http://www.smartgroups.com/message/viewdiscussion.cfm?gid=1423922&messageid=1974
 
I have just been catching up on about 2 weeks of fhl's, and while I know
this subject was discussed a week ago, I just had to throw my 2 cents in.
(okay - vent a little :-)
 
The average veterinary student student loan debt upon graduation in the
US is about $70,000.  The average veterinary salary of veterinarians
across the board is about $67,000, with the average starting salary
of graduating vets being about $45,000.  (This is after 7-9 years of
college.)  The average salary of a human physician across the board is
about $125,000.  Physicians get paid by insurance companies regardless of
how the surgery or doctor visit turns out.  Veterinarians are dependent
on their clients to pay their bills themselves, which a large number
don't.  A few years ago I worked for a vet clinic in which the owner's
wife had just taken over running the office.  When she took over, 80% of
the vet bills were not paid.  80%!  She got that number down, but only
by hounding clients to pay their bills, and turning unpaid bills over to
collection.
 
Your veterinarian has to make a living just like you do.  Your vet does
not go into a surgery, or start treating an animal with the intention of
doing a sloppy job, or not caring how that animal fares.  They do their
best, and I don't personally know of anyone who is in veterinary medicine
that doesn't care about the welfare of animals.  If they didn't care
about the animals, they would have gone into human medicine - it pays
better and it is easier to get into med school than it is to get into vet
school.  However, when it comes to treating a live animal, there are
things that are not always under their control.  Sometimes, things just
don't go right, or something is missed.  Now granted, sometimes things
are missed by one vet that might have been caught by another vet.
However, again, your vet does their best.  If you want someone with tons
of experience and training that will do the best job, pay 3 times as much
and go to a board certified veterinary surgeon who has yet another 4
years of intensive training in just that one area.
 
There will be times when your animal doesn't survive a surgery, or dies
shortly afterwards.  Again (I know, I keep repeating myself), your vet
did their best.  Hindsight is always 20/20.  A vet that I took my ferrets
to for many years (who by the way was primarily a large animal vet, but
he was the smartest one there, and the most open to new ideas, trying new
things, and taking suggestions from a client which made him my first
choice over other small animal vets) told me as I started veterinary
college that getting a DVM doesn't mean you know everything about
veterinary medicine, it means you now have a license to learn.  And vets
will continue to learn as they practice.  Unfortunately, they may learn
too late to help one animal, but they may learn from it to help the next
one.  In my 11 years of owning ferrets, and 3 1/2 years that I ran a
ferret shelter, I lost ferrets to many different things, including
surgeries.  Afterwards I was always, what if I had done that, what if I
had done this.  But, I learned from past experiences, and hopefully
helped other ferrets because of those experiences.  I'm still learning
things, not only in school, but with my own ferrets.  And, I know I will
continue to make mistakes, and to learn from them until the day that I
no longer function.
 
Now, not all vets are created equally either.  But, if you aren't happy
with the quality of your vet, go to someone else.  Now something that was
caused by pure negligence, such as the heating pad burn, that I would
expect a vet to fix without cost, although that could have been
technician or assistant fault too - not the vets.  But, if a pet doesn't
survive after a surgery, unless there was gross negligence such as a
sponge left inside the abdomen, you should still pay your vet for their
time and effort.  Anesthesia costs money, surgical supplies cost money,
and your vet's time costs money.  The time they spent doing the surgery
on your pet they could have spent taking care of another animal.  In
addition, most people want to go to vet clinics where there is high
tech equipment, such as an ECG, x-ray machine, ultrasound, blood work
analysis, anesthesia equipment, and so on.  That stuff ain't cheap.  When
you refuse to pay your vet's bill, or ask for your money back, you are
taking away from other clients.  That is money that they don't have to
spend towards better equipment.  The vet I used to work for was a huge
tightwad, and even reused disposable needles (he cleaned and autoclaved
them).  Now that is something I wouldn't even dream of doing, but
considering 80% of his clients weren't paying their bills, I can
understand why he felt the need to cut costs so tightly.
 
Now I also understand how tight money can be (boy can I understand that),
and how you may feel like you shouldn't have to pay a large sum of money
when you no longer have your pet, or when your pet is still not doing any
better.  I'd like to say, if you can't afford the bills, don't have the
pet, but I know how unrealistic that is.  But, to sound like a broken
record, your vet spends their time and effort doing their best, and you
shouldn't penalize them for that, regardless of the results.
 
To summarize, no one is perfect.  Your vet does the best job that they
can with the training and experience that they have.  Don't expect them
to pay the surgical costs out of their own pocket, and work for free just
because things didn't go right.  I guarantee you that it is no different
in human medicine, but again, insurance pays those bills, not the client.
If you are not happy with the results, go somewhere else.  Don't expect
the vet to foot the bill because you don't like the results.  Just as an
example, how perfect are you yourself?  If you mess up something at your
job, or don't get the results that your boss wants, does he/she just not
pay you for the time you spent working on that project?  'Let he who is
without sin cast the first stone....'
 
And hey, think of all the times your vets have saved your pet's life.
I know without veterinary intervention, all of my ferrets would be long
gone, which is a big part of what made me go back to school to become a
vet.
 
Okay, off of soapbox now.  :-)
 
Dooks to your fuzzies,
Shelley Knudsen
Class of 2004  KSU Veterinary College
 
"There ain't no limit in this life to how far you can get,
but if you're going all the way, you gotta break a sweat."
   - Chad Brock
[Posted in FML issue 3947]