Compassion: The Enemy of Female Veterinarians?
During a recent day shift, an owner brought in an older, sick cat that she had found as a stray. The pet was clearly ill. It presented with upper sinus congestion and nasal discharge, weepy eyes, a distended abdomen and generally poor body condition. A colleague of mine saw the appointment. The client stated that she wanted “everything” done for the cat and that “money was of no concern”. My colleague examined the cat and prepared for the owner an estimate for the services that she recommended.
It soon became obvious why that money was of no concern to the owner -- she had none.
Following this discovery, the veterinarian proceeded to spend the better part of an hour calling humane societies trying to secure funding for the pet, digging up free, sample medicines with which to treat the pet, and consulting with other doctors in the clinic to diagnose the feline’s ailments to avoid expensive testing. The associate ended up basically giving away her services – and those of the clinic -- for free. Other paying clients were left waiting.
I asked the doctor why she just didn’t send the owner and the pet to the local humane society and let them deal with it. She responded, “I couldn’t. The owner was so nice and had such good intentions. I know that the humane society would find it difficult to find such a sick cat a good home and I felt so sorry for the pet and the owner. I felt that I really needed to help her. I just couldn’t say no. ”
Needed to? Or, wanted to?
Couldn’t say “No?” Or wouldn’t say “No?”
In my experience over the last 17 years of practice, this scenario has repeated itself ad infinitum. Most times with women veterinarians. Women, it seems to me, end up wanting to help everyone, and treating all pets, no matter what the personal or professional costs.
While male veterinarians are busy earning money to make a down payment for their own future practices -- or a home or a car or college expenses for their children -- women are frittering away their financial futures by helping those who won’t or can’t help themselves.
I ask: why are we, as highly educated women, shooting ourselves in the foot financially by constantly helping others at our expense? Why are we not taking the business part of practice more seriously? Why do we not grasp the concept that, no matter how much we care for animals, treating them is a for-profit business?
The gender statistics are sobering. We outlive men by an average of 10 years. Most of us have children. The fifty percent of us who divorce end up shouldering most of the fiscal burden of raising our children on one salary. We only earn 75 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Instead of seeing more clients and billing them fully and legitimately to make up for that lost income, we do the opposite by giving away our services for free or low cost.
According to a recent AVMA survey on veterinary student loan debt, women carry, on average, over $10,000 more in debt upon graduation than men. According to Veterinary Economics, the starting salary wage gap between men and women has increased from $3,000 to $4,000 over the last two years. And, no, ladies, we don’t make it up over time. In fact, over a lifetime of earnings, we lose close to $400,000 dollars in earnings because of our inability to negotiate our wages and demand equal pay for equal work. Even though practice ownership should give us a financial boost, we don’t pursue it very often and certainly not anywhere near the rate of our male counterparts. In the last decade, twice as many men as women end up as practice owners. Even if we do, we are still earning tens of thousands of dollars less as owners than our male practice owner counterparts . The AVMA has pages and pages of statistics showing male practice owners out earning their female counterparts.
Our only true means of income are wages and production. Every time we give away our services for free we are diluting the profits of the clinic and diluting our own already low wages even further. Every time we don’t take the business of veterinary medicine seriously, we fall further behind on the financial train of life.
We cannot afford this.
Why can’t we simply say "No?” Men do. We should too.
