Veterinary practice, behind the scenes

Guarantors of the health of our animals, their status oscillates between admiration and skepticism.

True heroes in the hours when they ensure life, they are also sometimes the chaperones of the last moments of our beloved companions…

What emotional and mental burdens weigh on veterinarians?

Specialized in the detection, the establishment of the diagnosis, and the follow-up of the treatments, the veterinarian is also a business manager (according to his professional status). His ability to heal is not his only mission.
Administrative, financial management, personnel management, management of the psychology of the owners, the list is long. Are our Doctors of Veterinary Medicine, like other professionals, always well prepared? What emotional and mental burdens weigh on them?
Are the owners really aware of this? Some testimonies reveal the difficulties and tragedies linked to this beautiful profession. Immersion in the intimacy of these practitioners, who dedicate their lives to animal health.

Dr Vincent Outters

Ekico : Hello Doctor Outters, you are a mixed veterinarian with an 80% equine and 20% rural practice. There is also a large activity of small animals within the clinic where you practice and you are a total team of eight veterinarians in Saint Germain-Lespinasse, in the Loire department.
A big thank you for granting us this exchange in order to better understand what veterinarians can experience and go through.

To start, let’s talk about you. Dedicate your career to veterinary medicine, why this choice?

Dr Vincent Outters : I loved contact with horses when I was a child and then I learned to love contact with other animals. I appreciated the fact of improving the quality of the farms by improving health management through the implementation of vaccination, better feeding, etc.

Ekico : In your opinion, what are the biggest difficulties that veterinarians can encounter in their practice? How do you think this can be fixed?

Dr Vincent Outters : First of all, daily stress. We are having exams all the time. We are constantly judged on our attitude, our friendliness, the way we explain the problem to the owners and, of course, the quality of the care we provide.

Then, today we have big companies because veterinarians alone hardly exist anymore or are doomed to disappear. We are therefore business leaders with all that this entails as a concern: personnel, management of the team agreement, logistics also of the clinic as a building, with all the equipment inside: the different analyzers, ultrasound scanners, radiology devices to be maintained. To remedy this, you have to agree to get help in these businesses from non-veterinarians or veterinarians who will do less care, but who will manage these business management tasks.

Ekico : Are there good practices that owners could implement to make your life easier in your daily life?

Dr Vincent Outters : The nicest thing you can expect is the trust you have between the veterinarian and the owner. This confidence is the keystone. It allows us to work peacefully. There is nothing worse than working in front of someone who does not trust us, that’s where we make mistakes.

This means that everyone must be honest. The veterinarian must know how to refer when the case is too complicated, without the owner pushing him to do things he can no longer control. And the veterinarian must also remain humble and listen to what the owner tells him. On a practical level, simple things make us happy!

It is common to need warm, clean water in a clean bucket. How many times are we brought to treat a horse in the meadow when there is no clean water. People are waiting for us, and when we arrive, nothing is ready! They would just have to put themselves in our shoes and ask themselves what could make our job easier.

On the other hand, a large part of our visits are made during vaccination reminders, it would be good for the owners to call us in the month preceding the deadline instead of calling us at the deadline.

Ekico : The NOMV (Not One More Vet) movement sheds light on a subject little known by owners and perhaps also by veterinary students themselves, that of suicide in the profession. As an experienced veterinarian, what advice would you give to young people who are preparing to embrace your profession and/or to your colleagues who are currently suffering in their activity?

Dr Vincent Outters : I am lucky to share my job with my wife, and we work in the same structure. It does a lot of good because we know what the other has been through during the day. So we support each other and we can debrief in the evening.

When one of us is feeling down, the other puts him back on track. It is much harder when worries cannot be shared. Of course, you have to share your failures with your colleagues and your bosses. The bosses must be there to support young people and listen to them.

The hardest blows happen when there is an unforeseen mortality following an act of convenience, for example on a castration. This common act is potentially at risk with inguinal hernias, fatal and unpredictable. When this happens, the blow is very hard to live with. To avoid this, it is necessary to inform the owners that this tragedy can happen and have them sign an informed consent to castration explaining the possible complications. This will not prevent the complication from occurring but the owners will have been warned of the possibility.

Interview realized with Dr Vincent Outters
Espace vétérinaire Germanois (42640) – FRANCE

Phone : 04 77 64 50 00

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One Comment

  1. Prof. John R Newcombe

    Food for thought
    Do owners, and we ourselves expect too much of us. Surely if we do the best we can under whatever circumstances, that should be enough ?
    Accidents do happen through nobody’s fault although Lawyers try to convince us otherwise ! Things do go wrong beyond our control.
    If we do our utmost to prevent predictable accidents, we should not worry and certainly not feel any responsibility

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