The article fosters “a feeling of mistrust of veterinarians,” Corry says. “Your choice of headline and the wording of subheads throughout the article, combined with an overall negative tone, and the use of innuendo and inflammatory language, are regrettable,” Corry writes. “Veterinarians are compassionate doctors who work extremely hard to provide quality health care at an astonishingly reasonable cost. Contrary to the article's title, communication is the cornerstone of the veterinarian-client-patient relationship.” The article’s subtitles included quips like, “Good thing you love Sparky like a son. His care could cost as much,” “Vaccinating your pet may do more harm than good” and “Surgery is a cinch. It’s the overnight stay you should worry about.”
Corry points out that trust and communication are key to the veterinarian/client relationship and calls out Smart Money for mocking that relationship. “Despite the fact that the scientific community, the American public and even the U.S. General Accounting Office have appraised veterinarians as indispensable experts on both animal and human health, your article fails to accord these doctors that respect,” Corry writes. “Indeed, one can scarcely imagine the backlash Smart Money would feel from both the public and the medical community by running an article entitled ‘10 Ways to Avoid Following a Pediatrician's Advice.’”
3 comments:
AVMA, it is TIME someone blew the whistle on you veterinarians. Frankly we pet guardians are sick and tired of being held at "lifepoint" for our animals lives while you veterinarians greedy-grab every darn thing you think you can get your grubby mitts on. The welfare of the animal is LAST - that is obvious. Extreme uncaring demands for obscenely huge amounts of money for medical care while offering only death as an alternative is immoral, unethical and frankly outrageous. AVMA is so self-serving as to be nauseating to the knowledgeable caring animal guardian - I happen to know you spend more time at your so-called conventions teaching vets how to separate people from their money rather than continuing education on medical issues. The lack of integrity and basic caring among today's veterinarians is the reason most people now look at vets like they view used car salespeople - shilling for greed.
I'm saddened that you feel this way. That said, I do agree that opinions such as yours are a perfect checks and balances and really important! Sounds like you need to find a new vet, however.
I pride myself on knowing that most compassionate, animal-loving, caring people in the world go to become vets - the money-motivated ones go to med school instead (hence, why it is 70% women!). Being that we graduate veterinary school with over $150,000 in loans (not including undergraduate school loans), while making $17-25,000 during our 1-year internship and 3-4 year residency (additional training AFTER our 8 years of undergrad and veterinary school), I think you may have a misconceived notion of what vets are truly earning in the end. Also, it's important to educate yourself on what happens at these conferences - they are 80% continuing education (on medical issues), 10% laboratories (hands on labs), and yes, 10% practice management. That said, if you feel so strongly, I'd recommend you find a new vet!
Oh, really, Dr. Lee? Then why do I hear people saying "I couldn't get into medical school so I couldn't waste the undergrad premed and just went ahead to vet school." Compassionate? Hardly. Don't tell me to get a "new vet" it took 16 years to find a horse who finally FINALLY was someone who seemed (at least until recently) to put the wellbeing of the horse first. However, I may have to reassess this as when he came to euthanize my old very beloved mare who had been in the family for 28 years he looked around afterward at all the griefstricken faces and announced "as long as I'm here what else do you have for me today?" Insensitive? Definitely. Uncaring? Perhaps. And I still haven't found a good dog vet - the last one angrily and defensively verbalized about her "entitled days off" which happened to be Monday, Friday, all weekend, and Wednesday afternoons - and if your dog had a problem, even a minor one, any of those times you were directed to the local emergency clinic which starts for an office call at $300 before even any exams. I could give you literally dozens of examples from myself and from others. You need to start reading blogs and forum posts to understand - this isn't about one unhappy client, this is generally how most Americans are viewing vets.
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