Vet Life - This Little Light

January 9, 2020January 20, 2020

Vets are just in it for the money!

This particular blog is set out to let you see us and hopefully answer some common misconceptions about us. Vets are people pleasers; they are hard workers who like to fix things. We will go out of our way to make sure you are getting the care your animal deserves. We hate to not know what is wrong with your animal and we hate more not being able to make it better. Sure, there will be bad eggs out there, vets that just want to shuffle you along in the line of patients they have, some that want to make the most money off of you that they can, but, for the vast majority of us, we just want to help. We all worked REALLY hard in vet school and are still working just as hard to better our techniques, better our medicine, learn what is working better. We have entire social networks dedicated to sharing information and sharing what works for us and asking for help with cases. Tens of thousands of veterinarians constantly reaching out for help from vets all over the country and even the world, with tens of thousands open to helping and giving advice. Even board certified surgeons, internists, etc are answering some of our questions on some of these hard cases. I’m no 100% certain, but have asked human doctors and, to my knowledge, they don’t have this.

“Vets are just in it for the money, if they cared about animals, they would do it for free/less.” – Other than world famous veterinarians, the vast majority of us make much less than you would think. Modern veterinary school tuition is anywhere from $20,000/year to $60,000/year (tuition and fees ONLY – not rent/living expenses/food) for 4 years. So, at best, we are paying approximately $150,000 for the degree alone, including undergrad (4 years). Then, you have to factor in at least 4 years of lost financial gain where you couldn’t work enough to pay for rent/food – we had class from 8am to 5pm then ate something non-nutritional, started our IV drip of cowboy coffee and studied from 6pm to 12am/6am depending on if there was an exam (or 3) the next day- so add another $50,000 (depending on the state you lived). So, graduate with $200,000 in the hole. Unless you or your parents are independently wealthy (and they don’t hate you), you will have to take out a loan for this. In our country, interest rates can vary between 5% and 8+%, meaning that some of us pay upwards of $1200/month just to cover interest. One vet I know has paid $50,000 over 5 years toward her loan, but owes $80,000 more than when she graduated. One tells me she earns an extra $41/day in interest. Per. Day.

So, fresh out of school, with a $200,000 hole in your bank account. You get your first job, like I did, making $42,000/yr. , then, after 3 years, upgrade to $65,000. Now, you have a family, a mortgage, and other expenses to pay such as daycare so you and your spouse can actually go to work. So, you make $4000/month after taxes. You have costs of ~ $4200/month to live (these are figures from a time in my own life including only mortgage in a really low cost area, car payment, electric, daycare, gas, health insurance for the family – mine was covered by the company – and food – does not cover medical bills, car repair, other random bills) plus your $1200 interest-only payment. Your monthly costs are now at a minimum of $5400 meaning you make -$1400/month (that’s negative $1400) for being a DOCTOR. For having studied for 8 years, for continuing to upgrade and improve your knowledge as fast as you can, for bending over backwards, staying extra hours to work on a case, personally taking animals home to make sure they get the right care, crying in frustration or tragedy if the animal is not improving or dies. For storing every single one of those losses in our memory, but never seeming to remember the successes.

Some older vets may throw their younger colleagues under the bus and say that vets charge too much these days. Vet school tuition in the 60s was approximately $350 PER. YEAR, in the 80s; $1600/yr and calculated with inflation that translates to 60s: $2800/yr and 80s: $3900/yr compared to $50,000/yr now (that’s almost an 1,800% increase). I’ve had people argue with me and say “well, if you can’t afford vet school, you shouldn’t attend it.” My question is “would you rather have the best and the brightest working on you or your animal, or do you just want the rare rich folks who actually want to be a vet doing it?” – just like a larger country or state is more likely to get good athletes, a larger field of people to pull from will get better vets.

So, we don’t make a ton. Let’s talk costs of veterinary medicine. Every piece of equipment we use in a vet hospital – blood analyzers, ultrasound, x-ray, surgical instruments, gloves, syringes – all of it – is the same equipment used in human medicine and they all cost a pretty penny. Granted, they probably cost a human hospital as much as they do us, but a human hospital can charge you 10-100x what we charge for the same procedure because of insurance (*cough* “SCAM” *cough*). These are the same procedures we do with the same amount of training that goes into performing and interpreting them, but often with less wait time.

