09/17/2025
Our community lost yet another veterinarian to su***de last week. I want to take a moment to reflect and introduce some of the people responsible for taking care of your pets at EMMAvet. Here you have our doctor team. We are humans. Friends. Spouses. Sisters. Mothers. Caregivers. Daughters. Cousins. Nieces. Aunts. We have hobbies and outside interests even though we devoted our youth to learn how to take care of animals. We are here for the pets, for the people, and for each other. Every day that we show up, we are doing our best. Our training is dedicated to listening, diagnosing, treating, supporting. We are not AI. We are humans. Vets are people too!
Female veterinarians in the US have been found to have a 3.5x higher risk of su***de compared to the general population. Male veterinarians are 2.1x higher. The factors contributing could be endless. Is it the rigorous training, the emotional toil, the intense interactions with clients, the physical stress, the historical lack of mental health support, the financial burden of all the schooling required, the overwhelming time commitment and unbalanced time allowed for home life? Do we ever get to sign off from our mental computers and go home? Each one of us carries with us the pets we see each day along with the pets that our colleagues see! We take our responsibilities seriously, and this takes its toll.
Please be kind to us. If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, United States (if you are in the U.S.):
Dial or text 988 — the Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (available 24/7).
You can also call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) — same Lifeline, 24/7.
Text: 741741 connects you with Crisis Text Line (U.S.) for immediate support.
Here is a site for Not One More Vet, an organization founded to help provide mental health support to the veterinary community. https://nomv.org/
