Compassion without the fatigue

No one on the team – from the front office to the nurses – should put up with abusive clients. Photo: Nicoleta Ionescu/Bigstock
You know, I never met anyone who claimed they felt compelled to enter the veterinary profession because they loved humanity. Instead, we deemed people an unfortunately indispensable side-hustle. So boundless was our love of animals, we confessed, we were willing to tolerate their human appendages.

While this may not be true for everyone, it does seem to be the default setting for most veterinary professionals I know, which is inconvenient given the retail veterinary medicine most of us practice is undeniably a Homo sapiens-centric enterprise.

In veterinary school, my classmates and I were infor...