Another difference between human medicine and veterinary medicine is the way we look at our patients. In a human hospital (I imagine for the most part), patients are priceless family members and the best treatment is often not a question. In veterinary medicine, there are two very different views of the patients and a full spectrum in between. On one side, we have the pets that are considered family members, that go everywhere and do everything with their owners. Some are the only children our clients will ever have. Some are the last remaining piece the owner has of a deceased child or spouse to whom the pet belonged. Even mentioning cost of care could be insulting to them, because, obviously, this is their child and money is not a concern (though, sometimes “money is not a problem” means they don’t have any money =) and OF COURSE they will do whatever is the absolute best.

On the other side of the spectrum (which is not wrong) is people who view animals as animals. As possessions with monetary value. Some may be farm animals or hunting dogs, or barn cats and the idea of spending any amount of money above the animal’s perceived economic value is completely absurd. So, you had better discuss costs with these people before doing anything because if they walk out with a $200 bill for a barn cat, they will have a conniption.

Without a client making it perfectly clear to us where on the spectrum they stand, we offer all the options from the most ideal to the most conservative. This can make people mad. If the client is on the “my dog is my child” side they may get offended that you would even offer something that’s not the absolute best and, therefore, question your credibility as a doctor. If they are on the “it’s just a dog” side they may feel that you are pushing them to feel guilty to spend more money because you are just money hungry. Even if a client agrees to the most economic route, even if you explain all the potential risks of not doing the ideal option (again, not necessarily to push guilt, but to cover our butts) and the client signs a waiver, this still does not guarantee they will not or cannot come back at you later and sue or go for your license.

So, yes, vets are in it for the money… but mostly the love of animals, science, and fixing things. We love animals, but we must make money to live, to support our children. I’ve never heard of someone telling a car mechanic they shouldn’t charge money and just fix the car because they love it. (but perhaps they have heard that) We want to help you and your animal. That’s all we want. Please consider all of this next time you are upset with a vet bill. Consider the area that you live. The same procedure in Boulder, CO is going to be much more expensive than in Clare, MI – the same size house is about 7x the cost.

Can’t wait to see you and your animal next time!!

Pictures of my pets: 3 out of 4 of them are hazards of the job that I love!

Merlin – saved from being euthanized at 3 days old for a mangled leg that had to be amputated the next day

Penelope – found nearly frozen to death in a ditch – died once during revival.

Catina – brought in for euthanasia as kitten due to severe upper respiratory infection that had ruptured her eyes.

January 5, 2020January 20, 2020

Growing as a veterinarian

I started my young veterinary career in school, knowing, absolutely knowing that I was going to specialize in Equine Theriogenology – or breeding horses. I had taken a course in undergrad where we were assigned a group of mares and then were responsible for monitoring their estrus cycle via ultrasound and palpation and then deciding when and how to breed. We even had to collect the semen from the stallions, process it, and inseminate. I. LOVED. IT. I begged my teacher to be the teacher’s assistant the next year, I got to do it all over again. I love making babies! I spent every opportunity I could travelling to the best equine reproduction facilities in the US learning more, soaking up and loving every drop, every nuance, every manure covered rectal sleeve. Then, I applied for an equine theriogenology residency after my (terrible) internship and got rejected.

I spent that summer after my internship applying for jobs. I had only known large animals to this point and there were no large animal only jobs available that I could find. I knew nothing about small animal medicine other than vague lessons learned in vet school. It was two months later that a student of mine when I was an intern contacted me about the job in South Carolina – a mixed animal practice. It was the first time I would be treating dogs and cats. I had a ton to learn. Luckily, it was a very small practice and very slow with appointments so I was able to go to the back and research for almost every case to start. My boss was also mostly out on the road seeing dairies, so I was often left to my own decisions. Luckily, I had a wonderful tech who had been in the business a long time and was able to teach me most of my methods and help me along. I think it was a fantastic opportunity to really get to learn it down deep without the chaos of a busy practice.

