Financial Guilt – Caring comes with a cost.

This week and almost every week, I see a client that brings me a pet that has more disease than their finances can cover.  This time it was a family and their beloved cat that is severely anemic and has been that way for weeks. They have visited other veterinary hospitals and have come away with no answers, mostly because they declined all treatment and diagnostic recommendations.  They just don’t have the resources.

It breaks my heart as a veterinarian not to be able to treat each patient the way I have been trained to treat all pets - with excellent medicine and top-notch care.  As veterinary medicine gets more sophisticated there are more and more expensive options for clients to consider.  The more options that we offer, the more we find ourselves in the business of creating treatment plans designed for the client’s bank account ceiling and not for the pet’s medical condition.

It is easy for us to judge our clients when they cannot spend money on an ill pet, but have you ever been in a situation where you wanted something that you could not afford?  Did you judge yourself for that?  Probably not.  It was just a fact.  Too little money in the account for the thing that you desperately wanted.   So why do we judge our clients or become frustrated when they make a financial decision to refuse our best care?  

Most clients do not blame us for their predicament, but there are some that try to unload their guilt on us.   “You must not really love animals, because you will not work for free” is my favorite.  (Yes, I spent 8 years in college to get paid 1/3 of my human medical colleagues, just to refuse service to you and your pet).  Not really fair, but those negative comments are more about their frustration with life than about me, the veterinarian.

In my client’s case, the family was heart-broken about their limited finances and their severely ill cat.  It was now my job to come up with a plan that fits into their budget, but also improves the cat’s quality of life.  If I can do that for the cat, then I can feel as if I have done my job with caring and success.

It is a veterinarian’s job to support our clients through the entirety of their pet’s life.  We do not have the obligation to offer our services for free, but we do have an obligation to care for our clients and patients. During the difficult times we need to reassure them that they are doing “their” best for their pet and we are going to work with them to make sure that we offer them our best.  It is not our place to be judgmental.  Everyone has a financial ceiling. 

If we work within our client’s budget and treat each pet with dignity, we can avoid frustration and guilt to get back to our real business - caring.

“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”
Pablo Casals

Dr. Julie Cappel



Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2