Thanks. The point about assisting transition is a very good one. Vets can feel ‘trapped’ by their highly specific jobs and not see another option.

I am quitting the profession, almost entirely because I’m sick of dealing with the general public. This profession has jaded me and made me increasingly misanthropic. It has made me start to not care any more, and that kills me. I’ll keep my rego up just in case I change my mind in the next couple of years, but for now I am walking away. It seems that five years is the magic number as many of colleagues at this point in our career are turning our backs on it. It is a shame, because we worked hard to get where we are but the public throw out back I our faces. I find the comment “you vets are just in it for the money” particularly galling and offensive.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to hanging my stethoscope up and walking away to a well paid office job…

Some of your ideas have been added with attribution. Thanks.

Good points.

I found a couple of your points quite interesting, particularly your comment “If a business is failing, there’s probably not much more that can be done”. I’m not sure this is true- in fact, I’d be surprised if it were the case. If you look at your list of drivers of vet suicide they can be split loosely into 2 camps- stuff that is related to vet work (euths, tricky clients, high standards, access to lethal drugs) and stuff that is related to any poorly managed job (team conflict, over work and business management). If a business is failing I would suggest that there is a collection of problems behind the scenes- and usually it’s nothing to do with clinical work!

I believe it is possible to address a lot of vet workplace stress through proper clinic management. I don’t know what your situation is and I’m certainly not having a go at you if you do run your own practice (good on you if you do!) but vet clinics are often poorly managed. Clinic management often takes a backseat to vet work for owner-operators and often there isn’t always a strong grip on all aspects of business management.

We’re happy to seek advice when we hit medical issues we can’t tackle but we’re often slow to do so when it’s a management issue. If your business is failing- why not seek a business or clinic consultant? If you can’t deal with a tricky member of staff, why not ask an HR specialist what to do? If over work or bad clients stress your team, is there a way for management to mitigate that through better support? What does that ‘support’ look like in practical terms?

Vet will always be a tough but rewarding job but too often I read articles like this where a lot of the problems are completely unrelated to vet specifically and would be stressful in any workplace. We can’t necessarily change the industry but we can change where we work- either by being agents of change within the workplace or by finding a new workplace altogether.