Then, I got the job with Dr. Pol, moved up to Michigan in the middle of February 2014 in one of the harshest winters they’d recently had – we had stopped in Ohio to adjust something on top of the car and the wind was howling with 6 degree weather and Tony claims he was 2 seconds away from leaving me and driving back south. I was lucky enough to have already been in practice for 2.5 years before starting to work with Dr. Pol as it was constant chaos at his clinic. We were often quadruple booked every 15 minutes with only 2-3 doctors working. People waiting an hour to be seen was not uncommon. I had to learn to work fast.

When I first arrived and followed Dr. Pol around, I was absolutely impressed with the shear speed in which he saw patients. He would walk in a room and basically have a diagnosis before examining the animal. I figured that this was just from his years and years of experience and I had mountains to climb to catch up to his efficiency.

It was fun for awhile working as fast as I could, challenging myself to see the most cases every day. Then, slowly, my conscience caught up to me. Was I rushing through cases just to get them done and out? Was I really giving each client their due time and consideration? Was I offering everything I could to the client? I learned along the way that you have NO IDEA what a client is willing to do until it is offered. Dr. Pol’s clinic was in a very low income part of Michigan and you could probably count on 90% of the clients being strapped for money and wanting to try something easy first, but you could never tell which was that 10%. I saw one emergency, a dog that had gone acutely blind that day. I researched and read about it, told him (almost in passing) that the dog would need emergency surgery to save the vision. The man took his dog that day to see the specialist in Michigan, who then referred him to an even bigger specialist in Chicago, and the dog ended up having a $10,000 surgery and saved vision in one eye.

I had also gotten quite sloppy in my record keeping and if I planned on keeping my license for long, I knew I was going to have to be more deliberate with that. So, while at first I was swirled up in the fast pace craziness, I was cheapening my medicine, doing a sloppy job, and also, burning myself out. Working on numerous cases every 30 minutes, juggling multiple cases at once, sometimes even forgetting clients were in the room. It also seemed like the faster I saw cases, the more cases were booked for us to see, so it just kept piling and piling. Finally, after Tony had been working there awhile and saw how the practice was run, he’s the one that instructed me to put on the brakes. Dig my heels in and slow down.

I also joined a DVMoms group on facebook where I was able to air my grievances and get fantastic and supportive feedback. I slowed down, gave my clients more time, wrote complete records and started to restore my sanity. I felt like I could offer clients and their pets much better, quality, care in this way. I would make sure that EVERY client got offered EVERY option with treatment instead of guessing based on the client. I would be sure, though, to not make the client feel bad at all for not being able to afford the most ideal option.

One of the things I liked about working at Dr. Pol’s clinic was that we were able to offer therapies, treatments, and surgeries for much less cost than other vets around – this would eventually bring up the fact that we also didn’t pay staff well. I was able to perform C-sections on dogs and save their lives when the only other option was euthanasia because the surgery was too expensive somewhere else. Our practices were not necessarily the safest or the best, but we were able to give the owner an option other than putting their animal down. Other vets that charge more are able to offer more safety, quality, and options in their care and are able to provide their employees with better compensation. Selfishly, at the time, though, I enjoyed helping the people in need.

Eventually, the stress of working there with three small children, being on-call all the time, new vets coming and leaving just as fast, leaving the on-call duties spread between mostly 2-3 of us. Being on call for me was not a matter of if I got called in, it was how many times – with no extra compensation. I would spend my entire weekend I was on-call at the clinic – my phone rang the other day here in Virginia and Tony said he got that sinking feeling like I was about to have to leave. Six months later, he’s still suffering from “PTSD” – not seeing my children, getting home to have them all squeal with delight that I was home, then getting called back in 10 minutes later and watching them cry or even scream at the door as I left.

I was having more health problems, physically and mentally than I’ve ever had. Suicidal thoughts, even, despite medication. Finally, my therapist and the fine women on the DVMoms group pushed me to reach out and find a better job. I would take a huge hit with the salary, having Nat Geo paying me twice as much as my vet salary, but I had to escape the darkness. So, I found this job that I have now, small animal only. No on-call. Scheduled appointments for each doctor that are 30 minutes long. I feel like I get to have so much better of a relationship with the clients and hear their grievances and really talk to them and educate them about their pet’s health whereas before I would just be rushing them through their main complaint.

