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]