I was discharging an inpatient when I heard
it, and stopped mid sentence, spinning on my heel to see where it had come
from. “Vets have the highest
suicide rate of any profession”. A
cocky teenaged boy showing off in front of his Mum, a client I knew fairly well
due to their dogs persistent allergy problems. I caught his eye and turned back to finish what I had to say
before smiling and sending my patient on her way. Turning back to him I said
“It’s not so funny when it’s your friends.”
Walking back to the consulting room they
all came flooding back, a flashing show reel of those I have known and lost. The
girl I grew up with who went to a different vet school, qualified, worked for a
couple of years in mixed practice then took a calculated overdose one night.
Her funeral was the saddest thing I have ever seen, her parents hadn’t been in
a room together for over 10 years and ignored each other throughout. The racecourse vet who was reputed to
have a sixth sense with horses, kind and gentle, who had stopped drinking for a
few years then one day headed off on a binge and was found dead in his house
with head trauma. The one who hung himself over the back of the door, so that when
they tried to get into the house they couldn’t get past his body and had to
break the door down with an axe.
The vet who was a one man ambulatory practice, who took all the epilepsy
tablets washed down with a bottle of coke in the back of his car. The guy who
just couldn’t do it any more and overdosed on propofol in the flat above his vet
surgery.
It’s a far cry from the cuddly James
Herriot image that the public has, backed up by the portrayal in all those TV
shows. The reality is that we are simultaneously dealing with multiple cases,
often very complex, in a difficult financial climate where we are expected to
fix everything within the tight time allowance. Time off is a nuisance for
everyone else. I am lucky to work
in a good area, in a practice where I have colleagues who I can talk to, about
cases or other stuff, and get some support. I have worked in places where that
is not the case.
Be kind to your vet, you don’t know what
they might be going through until it’s too late.
