For a small community, Leflore County is fortunate to have a number of competent and compassionate veterinarians. But if a story in The Washington Post is accurate, this might be a good time for their customers to remind veterinarians how much they are appreciated.
The Post cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, released this month, that said between 1979 and 2015, male and female veterinarians killed themselves between 2 to 3.5 times more often than the national average. The CDC also said that female veterinarians are more likely to commit suicide than their male peers, which is the opposite trend of the general population.
Given that 60 percent of today’s veterinarians are women, as are 80 percent of veterinary school students, the authors of the study believe this is a warning signal of an even higher suicide rate in the future.
It may be no surprise that two of the causes of this problem are debt and burnout.
One industry organization reported that the average veterinarian finishes school with $143,000 in debt. Repaying the loans is more difficult than most other medical fields because veterinarians tend to make less money, and salaries aren’t keeping pace with rising tuition.
Job burnout, of course, is not limited to this field. Everyone is doing more work. But veterinarians are in a unique place because they treat their customers’ beloved pets, and that can increase the job stress when an animal is sick or dying.
The Post reported that veterinarians are more likely than other physicians to have their medical opinions rejected by their customers. In the worst cases, this has led to social media attacks by pet owners. This prompted the American Veterinary Medical Association to set up a cyberbullying hotline for its members.
There’s one other element, however, of the problem: Because veterinarians regularly euthanize animals, this apparently leads some of them to believe that dying is a reasonable way to end suffering. That may be true for an old or sick pet. It is not true for their caregivers.
It also is relatively easy for distressed veterinarians to end their life. They have access to euthanasia drugs, and they are skilled at administering them to cause a quick, painless death.
The good news is that veterinarians themselves are trying to do something about their profession’s disturbingly high suicide rate.
Several support groups for the pet doctors have sprung up on social media. But the Post said the online non-profit Not One More Vet, whose name refers to the group’s determination to keep veterinarians from killing themselves, is “the organization at the crest of the industry’s new wellness wave.”
Not One More Vet addresses these problems directly. It has created a grant program to help veterinarians who can’t afford mental health treatment. It also has temporary relief workers who give worn-out veterinarians a few days off.
Pet care is an important business. But it’s not so important that some of the providers should be tempted to kill themselves. Hopefully, the support groups and other assistance start to bring down the high suicide rate of veterinarians. But a hug or a compliment from grateful pet owners certainly would mean a lot, too.
