I'm compassionate towards the problem, but I don't really understand the doctor analogy.
A doctor doesn't demand that a full battery of blood-tests is ran to determine whether or not I have FIV before he/she stitches together a small flesh wound or before he palpates my skin for tumors; a vet has no problem with creating artificial barriers to care by their own doing as long as it produces additional transaction profit -- now doctors and insurance and medical care might be backwards in the United States, but I haven't been refused medical treatment simply by saying "No, I don't think an HIV test is going to help you set my broken arm, so I won't do it, please set my broken limb.", but this is routine type of behavior around vets and animals, and I speak from years upon years of depressing personal and community service revolving around dogs and cats.
Frankly speaking, if my career enforced that kind of behavior and left me to my own devices to extort potential customers in a time of dire need with their dying pets as hostage/collateral, i'd probably edge towards suicide, too. I don't have a solution, but it feels like an unfair profession even as a spectator looking in, so their grief and anger doesn't come as a surprise to me -- the professionals are as much victims of the 'routine' as are the marks.
I think that MDs are insulated from this issue a bit more-so by their standardized (and pretty regulated) ethical and philosophical guarantees towards medical compassion and care; not knowing what vets are required to do within that regards, it seems lacking given the broad levels of quality of vet care you can find by calling a dozen local numbers -- maybe it helps that MD patients receive the 'hard decisions' usually from their insurance people.
A doctor doesn't demand that a full battery of blood-tests is ran to determine whether or not I have FIV before he/she stitches together a small flesh wound or before he palpates my skin for tumors; a vet has no problem with creating artificial barriers to care by their own doing as long as it produces additional transaction profit -- now doctors and insurance and medical care might be backwards in the United States, but I haven't been refused medical treatment simply by saying "No, I don't think an HIV test is going to help you set my broken arm, so I won't do it, please set my broken limb.", but this is routine type of behavior around vets and animals, and I speak from years upon years of depressing personal and community service revolving around dogs and cats.
Frankly speaking, if my career enforced that kind of behavior and left me to my own devices to extort potential customers in a time of dire need with their dying pets as hostage/collateral, i'd probably edge towards suicide, too. I don't have a solution, but it feels like an unfair profession even as a spectator looking in, so their grief and anger doesn't come as a surprise to me -- the professionals are as much victims of the 'routine' as are the marks.
I think that MDs are insulated from this issue a bit more-so by their standardized (and pretty regulated) ethical and philosophical guarantees towards medical compassion and care; not knowing what vets are required to do within that regards, it seems lacking given the broad levels of quality of vet care you can find by calling a dozen local numbers -- maybe it helps that MD patients receive the 'hard decisions' usually from their insurance people.