God pushed me to leave Dr. Pol. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I finally got my answer in a very odd, non-job-related way, but that story is for another day. I started my vet career with the intention to make lots and lots of baby horses, then I went to mixed animal, and I have currently reached a small animal only – the section of veterinary medicine I knew the least about when I started. I’m even working some shifts at a small animal emergency practice and I. AM. LOVING. IT.

Loving on the barn cats at Clay Knob – miss those fellas!

January 2, 2020

How I came to work with Dr. Pol

First and foremost, thank you, everyone for subscribing!! We are still trying to figure everything out, so please be patient with us. My husband, Tony, is in charge of running the website and has worked on getting ads added to hopefully help us make a little extra money, but we don’t know exactly what we’re doing, so if (God forbid) something crazy starts happening that is unacceptable or offensive or even annoying, please let us know and we will try to remedy it. My first goal is entertaining and keeping you happy! Also, some of the replies you might get on this site could be Tony. Love you all!!

So, since most of you know me from The Incredible Dr. Pol show, I figured I would give you some back story into how that came to be. I had been working at a mixed animal practice with 50% on call with a egotistical, power hungry boss. Okay, I’ll give you a tiny example – once I was parked at a dairy with the company truck and one of the workers ran into the truck with a tractor, making a smallish 4-5 inch ding in a rear fender. My boss lost his mind and went off on them, me, demanding they pay for it immediately. Mind you, we frequented this dairy 2-3 times a week and it, by itself paid my boss about $20,000 per month in veterinary expenses.

Anyway, I was sick of working there and we were in our second rental house and our landlord had sold the house from underneath us. We had six weeks to move out. I started applying to several different practices locally and across the country. I included in my resume that I was probably going to be having more children. I was honest and open because: 1. That’s who I am and 2. I didn’t want to pick up and move my family to another town or state only to be “let go” and have to move again. My friend, the tech at that clinic I worked pushed me to apply to Dr. Pol when she saw the ad. My first response was “Who would want to live in Michigan!?!?” Having been raised in Georgia and spent the last 2.5 years in South Carolina, Michigan seemed like a stark, desolate wasteland of icy tundra. But, to make her happy (because that’s also who I am) I applied.

My family all went to Colorado that year for Christmas and I hadn’t heard from any of the clinics I had applied for. I was sure I was going to have to go back home and just look for another place to live at my current job and stay there forever. I was standing out on the back porch of the cabin we rented, staring at the stars in the crystal clear sky over the Rocky Mountains and just prayed and prayed (and maybe a little bit of begging) to God to help me and show me the way. I promised Him I would accept whatever He presented to me.

Two days later, I still hadn’t heard anything from other jobs, or from God for that matter, when we were driving home from the Atlanta airport. We had stopped for gas somewhere along the Atlanta Highway for gas when my phone range and it was Dr. Pol. I had not watched the show at all and only knew of it through news articles. I was still star struck, knowing this famous vet wanted me to come interview. I hung up the phone and knew that God had shown me the way.

Another two days and I took a pregnancy test that came up positive. I was thrilled, but then reality hit me when I realized I would have to go interview and admit that I was already pregnant. I considered not telling them, but was, again afraid I would move across country and just have to move back when I got fired for “whatever fits here”. I started my journey to Michigan on a Friday night. Flight got cancelled. Went back Saturday morning, flew to a connecting flight. That flight got cancelled and I had to spend the night at a hotel. I was able to extend my trip into Monday, but had to argue with an airline employee who scolded me for not scheduling an interview flight better, at which I informed her that I had planned on leaving Friday night, and now, because of the lovely airline, would not be flying out until Sunday.

I finally got to Michigan late Sunday afternoon, oooo’ed and awww’ed at all the beautiful snow. Called a real estate agent and asked about a house I had already looked at and finally crashed onto the bed of the hotel. I lay for 2-3 seconds before I mustered up the energy to call Diane Pol and tell her I was here and ready for the interview. During the interview, I eventually informed Diane that I was already pregnant to make sure there was full disclosure.

