05/25/2022
Bark friends,
Let’s have a discussion about the vet field right now. I can speak with my own ER experience as a client this past weekend. It is so scary to be on the other side of the table, so to speak.
Anesthesia complications are quite rare but possible. I did a dental on my own little dog, Lava, last Friday. The anesthesia completely stopped his guts. Ileus is the fancy name of zero movement of his intestines.
In the wee hours of Sunday morning he was vomiting so many times and couldn’t hold water down. I was so upset that I needed an objective vet to evaluate him. I also didn’t want to bring my overworked techs in on a weekend. At 6am I called Stark County ER expecting them open 24/7 over the weekend and found out they wouldn’t open until 8am.
I spent much of Sunday in parking spot #7 at the ER clinic. I’m pretty sure there were only 2 vets and 3 techs working and an entire parking lot full of sick pets. 😔
Every single staff member I talked to was kind and courteous throughout the day but you could see the strain on the faces of the techs running car to car.
My experience confirms the entire veterinary field is just broken right now in terms of staffing.
1. IF an ER is accepting patients the average wait time is 6-12 hours. Call before you go.
2. Be grateful if your pet isn’t the one rushed in.
3. Be grateful if you get to take your pet home.
4. Be kind. Everyone is doing the best they can.
Bark is working with a skeleton crew right now, as is every clinic and hospital I know. The veterinary field is losing employees at an insane rate. 2 years is the average time an employee stays in the field, even Registered Vet Techs who spent 2 years getting their degree. Veterinarians are leaving the clinical field in record numbers to teach College classes, work in Industry or for the government or leaving the field altogether.
I believe this will continue until we can pay Veterinary healthcare workers similar to Human healthcare workers. It will also continue as people’s general level of entitlement and rudeness increases as it has the past 2 years. These careers take a tremendous physical, emotional, & mental toll on a person.
Raising prices to pay what staff deserve would make pet care completely out of range for so many people. I don’t have a solution here.😔
All I can do is keep watering the flowers and pulling the weeds as far as clients go. By doing this and protecting my staff’s downtime I hope we can continue at our current pace.
We will be closed from 2pm Thursday, May 27 until 8am Tuesday, May 31st to allow my team to rest and recover a few days. I hope you have a safe and healthy holiday weekend.
PS, Lava is finally eating and drinking and happily wagging his tail again. I am so grateful to the ER Vets and staff that were so kind while I was so upset.❤️
