Latest in Veterinary Wellbeing

As we've covered in recent issues of

Weekend Rounds

, the veterinarian shortage and its consequences are gaining mainstream media coverage over the past 12 months. It's nice to see, but how will we know if things are moving in the right direction?

A

new survey

of over 400 veterinarians indicates that the veterinary profession may be taking baby steps toward addressing issues such as stress, burnout and compassion fatigue. Some key findings indicate that:

• 76% of respondents described their mental health as ‘reasonable’ or ‘very good’;

• 71% of respondents said there was someone at work they could talk to about their mental health; and

• 80% of respondents knew where to access information and support

While it's a small sample size, it's nice to see some of our colleagues feel more supported at work. However, it is worth noting that for every encouraging stat, there are still the familiar stressors that we've seen first hand:

• 60% of respondents felt that their work/life balance was not right; and

• 82% were worried about their financial situation

There is still plenty of work to be done, but small steps in the right direction are worth celebrating such as

funding being approved

to open a new College of Veterinary Medicine at Utah State University to help address the state's veterinary shortage.

Bloomberg's Lazy Comments

This week

Teresa Chilarducci wrote in Bloomberg about the challenges of inflation

and included one of the laziest throwaway comments about veterinary care that we have seen in a long time.

"If you’re one of the many Americans who became a new pet owner during the pandemic, you might want to rethink those costly pet medical needs. It may sound harsh, but researchers actually don’t recommend

pet chemotherapy

— which can cost up to $10,000 — for ethical reasons."

The citation linked is a 2019 paper from Animals entitled "The use of chemotherapy to prolong the life of dogs suffering from Cancer: The Ethical Dilemma." This paper is from an Australian veterinarian discussing the role of chemotherapy in animals. The author points to a few considerations about the use of chemotherapy. Some of which including the side effects of chemotherapy and the strain on the animals are overstated from our point of view. Nonetheless, Ghilarducci's liberal use of the word "researcher" to describe the author of the paper and throwaway comment has us reeling.

Most often Veterinary Medicine doesn't get mentioned when talking about world events like inflation. Its tough to stomach this type of lazy reporting when it finally does.

If you're thinking about communicating to clients about Chemotherapy and want to be the most informed and up to date, consider Dr. Chris Pinard's course

"Foundations of Veterinary Oncology."

Shout out to @MigratoryEgret on Twitter for alerting us to this ridiculous article. Be better Bloomberg.

Quick hits:

Here are the stories that caught our eyes this week and are worth a read: The wildlife whiperer - meet the 'bird lady' who paddles into freezing water to save animals [The Guardian]Alexa for Animals: AI is teaching us how creatures communicate [Wall Street Journal]Pig Sounds are associated with emotions [Washington Post]

Trivia

What is the approximate overall percentage of dogs who may have side effects from chemotherapy?

Your weekly dopamine

No one sees a fish or a mermaid...

Trivia Answer

Want to learn more about what side effects and when to be concerned? Check out Dr. Chris Pinard's

Foundations of Oncology

course.

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