The vets treating our ferrets are pretty unusual people.  They spend
years in school while many others are earning income.  Our vets are just
gathering debt.  They must have excellent grades which required years of
devotion to studies.  No top grades-no med school.  No top grades in med
school-no vet school.  Their road is grueling, exhausting, intense.  It
is financially draining.
 
They can never recapture the years of their youth lost to studies, lab
work, tests, and classes.  The expense is enormous.  Without wealthy
parents to front everything, you are looking at a most expensive education
from borrowed money, and interest to be paid on that money.  Money is also
needed for car, room, and food, and clothing and phone for years.
 
It is not pleasant to graduate school owing more than most people would owe
on their first condo.  Payments are to begin a year after graduation on a
monthly basis until the debt is paid back in full.  It used to be 10 years.
No 30 year deals like you get with a mortgage.  Just 10 years to pay back
an enormous amount of money and interest.
 
While physicians are performing surgeries for thousands of dollars-the vet
is working for hundreds.  While the general practitioner has very little
death to contend with-and all its emotional stressful repercussions-our
ferrets vet lives each day knowing he or she will probably face death-or
have to be the cause of it through euthanasia.
 
He or she will see more abuse of another living being than most any other
doctor: than most any other person.  Until the arrival of emergency vets,
the vet was on call-needed at any time of the week, and at any hour of the
day.  When do you say no?  I imagine the stress is not healthy emotionally
or physically.
 
In a hospital, most people pay very little to have a surgery that will
pay the doctor thousands.  One two hour hysterectomy puts about $5,000
to $6,000 into the income of a surgeon in this area.
 
With a vet-only hundreds end up in the doctors pocket for two hours of
surgery.  We complain about fees at times because they are all out of
pocket for a ferret.  But the truth is that we got off lucky.
[Posted in FML issue 3239]