14/07/2024
I don't know anyone in the veterinary industry who has not experienced some kind of hateful or threatening interaction with a client. That's how common this really is. Having served on the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine for more than five years now, I have seen this over and over---a client is dissatisfied with something, didn't get what they wanted, there was a bad outcome for their pet, or perhaps they were just in an unfortunate place in their lives at the time and lashed out in an insulting and hateful manner at the veterinary staff.
Peace, Love & Paws has existed for 11 years as a registered Colorado 501c3 non-profit, solely to help the less fortunate with their pet's veterinary care. We are a fully volunteer staff (myself included), no one gets paid anything, we show up each month so we can do the right thing by helping people who would otherwise struggle to obtain veterinary care. Every month, we pack into a local church and run this free vet clinic for the homeless and indigent for about 4-5 hours, trying to help as many people as possible.
But it's the nature of what we do that sometimes we just can't help everyone. We do our absolute best to take care of their needs and give alternative options if we can't do it ourselves, but there are times when we just don't have the capacity to be everything to everyone.
And as we all know in veterinary medicine, this is when people get angry.
At every free clinic, I and other volunteers have experienced hateful speech, threats and verbal abuse by clients. Every single time. Each month, people become angry they have to wait, upset that we are triaging sick patients before their pet's vaccines, or they yell or become belligerent just because they can't get what they want. I am always surprised at this, even as many times as it occurs.
The woman who sent this text is not unique---but she is the classic reason many of us leave the industry, and for sure the reason that Not One More Vet, Inc was started (an organization that supports veterinary staff to prevent su***de). This woman has been coming to PLP almost every single month for years and she has multiple pets that have chronic illnesses who require significant and ongoing care. She is quite manipulative and will compliment me and others when she wants something, then if she doesn't get it, she becomes mean and belligerent. She has historically taken about 1.5 hours with a vet each time she has come, so this month, we had to triage her as lower priority and just refill her medications because there were so many other clients, most of whom were brand new. And it did not go well, as you can see. Her words were mean and hateful, even to a personal level. She even threatened to euthanize her dog if she didn’t get what she wanted. Completely unnecessary and damaging to those of us who simply want to help people.
This woman has earned her new status as unable to return, obviously, but this type of behavior, as I mentioned, is not uncommon. And there's no one I know in the vet field who has not experienced something like this, or worse. And we continue to lose good veterinarians and veterinary technicians to su***de or they leave the profession because of things like this. I am not immune to it either---I have most certainly considered su***de in the past and/or retiring for this reason alone. Hateful, angry, litigious and threatening clients make this profession very hard. Sometimes too hard. And it happens every single day.
I'm sure my friends who are reading this are not those people--I'd just like everyone to know that there isn't a soul in veterinary medicine who has gone into the profession for money. No one. We all just want to help people and animals. The more clients make it hard, the fewer of us there will be--we will leave the profession. And some of us will choose to leave it by su***de. That's a real thing. I'm not there, but I could be. And it's so easy to prevent...
Just be kind. That's all. 💕
Dr. Carolyn Karrh
Executive Director, Peace, Love & Paws
