As a practicing veterinarian, this statement is complete BS. I’ll agree that our true client is the owner, they have final say, as they’re the ones who have to pay the bill, and have to make decisions for a patient that clearly cannot make decisions for themselves, but to say that “the patient on the table isn’t considered to have a stake in the outcome” is ridiculous and insulting.
We Vets are in the unfortunate and hopefully unenviable position that we are honestly trying to practice the best medicine with our patient’s outcome as our PRIMARY concern, but we’re beholden to the people who hold the purse strings. I can’t tell you the number of Vets who comp services or end up getting burned out because of the sometimes incompatibility between the patient’s best medical interests (which is the Veterinarian’s primary concern), and the financial, or sometimes simply emotional concerns of the clients who make the final decisions.
