Finding your voice

3 small words, so yeah that should be easy to achieve cause no one in this field ever undermines you, discredit your knowledge or the work you preform, yells at you for following your hospital policies, people are always so understanding that they aren’t the only client/animal we deal with in a day, clients understand medications can’t just be refilled without doctor approval and never get angry or vulgar with us when that said medication gets declined for a refill cause they need to be seen before it can be refilled cause they haven’t been seen in over a year or the meds they were on aren’t helping so they need to be seen so we can figure out a new game plan… yeah those things never happen, I definitely could go on and on about examples of things that “don’t” happen in the vet field. I know we’re not the only field that deals with this kind of behavior but from experience the vet field is, for a lack of a better word shit on all the time from everyone. We love animals we should do things at half the cost, things shouldn’t be so expensive cause we should want the animal to get better, since an owner can’t afford what they’ve taken upon themselves to have cause a pet is a privilege, not a given right to have, then we should do it for free to save that animal since we’re robbing them with our prices. We WISH we could save everything, but the hard reality is that we can’t. The doctors, the techs, the assistants, the receptionist still need to make a living cause this is our career! This is how we make a living just like everyone else we deserve to get paid for what we do. This is not just something we are volunteering to do, this is something we vowed to do to the best of our ability.

There is so much the techs honestly do for free that owners never acknowledge or understand that there’s a charge for cause in our hearts we can’t let that animal leave the way it has come in or even doctors do free diagnostics cause the owner has already spend over a thousand dollars in diagnostics and the doctor just wants answers or knows there will be an illness or surgery that will need additional money for that they don’t have the heart to charge you for one more thing cause they know what’s about to be asked from you to spend. We understand the anger more then you know but we have no control over the pricing and honestly if you break down the pricing its cheaper then human medicine cause in human medicine 9 times out of 10 you have insurance.. Which we always tell people at puppy exams to look into but we are told we are crazy and they’re not spending money on something so useless. In reality it’s life, you never know what it decides to throw at you. The insurance could make or break an outcome.

Even though we understand the frustration sometimes, we get how much you love your animals. That still doesn’t neglect that fact that we are still human and don’t need to be yelled at and disrespected daily when we are there always trying to help. So please think before you walk through those veterinary doors and remember you have reached out to us for help or guidance and that’s what we are there for happily to help.

---

The owners are not the only ones we have to find our voice’s for, to not accept certain behaviors or be verbally bullied by. Sometimes it’s within the staff of the hospital, whether its other techs, management or even the doctors. It’s not everywhere but it unfortunately happens. Other techs bully some for not being at the same level of knowledge or there’s no reason at all besides they don’t like working with them. Sometimes it could be the doctors, usually it’s the older men but can also be the older women. Since they have been in the field a long time, they like things a certain way and expect a certain level from their tech and when its not delivered they talk down to us and belittle us cause they are higher ranking and can’t get off their high horse long enough to teach and have us learn, It’s easier to talk down to us rather then fix the real issue at hand.

---

It really come’s from every end. That’s why the turn over rate is so high for us. Some people either get swallowed up and chewed out where it gets to the point where they are so burnt out that they quit. Veterinary medicine is hard and if you don’t have a strong mindset and big heart for the job/animals you wont make it. No one quite understands it until you are in it. It can be really great but can also be really shitty depending on where you are. Don’t let it consume you, there’s always somewhere else to go. I promise you, there are still good places to work with good people to work aside.