5 Major Changes in Vet Med We Never Saw Coming

Alexandra Yaksich, BSc, AHT

 The one thing that remains constant in our profession - change!  

It’s amazing to live in an industry that has the potential to evolve so quickly. Medicine really is a wonderful profession and there is always room to grow and adapt. I’ve been working in the field for over 10 years and I can’t believe how different the industry looks than when I started. Now with the rise and normalization of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the puppy and kitten boom, I predict a growing ‘new normal’ for veterinary medicine coming faster than its current pace!  

1. Pain management for routine surgeries  

10+ years ago, pain management was a thing of the future. We have evolved so much in terms of welfare of our patients in clinic, and pain management is at the top that list. It used to be rare to give feline neuters any pain control, thinking kitty magic was enough. While we know it does deliver some analgesia for a short amount of time, more and more clinics are opting for an NSAID for Mr. Cat to go home with. And spays?! I remember when a post-op injection of an NSAID was considered ‘good enough’. I can’t imagine having an invasive surgery and then being given a single dose of ibuprofen afterward - it’s shocking! New protocols suggest at least a few days of pain management to go home with. Times are changing, and pain management is evolving. It’s so refreshing to see our patients being treated with more respect and attention to their needs.  
 

2. Cadaver bags  

I never got used to the sight of a garbage bag attempting to be a replacement for a proper cadaver bag. Our patients certainly deserve more respect than that, and our profession deserves more dignity. It used to be so common to do this since there were no alternatives! Luckily for us, a veterinarian has spearheaded an initiative and product to provide a sustainable solution to this problem. Euthabag is the original of this type of product, and some have since mimicked its style and concept... but they can’t mimic the service and plethora of resources this company has to offer. Cadaver bags provide dignity and respect to end-of-life practices, for which we in the veterinary profession are the only ones who have such a responsibility. With that said, it’s deserving for proper medical supplies to be the norm here, and thanks to Dr. Celine Leheurteux, this is now possible! Bonus: the company hosts free online end-of-life CE (drug protocols, euthanasia topics) for its users!

Euthanasia tip: Let the pet parents know they have the option to write or draw on the bag, to send a beautiful message before their companion crosses the rainbow bridge. This adds closure and shows the families how much you care.

"With Euthabag, it’s like I found a part of my soul that I didn’t even know I had lost by putting the animals in garbage bags before." - empathetic RVT  
 

3. Large investment groups buying clinics  
This is a hot topic for many, and something we never saw coming! Can you imagine, even 10 years ago thinking that a significant number of veterinary hospitals would be owned by a larger mother company? In fact, veterinary corporations have been around for about 30 years! Only recently, however, they have become a dominant force. The estimated number of veterinary hospitals in the U.S. ranges from 28,000 to 32,000 according to the AVMA Report on Market for Veterinary Services, 2017. Corporations own about 10% of general companion animal practices and 40-50% of referral practices! Does this have significance, or is there something we can expect from these changes? It’s happening so fast, it’s hard to even tell. “As a profession, we’re behind in our understanding of some of these trends because it’s been happening faster than anyone anticipated,” said Matthew Salois, PhD, director of the AVMA Veterinary Economics Division1.   
 
Will independent clinics come back? Do we want profit-driven business models or more client-centered approaches? Interestingly, these large buyouts are happening not only in the veterinary clinic and hospital centers, but in a wide variety of veterinary-adjacent industries such as pet food, reference labs, vet apps, software, and now crematoriums!  

 
4. Animal Welfare 

We’ve all felt the Covid-19 pandemic in a variety of ways, and the puppy and kitten boom didn’t wait for us! With the rise of adoptions, more and more people are paying attention to their animals, more people are having pets before they have children, and the way animals are viewed is changing. It is becoming more common, culturally, to see your pet as your family member (and as us veterinary folk have always said, rightly so!). Because of this, there are now more eyes on animal welfare laws. There are more municipal laws, for example, that only permit pet shop sales of dogs and cats through shelter organizations.  

Declawing, an outdated practice currently banned in over 40 countries is a topic of particular interest to myself. It will soon be banned in Canada as well. Considering the current medical literature, it is clear the practice proves to be harmful to cats, and the fear that not declawing will have cats end up in shelters has been proven wrong by this recent study, here. Further, we see that after a provincial ban on declawing, respect for animals goes way up, this initiates animal welfare efforts forward, and it is overall better for society.  You can read more about my petition and request to the government to prohibit the practice here.

This is a great start for animal kind and the beginning of the fall of puppy and kitten mills. The rise in the standard of medical care gives rise to an increased standard of animal welfare overall!  

5. Online sales  
This one is a controversial topic and one that we may not have a choice but to move towards! As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The industry seemed to be moving in this direction anyway, but again with regard to the pandemic, e-commerce and online sales have skyrocketed. Many people still love to go in-store to purchase their items, but for giant heavy bags of food, or recurring long-term medication, it’s much simpler for people to have these items delivered to their doorsteps, not to mention a huge time-saver. It can be especially convenient for those that live far from their veterinary clinics, or those who live in cities and have to take the bus or subway to pick up a 15kg bag of food! While there are still regulatory hurdles to move over, I am confident we will find solutions that can safely ensure our pets and patients get the best care from this.  

Advances in veterinary medicine and culture has always moved at a fast pace, but since the pandemic and the rise of pet adoptions, it’s moving at lightning-speed! It is nice to see how much we have advanced over the years. These advances seem to be moving toward a progressive change in the industry as well as streamlining the products and services we offer. There are certainly hurdles we’ll need to jump over and problems to solve, and because of this there are some predictions this will create more job opportunities for our industry.  
What do you think? Are these changes making a better world for us? More challenging? Or both?