04/11/2021
A very long post regarding veterinarian’s work and cyber bullying experienced by veterinarians.
「無愛心唔好學人做獸醫啦」「垃圾」
aka ‘if you don’t have love for animals, don’t be a veterinarian’ ‘rubbish’
- sourced online from posts complaining about veterinarians.
I absolutely agree, and I tell you - it is almost impossible to find a vet who chose their career Not because of their love for animals.
I wanted to become a veterinarian ever since I was that girl in the photo. I remembered seeing sick animals and felt helpless as I didn’t know how to help them feel better. This is why I become a veterinarian.
If someone is capable of graduating from veterinary school, there are many careers they can pursue - and can do well, in a far more comfortable way of life.
In the past 2-3 years, I work in an average of 12-14 hours per day, 6pm-8am / 8pm-8am, overnight, including weekends. Because pets don’t only plan to get sick during working hours. Me and my fellow nurses sleep when the sun is shining, adjust our sleep schedule every few days to stay in touch with family and friends. I have dozed off at the gatherings and missed my family’s important events. But it’s all worth it, working emergencies we really helped save a life, and another life, every single night.
However, vets experience cyber bullying frequently. No matter what went right or wrong - we get fingers pointed at us.
Recently this has happened to me - ‘I killed her cat, took her money and have no love for animals’
Here we go.
The cat arrived that day in a Pet Ambulance with oxygen supplementation as she was struggling the breathe. Cat is showing neurological signs and has no measurable blood pressure, cat’s gums are White and occasionally purple with huge bruises on the body. I am the third vet who has seen the cat in that single day. There are other pets waiting for my consultation but they are more stable so I dropped everything and focused on the cat as the life is at risk.
I stopped all the other testings and placed the cat in oxygen, and administered treatment to the cat immediately - for bleeding, and for poor blood pressure, suspected pneumonia and septicaemia, immediately. Cat is anaemic and I offered blood transfusion. However it is not cheap and everyone has different financial background, at the time the anaemia is still marginal - I recommended, but allowed owner to choose to do it immediately, or wait a few hours to see if there is 1) ongoing deterioration of anaemia for transfusion to be a must 2) any internal bleeding that we need to open surgically. Owner did not choose for transfusion when I offered.
Few hours later the cat settled and we did the minimal testings - a drop of blood to see if cat is still bleeding, and a very quick ultrasound to see if there is bleeding in the abdomen - that we need a surgery to stop the bleeding before it bleeds out to death. These are required for us to change the course of action to Save the cat. We smelled peppermint on the cat and asked the owner if there has been exposure. And yes, she rubbed peppermint essential oil onto the cat the night before. Not long after, the cat passed away. Peppermint is toxic to cats - skin exposure and ingestion.
I was accused of
- killing the cat whilst the cat was so fine on the way here (whilst the cat arrived on a pet ambulance in oxygen for emergency consultation after not eating for DAYS with white gums, no blood pressure detectable and I did everything that I can in the best possible way.)
- Not caring about the cat (dropped all my other duties to look after this cat based on triage)
- Not giving fluids (without transfusion, it will dilute the blood further and kill the cat in this case)
- Not transfusing blood to the cat (which I offered but she did not agree to)
- Putting the blame on the owner (a regular cat who is experiencing sepsis from a previously suspected aspiration pneumonia don’t suffer this way with neurological signs with such severe coagulopathies, anaemia and breathing distress. It still hurts me remembering how the cat struggled to breathe. Of course all the other co-morbidities are possibly contributing, but objectively, peppermint oil toxicity explains almost all the signs the cat is displaying. The oil was all over the cats abdomen, arms and face.
- Not saving the cat (I checked for any further bleeding to let her know whether we now MUST transfuse / Need to consider surgery)
- Only cared about the money (I stopped all the other tests that may not change what we are doing, and I did not push for the transfusion.)
- And not having love for animals. (I was willingly working overnight sacrificing my health and time because it may save lives, I also studied endless nights to get my degree. All that I have done was for the best interest of the animal.)
So here’s the full story. It took me a while to write this up because it is not easy to face it. We were told to just let it pass -
1 in 6 veterinarians have contemplated su***de and veterinarians are 2.7 times more likely than the general public to die by su***de.
I am lucky that I am gifted with a chirpy character, a loving family and supportive friends.
Grief is immensely difficult. Anger is a part of it and understandably veterinarians will be easily blamed. But it’s also a fact of nature that not all diseases are treatable and not all patients with treatable diseases come at an early enough time for us to make a difference.
Trust me, there aren’t many other reasons for vets to become vets. We love your animals a lot. We get sad and worried when animals don’t do well as well as you.
Please be kind to us.