The next day, I went and saw the house that we ended up buying (which is STILL for sale!! https://www.zillow.com/homes/2931-E-Rosebush-Rd-Rosebush,-MI,-48878_rb/112243628_zpid/) flew home, and found out I got the job a few days later! So, here I am, hopefully still following God’s path. Why did I leave? That will have to be for a later (possibly much later) blog, but I will have to say God works in mysterious ways.

New baby surviving Michigan winters 2014

December 31, 2019

I’m Going to Let it Shine!

Hello, and thank you for coming to read my random thoughts! I have decided to start a blog page about myself, my life, and random observations about the world in an attempt to give hope, inspire, but mostly make you laugh. I enjoy making people laugh, some for attention (otherwise why would I have the nerve to start a blog), but mostly to bring some positive light to the world when all chaos seems to be going on in our everyday lives. I plan to bring some lighthearted humor to everyday annoying situations so that you, too, can laugh at my downfalls and tribulations.

For my first Blog, I think I want to tell you about my brown stethoscope.

When I was in vet school, I got a purple stethoscope – my favorite color! Unfortunately, my dog ate it. So, then, when it was time to buy a new one, I had reached the point in my schooling where my soul and will to live had been adequately crushed (also known as clinical rotations) to allow for “remolding” – or, eventually, being happy with minimal pay for hard, stressful, skilled labor. At that point in my career, I did not exist as an individual and only was out to please my mentors and clients. Knowing that I would be going into large animal medicine, and therefore, be around barns, farmyards, horses, cows, pigs, etc, I wanted to have the best chance I could to be respected. I was convinced, as a girl, I wouldn’t be respected on the farm with “good ole boys” if I had a purple or pink stethoscope, so I purchased a brown one with copper finish. It looked very professional to me, like an elite equine practitioner and I was ready to go out and try my best to fit in with my clients and make them happy and would never allow them to think that my being a girl was a weakness.

My first real job (after a joke of an internship) was with a boss that was one of those good ole boys on the farm and despite his large stature and thick barrier of testosterone he carried around with him at all times, he employed only small women in his clinic – perhaps it was the need to feel in control, but perhaps it was just that in the veterinary world, women were becoming the majority for options. While working there, and only 3 months into my employment at my first job – granted I was already 28 – I became pregnant with my first child. I was absolutely terrified. I just knew that I was going to get fired for this and even contacted my uncle who is a lawyer to ask his opinion on my chances of getting fired. He told me that, unfortunately, because the business was such a small practice, I could, in fact, be fired legally.

I finally got up the courage to tell him and he was visibly disturbed, but, to my astonishment, did not fire me on the spot or make life harder for me to get me to quit. He did, however, warn me that the farmers around there (rural South Carolina) would not like a pregnant lady working on their cattle – that I’d make them uncomfortable and not to be discouraged if I was asked not to come back. I just knew that this would be the end of my large animal career. I worked very hard in the coming months to hide my belly with large clothes and coveralls, but at some point, you just get to the point where you can’t hide that belly anymore. The farmers did notice. They were shocked, surprised, but not one of them told me not to come back or act like they were unwilling to allow me to work on their animals. They were, maybe, a little more careful with restraining their large animals (but, really, shouldn’t they, anyway).

I went on to have the baby, remain on call, while breastfeeding and have to cart my infant along with me on some farm calls. I would park with the truck running and go pull a calf while my baby screamed in the truck the entire time. I did the same when I went out and castrated some horses, with the baby sleeping in the vehicle. Not one farmer said one thing to me – except I would get the occasional comment on how impressed they were that “a little girl like you can do what you do”.

I eventually established myself as a strong person, and no longer had to hide that I was a woman, that I was a pregnant woman, a nursing woman, a mothering woman, or a womanly woman. I eventually got to the point where I would wear earrings or *gasp* make-up or a sparkly headband that was my daughter’s out to the farms and never got a lick of push back. I still have the brown stethoscope because, well, they’re expensive and this one has not disintegrated yet, and once I cleaned all the cow manure out of the ear pieces, my ears don’t itch so much anymore. But I really love when people ask me about why I have an ugly, brown stethoscope because I get to tell them about how I used to be scared to be me, but once I was me and figured out people were okay with that, I get to be me and love it!