VIEWS FROM A VET VIEWS FROM A VET Enlarge PetMD.com. She also writes weekly for the Miami Herald and monthly for Veterinary Practice News. Her USA TODAY guest column appears each Friday.



Khuly lives in South Miami with her son, Max, dogs Vincent and Slumdog, goats Poppy and Tulip, and a backyard flock of chickens. Patty Khuly, a small-animal veterinarian in Miami, is author of FullyVetted , a blog on pet health atwrites weekly for theand monthly for Veterinary Practice News. Her USA TODAY guest column appears each Friday.Khuly lives in South Miami with her son, Max, dogs Vincent and Slumdog, goats Poppy and Tulip, and a backyard flock of chickens. why. You'd never know it by looking at us, but veterinarians are four times as likely to commit suicide than the average person; twice as likely as our human healthcare counterparts. This gloomy stat was brought to you by a series of United Kingdom studies conducted over the past few years, which culminated in a paper published just last week on the subject of I'd read about the original studies a couple of years back and, like most of my colleagues, I was somewhat in denial over capturing the dental profession's flag on this one. I mean, we can all joke about why a dentist's job might seem pointless (until we need one, that is), but a veterinarian's? Such an outlet for a deep and abiding love of animals would seem more like a dream come true than a wade in the river with rocks in your pockets. But then I started tallying them up ... and I counted three. VIEWS FROM A VET: Bites, bugs, toxic fumes among occupational hazards PAW PRINT POST: Cat wards off new owner's depression THERAPY: Even hairless Sphynx cats can give patients warm, fuzzy feeling In the fifteen years I've been in practice, I've personally known at least three colleagues who committed suicide. I went to class every day with one. I worked alongside one at one practice. I referred my patients to one who worked as a specialist. And I know of at least five or 10 similar tragedies through friends and acquaintances. Yet the numbers are still staggering to me, so much so that U.S. vets have questioned these stats as they apply to our side of the Atlantic. "It can't be!" we say. We've got the best job in the world, right? We may complain a lot about stress and low pay and high student loan debt but it's a whole lot better than sitting at a desk rifling papers and hanging on the telephone all day, right? Apart from this one, I can't think of many other professions I'd consider. Chef? (Maybe, but all those inflexible hours!) Goat farmer? (OK, I'll take that one but I'd never live off it in a million years ... not in Miami, anyway.) The British researchers were similarly beset by doubts when they reached their original conclusion a few years ago. What could be so deadly about a career as seemingly serene as veterinary medicine? Hence a compilation and discussion of the existing data, published in the U.K.'s Veterinary Record by way of identifying the factors at play: 1. Vets have high-stress jobs due to early competition for admission, compassion fatigue, long work hours, oversized client expectations and physician-level economic indebtedness with half an M.D.'s earning potential. The authors suggest that veterinarians' stress starts early and hits hard with fewer rewards than our mirror professions offer. 2. Working solo as so many of us do means greater isolation — hence, the opportunity for more pronounced depression, greater exhaustion and fewer outlets for healthy commiseration. 3. Vets are more comfortable with the concept of euthanasia, convinced as we are of its benefits and desensitized as we may be by our frequent application of this method as a valid way of alleviating suffering. 4. Vets have access to drugs ... hard drugs ... lethal drugs. We can act on this impulse easily ... privately ... quickly. To wit, a full 50% of the U.K.'s male suicides between 1982 and 1996 injected themselves with lethal doses of a common barbiturate, the drug we most often employ to euthanize our patients. 5. Suicide has been proven a contagious disease of sorts, leading smaller communities to internalize the impact with more of the same kind of behavior. So when six U.K. vets commit suicide every year, it makes a bigger splash among the 16,000-strong veterinarians than it might in a less insular community. And finally, this one: 6. "Typically, entrance to veterinary schools is limited to high achievers, whose personality traits may include neurosis, conscientiousness and perfectionism, all risk factors for suicidal behaviors." I couldn't have put it better myself — on the neurosis thing, especially. Those were the paper's findings. To which I'll add these: 7. We're pleasers. We have personalities predisposed to making our clients happy, thus adding to our stress levels when we can't meet their demands and compounding our exhaustion when we strain ourselves to greater limits, which inevitably leads to feelings of inadequacy and self-flagellation in a mixed emotional bag that also carries a heavy dose of indignation when people inevitably take advantage of our kindness and hard work. 8. Vets are sensitive ... very sensitive. Perhaps not all of us, but many of us have personality types predisposed to depression. I like to think it's partly because we care more deeply than the average person about how those who can't speak for themselves deserve to be treated. 9. Vets have planned long and hard for our careers. We've invested our identities in this profession and suffer disillusionment very acutely once the realization of our dissatisfaction hits us. These nine risk factors are only our best guesses. And to my sensibilities they seem mostly right. But it's still shocking. When I was a kid, I could think of nothing that would make me so happy as being a vet. As an adult I still feel the same way. Nonetheless, I can understand the disillusionment, the stress, the money thing, the compassion fatigue, the sensitivity ... even the depression. But I can't fathom the killing myself thing. The job holds out too many positives. I can only hope that papers like this raise awareness and help other veterinarians reach the same conclusion. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more