FIELD VETERINARIAN-NEW CHALLENGES
The world brings challenges for the veterinary profession on a daily basis, and it can help to know that what we experience as individuals is shared by our colleagues, wherever they may be – and by understanding the challenges faced by other stakeholders we can work together in a way that is mutually beneficial. The world in which we live is changing rapidly, driven by many different factors, technologies and trials. In our own small microcosm change is inescapable. Although the main challenge we face as veterinarians – namely, the desire to enable animals to be as healthy and as happy as possible – has not altered since the profession was created, life for a veterinarian even twenty years ago was not the same as it is today, for many different reasons. And whilst today’s clinicians are unquestionably more knowledgeable about the animals they treat, and better equipped to tackle the diseases they combat than any generation before them, there is no escaping the fact that many of us find the daily workload stressful. Some will cope with this better than others, but the high dropout rate from the profession and the negative impact on the mental health of many veterinarians must serve as a warning that being an animal professional in the 21st century carries with it burdens as well as rewards.
Globally, the last Saturday of April is celebrated as World Veterinary Day. The day celebrates the role of veterinarians, and aims to highlight and promote the different facets of the work performed by these professionals and raise awareness on the importance of animal health and welfare. Animal husbandry forms an integral part of the Indian economy alongside agriculture. The country boasts of occupying the top spot in milk production, and has the largest livestock population of around 512 million. All this is indicative of the immense opportunities that lie in the veterinary sector of the country and related services such as animal healthcare, veterinary polytechnics & dispensaries. With world population penciled in to grow at exponential rates, there will be a substantial increase in per capita food consumption trends. Further, animal lovers would want to ensure the well-being of their pets and therefore the demand for vet services will gain traction. However, challenges persist; India only has about half the veterinary doctors that it needs. The lack of training, basic equipment, R&D initiatives and participation in framing health policies among various stakeholders only mars the veterinary landscape of the country. Case in point is the latest outbreak of the Nipah virus in south India which brings to light the lack of linkages among related stakeholders.
Veterinarians are often underestimated. Their work can be sweaty, smelly, physically challenging, and emotionally draining. The people who become veterinarians endure it all for the sheer love of the job and a deep rooted passion for helping animals. The average veterinary hospital is open almost 6 hours a day. Most doctors and other veterinary staff work the entire time that the clinic is open. Even after closing, the staff must remain at clinic until each patient is stabilized for the evening. Just because the clinic is closed does not necessary mean you go home at closing time. Pets don’t get hurt or sick by appointment. Vet clinics usually don’t have dozens of support staff to handle a mad rush of patients. Vets and supporting staff work when the animals need them. Regardless of their responsibilities within the clinic, they serve the needs of animals with great care and compassion. In spite of all these efforts, following issues must be kept in mind while working as Field Veterinarian.
Cleint concerns: Animals were traditionally defined as property, but more owners now see their pet as a family member. It means they expect the best possible treatment for their companion. This can sometimes result in hostile clients who disagree with veterinarian approach and it can potentially lead to legal disputes. Even if a client is happy with the care, getting them to comply with your medical advice can be challenging. Make sure owners understand the importance of prevention in ensuring a pet has a long and healthy life. This can include maintaining a healthy weight, cleaning teeth, regular deworming and regular check-ups.
Knowledge update: It is increasingly important to promote and update your professional knowledge because vet services are no longer just offered in clinics. If your practice is clinic-based, you may begin to feel competitive pressure from local quacks and alternative care focused on more holistic and natural measures. Veterinary medicine is also becoming more specialized, with clients expecting their pet to be referred to a specialist for treatment or surgery. Also be aware some clients may turn to the Internet to make a diagnosis and treat their pet’s conditions themselves.
Managing staff: Working at a veterinary clinic can be a physically taxing job. Vets and supporting staff are on their feet for most of their shifts and often end up working hours that span well beyond an eight-hour shift. They are also exposed to disease, the possibility of bites or other physical injury caused by animals, and heavy lifting. The job can be emotionally taxing when dealing with upset clients and sick or dying animals on a daily basis. Make sure your practice has protocols in place to ensure staff gets proper breaks and are taking care of themselves mentally, physically and emotionally.
Proper record keeping: – Veterinarian is probably busier than most people you know. Instead of just accepting that you’ll never have free time again, try to find ways to streamline you’re working. May be you could convert to digital records instead of paper, or perhaps you should hire additional support staff so you can focus on the most important aspects of your working. There are likely numerous ways to make your life easier if you brainstorm a bit.
