Veterinary Student Opinions Regarding Ethical Dilemmas Encountered by Veterinarians and the Benefits of Ethics Instruction

How the cost of veterinary care impacts the wellbeing, learning and practice of early career vets

BACKGROUND

Investigations by the Competition and Markets Authority into the veterinary sector have highlighted the cost of veterinary care. This paper examines the changing attitudes of early career vets towards these costs.

METHODS

Ninety-seven semi-structured interviews were held with 25 vets as part of a 2.5-year longitudinal study. An inductive approach to analysis was adopted with flexible thematic analysis being undertaken using NVivo 12.

RESULTS

High veterinary care costs create a financial burden for clients and an emotional burden for vets. Vets felt unprepared to deal with restricted client budgets and were unsupported by their practices in relation to charging. When owners could not afford treatment, vets had fewer opportunities to perform procedures and practise their skills. Eventually, vets distanced themselves from their clients' circumstances to prioritise their own wellbeing and began to value their expertise and charge appropriately.

LIMITATIONS

The small sample size and emphasis on graduates of UK universities limit the generalisability of the findings.

CONCLUSION

This paper highlights the impact of veterinary care costs on early career vets' wellbeing, practice and learning opportunities and advocates a 'spectrum of care' approach to veterinary education. It also encourages practices to engage with vets regarding charging behaviours.

Laboratory animal ethics education improves medical students' awareness of laboratory animal ethics

OBJECTIVE

In this study, we added laboratory animal ethics education into both didactic sessions and practical sessions the general surgery laboratory course, with the didactic sessions focus on teaching the fundamental principles of laboratory animal ethics, while the practical sessions emphasize the application of these principles in laboratory classes and have assessed the changes in medical students' perception of laboratory animal ethics following medical students exposure to such education.

METHODS

One hundred and eighty-nine third-year medical students from Wuhan University's Second Clinical College completed a laboratory animal ethics awareness questionnaire and a laboratory animal ethics written examination before and after laboratory animal ethics education.

RESULTS

After receiving laboratory animal ethics education, the percentage of students who supported euthanasia for the execution of animals and humane treatment of laboratory animals were 95.2% and 98.8%, respectively, which did not differ from the 94.9% and 96.4% observed before the education. Moreover, there was a notable increase in the proportion of students who knew about regulations related to laboratory animals (from 39.9% to 57.1%), welfare issues (from 31.9% to 50.0%), and the 3R principle (from 30.4% to 58.9%) post-education, all statistically significant at P < 0.05. Test scores also showed improvement, with students scoring (93.02 ± 11.65) after education compared to (67.83 ± 8.08) before, a statistically significant difference.

CONCLUSIONS

This research helps to provide information for the good practices of laboratory animal ethics education. After receiving laboratory animal ethics education, students are better able to treat laboratory animals in a correct animal ethical manner. Laboratory animal ethics education helps improve students' knowledge of laboratory animal ethics. Students' perception towards how the laboratory animal ethics course should be delivered may vary. Still, new courses or better organized courses on laboratory animal ethics education are required in order to provide students an in-depth understanding.

Recasting the gold standard - part I of II: delineating healthcare options across a continuum of care

AIM

This is the first part of a two-part series on spectrum of care that encourages practitioners to embrace a non-binary approach to healthcare delivery. When care is not framed as all-or-none, either/or or best versus lesser, the provider and client can agree to diagnostic and/or treatment plans that individualize the practice of veterinary medicine. Care is tailored to the patient along a continuum of acceptable options. Care may also be intentionally incremental, with plans to reassess the patient and revise case management as needed.

RELEVANCE

Acknowledgment and ultimately acceptance that patient care journeys can be distinct, yet equitably appropriate, offers providers the flexibility to adapt case management competently and confidently to the patient based upon contextualized circumstances including client needs, wants and expectations for healthcare outcomes. Thinking outside the box to recast the historic gold standard with a continuum of care strategically offers feline practitioners a means by which they can overcome barriers to healthcare delivery.

SERIES OUTLINE

This first article introduces spectrum of care as an appropriate approach to case management and broadens its definition beyond cost of care. Part II explores communication strategies that enhance veterinary professionals' delivery of spectrum of care through open exchange of relationship-centered dialogue.

Euthanasia and Pain in Canine Patients with Terminal and Chronic-Degenerative Diseases: Ethical and Legal Aspects

Euthanasia is commonly performed in veterinary medicine to humanely induce the death of an animal when its quality of life is affected by pain or chronic degenerative diseases. The choice of euthanasia is a bilateral decision that represents a challenge for both the veterinarian and the owner of the animal due to the close emotional human-animal bond. Currently, there is legislation that can orient veterinarians concerning euthanasia and the causes that would justify this resolution. However, it is still controversial, and deciding it as the last available resort requires considering it from a medical, legal, and moral perspective. Therefore, this review aims to explore the ethical and legal implications of euthanasia in canine patients. It will analyze the reason that can justify euthanasia in animals with pain or terminal and chronic degenerative diseases, highlighting the importance of effective communication, ethical knowledge, and consideration of euthanasia as a multimodal resolution.

Life, Death, and Humanity in Veterinary Medicine: Is it Time to Embrace the Humanities in Veterinary Education?

Medical humanities is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary field of study that has experienced explosive growth in the United States since the 1960s. Two key components of medical humanities include first, the use of literature, poetry, and visual arts in the education of medical students, and second, the representation or examination of medical culture by scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences such as literary and film creators, sociologists, and anthropologists. The American Association of Medical Colleges recently reported that as of 2018, approximately 94% of medical schools had core or elective humanities offerings in their curricula. The examination of the medical milieu by scholars across the humanities has resulted in the emergence of important specialty fields such as end-of-life care, disability studies, and health disparities research. Veterinary medicine has been slow to embrace the humanities as relevant to our profession and to the education of our students. Only sporadic, isolated attempts to document the value of the arts and humanities can be found in the veterinary literature, and valuable observations on our profession made by scholars in diverse disciplines of the humanities are largely buried in publications not often accessed by veterinarians. Here a case is made that the time is right for the emergence of a more cohesive field of veterinary humanities. Embracing the observations of humanities scholars who engage with our profession, and appreciating the ways in which the humanities themselves are effective tools in the education of veterinary professionals, will bring many benefits to our evolving profession.

Veterinary professionals' experiences of moral injury: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIE) has been found to be associated with negative mental health outcomes. Veterinary professionals (VPs) often experience challenging workplace events, but whether they experience PMIEs and the impact of exposure on their wellbeing is poorly understood. The objective of the study was to explore UK VPs experiences of PMIEs, the impact of PMIEs on VPs' wellbeing and beliefs about factors that influence VPs' exposure to PMIEs.

METHODS

Ten VPs were recruited. Semi-structured interviews were carried out, and data were analysed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

VPs were found to experience PMIEs, including transgressive acts of commission or omission (e.g., being involved in or witnessing convenience euthanasia) or betrayal by trusted colleagues (e.g., bullying). Experiences of PMIEs evoked considerable psychological distress, including guilt, shame and loss of confidence in one's abilities. Several risk factors for experiencing psychological distress following a PMIE were described.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides some of the first evidence that VPs may be vulnerable to moral injury and illustrates the impact that PMIEs may have on VPs' wellbeing.

LIMITATIONS

Future studies are needed to design and evaluate effective pathways for the prevention of and intervention for VPs who experience moral injury.