I agree that many aspects about being a vet must be very hard. Not least because of a general deterioration in manners and so forth alongside high expectations. Also to point out that mistakes in some professions can result in multimillion £ claims against a practice and a long-fought for career down the drain.
very much this especially small animal vets. My young equine vets seem to have a lot more experience, possibly because several had ponies as kids and went through the whole horse performance and learnt different methods/things.
If you're young, surely by default you're inexperienced....
I don’t think they have time to fit in PMs for their own experience even if they wanted to.
I remember when my daughter first graduated she specifically looked for a job where she would be mentored . It was surprising how many places weren’t prepared to offer that . You may recall she ended up at a mixed practice near you who were excellent at offering support when needed .
? You have got the wrong end of the stick, it’s not what I might like to see, but what the cumulative evidence of submitted concerns to CMA show might be serious concerns about the sector, remembering that practising vets are among the many who have submitted those concerns.
I think one of the issues here is that vets in corporate practice (judging from some of their submissions to CMA) are actively discouraged, maybe even prohibited, from even mentioning the less expensive (sometimes less effective, but certainly not always) approaches to treating or managing whatever issue, and that is no longer going to be acceptable (altho I’m equally sure some will devise some semantic circumvention!)
Great idea, thanks for heads up, don’t all rush at once and jam the site!
We still have vet medicine undergrads doing a fortnight with the milk herd, not as frequently as in the past, but also senior vets in our (independent) practice might ring and ask if they can bring students to examine various cattle - not sick ones, just to improve students’ understanding and handling skills. Obviously we always say yes(!), occasionally those students ask to see horses, but focus is more on the commercial animals, and these are students rather than inexperienced vets.
I wasn't over impressed by my last experience of a young inexperienced vet. Seriously ill old cat taken into their hospital as vet didn't know the problem, all fine to there. They did tests rang back and discussed conclusion at length. All fine. Put her on a drip would monitor overnight and duty vet would ring back in the morning with an update. That happened and all fine. Next evening the way forward wasn't clear. Vet advised one more night on the drip etc and we agreed (and it was put in the notes) that the following morning the duty vet would ring and we would make a decision based on overnight progress. This was crunch time, vet would either demonstrate the progress and hope and that it would be a good idea to take the cat home and see if it improved at home or would advise no progress, little expected and PTS then. Fine to there, It was clear to the vet I was quite pragmatic not an owner saying you must save my cat at all costs.
Couldn’t agree more, vets do need more focus on communications training to be far more lucid and transparent, whatever is being charged for. Some of the European vets with thick accents are actually better in this respect - maybe because they really have to try in their explaining to clients.
CMA, submit your concerns….I was charged £11.50 for two sachets of Bute. They're about 70p each online.
I don't know how many times we have to explain this. Vets generally can't buy in for what the online pharmacies can sell for. Vets are legally bound to use specific wholesalers. They buy on an "as needed" basis, and only hold very small stocks of the most commonly used medications. Otherwise drugs are ordered in especially for the client. They can't bulk buy, many meds are relatively short dated, and generally vet practices are very limited for space.
I appreciate that has been written before and perhaps we should just accept that we no longer buy meds from vets. It will be just like the doctors, have your consultation, get your prescription probably electronically and off you go. That will save time and work for vet staff. It seems to be a lot of work for them and obviously they don't make any profit out of it having to pay a higher price. The only ones they will supply to are those who are insured and then they can mark it up however much they want as the insurance will be paying.
interesting. The vet in my post 144 matching the online price was a partner so stood to benefit and this was pretty soon before the practice went to CVC (I think it was)
I can see the problems from the vet side. My indep sends the script in an e mail to me and I send it on to animed who I used in my case (until the vet came up with better prices) they used to send me a paper copy as well but I told them to stop as it was only costing them more money.