Wild animals treatment: While dealing with wild animals, following aspects must be considered. • Minimize the animal’s distress • Utilize appropriate safety precautions • If needed and not already done, contact the appropriate authorities with oversight of the species • Ensure all records and documentation are accurate and complete.
Zoonotic diseases: While working never forget the importance of zoonotic/ occupational diseases. Transmission may occur through various modes such as during veterinary procedures via urine, faeces, saliva, blood, tissue, airborne or droplets, through water or soil, digestion of food, or via direct contact such as animal bites or scratches. Significant zoonotic diseases include bacterial diseases such as anthrax, leptospirosis, brucellosis, tuberculosis, tetanus, cat-scratch disease, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, and yersiniosis; viral diseases such as Q fever, Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever, and rabies; pyrogenic diseases such as toxoplasmosis, leishmaniosis, toxocariasis, cryptosporidiosis parasite; Creutzfeld- Jacob Disease (CJD), transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE); or mycological infections such as aspergillosis. Taking precautions against zoonotic diseases is important in order to maintain working conditions and production and increase quality. The livestock owners should be informed about the pasteurization or proper cooking of milk and dairy products. Pet-owners must be provided with the necessary information when obtaining pets and should follow hygiene practices and vaccination calendars. Providing training on the care and hygiene conditions of pets and zoonotic diseases through awareness camps would be beneficial.
Veterolegal cases: Veterinarians are the primary professionals investigating animal cruelty, conduct examinations, and become involved in legal investigations. Veterinarians are often responsible for the documentation of the physical findings of abuse, circumstantial evidences in case of poisoning, collection of associated physical evidence and provide expert opinions in a court of law. Forensic case not only involves domesticated animals but also includes many other species. Specialised forensic investigations are likely to be the remit of the pathologist, the toxicologist and other specialists even though the preliminary examination of live or dead animals and instigation of supporting tests will probably long remain the province of the practising veterinarian. Veterinary forensics is a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses law enforcement, toxicology, veterinary medicine, entomology, anthropology, pathology, ballistics, botany, odontology, DNA analysis and other forensic analyses.
Remember following key points while dealing with vetero legal cases. • The vetero-legal post-mortem examination is made in order to ascertain the cause of death and is done after receiving request report from police officials (FIR/ DDR). • All descriptions should be concise and non-technical terminology used when possible because necropsy report ultimately may have to be understood by nonmedical people. • All organ systems should be examined and all abnormalities described, even those usually regarded as incidental in a standard necropsy. • Photo documentation is an important part of forensic necropsies. Throughout the entire necropsy, significant findings should be photographed. The photos could provide visual support to the identify the specimen and supportive during legal proceedings.
Other challenges: The biggest challenge for veterinary practitioner to keep themselves updated on the changing standards, emerging trends and new drugs, therapies and treatments in the field. Health challenges related to heartworm, diabetes and cancer continue to grow. Drug shortages and a lack of availability of human-label medications must also be considered and vets must be flexible both in how they administer drugs and which they use. It is also beneficial to maintain a community presence and address issues such as animal over-population and the importance of practicing an effective spay-and-neuter program. Though working in a veterinary hospital has its challenges, but the rewards far outweigh the hard times. Our pets can’t speak to us and tell us what hurts. Being able to connect with an animal to determine the nature of an illness or injury takes many skills. Using those skills to help restore a pet’s health brings great joy that makes all of the stressful times worthwhile. Ultimately, for those who work in a vet clinic, happy and healthy pets are the greatest reward!
Challenges Faced by New-Age Veterinary Practices and How to Overcome Them
Being a veterinarian and tending to animal companions is rewarding in many ways, but the profession comes with its fair share of troubles. We explore some challenges that veterinarians commonly face and how you can overcome them to take your practice and career to greater heights.
#1 Staying relevant with changing practice norms
Veterinary medicine, until about a decade ago, primarily meant providing treatment and care to sick animals. However, in this digital era, pet owners approach much more than mere healthcare, in fact, they expect a service-oriented approach and results, necessitating renewed or transformed approach towards how animal wellness is perceived. Single vet clinics in specific localities now exist alongside multispecialty referrals, large hospital chains, and mobile clinics, all of which focus on keeping your animal companions happy and healthy. Advancements in veterinary medicine also mean the need for better collaboration with diagnostic labs and providers of other kinds of service related to pets.
When you fail to stay abreast with these changes, your practice can soon become a laggard and suffer. A veterinary practice management software (PMS), on the other hand, fine tunes your practice to meet these growing, new-age demand by streamlining everyday operations, removing redundancy, and limiting the reliance on human intervention for day to day functioning. For e.g, the software can help you collaborate with specialty clinics or larger hospitals to give or receive referrals. Inbuilt mechanisms can help you retrieve diagnostic reports directly from the lab without having to waste precious treatment time. The software can also make it possible for you to accept payments via multiple means from your customers.
