client experience
It may be that as a graduate of the mid 1960s my opinion may be considered to be out of date. However, my reaction to the article is one of amazement. Euthanasia can be difficult for client and veterinary staff but it cannot be as complex as your article suggests. Why make a procedure more complicated than it is?
It is interesting that it fails to discuss the problems which arise when the procedure ‘goes wrong’.
Kind regards,
James Weir BSc Aberdeen, BVMS Glasgow
Dear Georgina,
I have read your recent series of items on A compassionate journey with interest.
The indication from the RCVS 2014 survey on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale is that a veterinary nurse has the lowest score. While such anxiety could well be a reflection of failing to meet client's expectations and demands. I would be of the opinion that the series of articles can only make matters worse — why create more difficulties within a well run practice if the veterinary surgeon has professional ability along with that of his staff to retain the confidence of the client?
Kind regards,
James Weir
In response,
Dear Mr Weir,
Thank you for both your letters. You've expressed a concern that the publishing of the series of articles on ‘A Compassionate Journey: Parts 1–4’ might create difficulties within a practice, or have a negative impact on veterinary nurse anxiety levels. I can assure you that this certainly wasn't the intention of the series. Indeed, in our final article in the series, ‘Self- and Team-care’, we outlined ways in which veterinary nurses could help alleviate stress relating to compassion fatigue, by undertaking certain activities that help with mental wellbeing.
A recent study published in this magazine, ‘A questionnaire based study to access compassion fatigue in UK practising veterinary nurses’ Sept 2016, evidenced that veterinary nurses are at risk of compassion fatigue from the very nature of their caring job. The study also highlighted that the risk of secondary traumatic stress is exacerbated by dealing with clients. Surely, rather than ignoring the subject, these things are better talked about; by helping with client insights, and giving veterinary nurses training and tools to help their clients cope with their pet's end of life, both should feel supported. Rather than creating difficulties, the intention of our series of articles was to help with communication around this stressful subject, and to empower the veterinary nurse.
Your first letter refers to your ‘amazement’ that this topic needs to be addressed at all. I think that the RCVS statistic pointing to euthanasia as a common source of client complaints (and indeed this ‘procedure’ has its own category in the complaint list), highlights that this area can result in conflict and distress. We know that most complaints to the RCVS have communication issues at their core. It is this that we try to address throughout our series — looking through all the common touchpoints of an end-of-life journey for a client, and providing relevant communication advice for each.
We know that very many practices ‘do’ end-of-life very well, but our aim is to be there for every practice, and help them to grow their business based on happy clients and happy team members.
Yours sincerely,
Libby Sheridan