Handling pet owners with care can ensure repeated business while disgruntled or angry customers can spell trouble for your practice. When you come bearing bad news about their animal friends, pet owners can quickly turn awry and unmanageable.
#2 Managing pricing and cash flow
Pricing is a critical component that makes or breaks a veterinary practice. Any procedure that you perform in your clinic needs to be priced in such a manner that it is neither too high to leave customers disgruntled nor too low that it affects your bottom-line. Hitting the sweet spot of competitive pricing may take a while with continued trial and error – balancing equipment and tool costs, employee salaries, administrative costs, and others with profits for you to take home. Cashflow is yet another concern for veterinary practice. Nearly all veterinarians experience lean periods in some form or the other.
But with a veterinary practice management software, pricing and cash flow can be markedly better. Many solutions made for managing veterinary clinics offer reports on expense categories, income from most-availed procedures, highest paying treatments etc., allowing you to fine-tune your prices to avail good returns. Also, the system can help you understand patterns and plan well in advance to give out special offers to attract more customers to your clinic during lean periods.
#3 Responding to competition
The digital age means increased competition for your practice – not just from similar clinics but also other formats including mobile clinics, pet stores, and online diagnoses. Gone are the days when you could advertise in your local newspapers and magazines to gather your best-paying clients. Tech-savvy pet owners today rely heavily on digital media, peer reviews, web presence, and social media to determine the best healthcare choice for their animal companions. This has made it necessary for veterinary practices large and small to have an information-rich, user-friendly website along with a good social media presence. These add credibility to your practice and also present your clients the opportunity to write great things about your service that can garner attention among other pet owners.
Beating the competition can be easier with a veterinary PMS. Most software comes with tools that give you an edge by helping you to market your clinic through websites and promotional content. In fact, many new-age solutions also help you build a personal connection with your patients and their owners by allowing you to send greetings, birthday wishes, and more.
#4 Dealing with employees
Veterinary practice is no breeze and tending to animals comes with its fair share of stress. The staff at the front desk as well the technicians in your clinic play a critical role in the success of your practice. Peak hours can be extremely tiresome not just for you but these people as well. During the rushed period, the employees are often required to switch continually between multiple tasks such as attending patient calls, taking down registrations, managing admissions, retrieving tools, medicines, or equipment necessary for administering medical care to pets, creating invoices, printing bills, and so on. The more the manual input in each of these tasks, the more the chances of an error. Staff who are held up in multiple tasks may quickly drop one or more of them, resulting later in troubles like missed appointments, overlapping schedules, incorrect bills etc.
This is where a practice management software comes to your rescue. The many tools and modules contained in the software help automatize activities like appointment scheduling, sending reminders to patients, etc. These systems are also designed to optimize workflow related to processing bills, managing inventory, managing pet admissions, and the like. The software functions as a one-stop solution for all needs necessary to run your veterinary show, eliminating the need for multiple small- scale, non-adaptable tools.
#5 Tackling pet owners
Handling pet owners with care can ensure repeated business while disgruntled or angry customers can spell trouble for your practice. When you come bearing bad news about their animal friends, pet owners can quickly turn awry and unmanageable.
A veterinary PMS can be helpful in this regard as well. Such a software enables you to educate pet owners about the need for preventive medicine and routine veterinary wellness checkups through the use of inbuilt communication tools like emails, newsletters, SMS etc. Additionally, a good PMS also gives you insights on individual clients on long-standing pet owners, highest payers, and so on. Such reports generated by the software can be used to run loyalty programs for loyal customers through promo offers, discount coupon, and so on. Rewarding loyalty not only garners the attention of existing clients, but also promotes word-of-mouth marketing that gathers you new ones.
#6 Learning all along
Veterinary medicine and practice are always changing and as someone in this profession, it is important for you to stay up-to-date about veterinary treatment options, therapies, surgical procedures, and the like. Attending seminars, conferences, or short-term training programs can give your practice a boost like never before. Similar results can be achieved by watching videos and listening to podcasts by a recognized member of the veterinary fraternity. Your PMS can also be the source of such information and the latest news from your field of practice.
Remember, challenges aren’t permanent. A little thought and effort coupled with a versatile veterinary practice management software can work wonders in how you care for animal companions and make a difference to your life and theirs.
Compiled & Shared by- Team, LITD (Livestock Institute of Training & Development)
Image-Courtesy-Google
Reference-On Request.
