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I adopted a dog who had been abandoned at the Vet
School. As other posters have mentioned, a lot of pet owners can't afford those
bills. I lived with a passel of vet students in those days, so I had inside
tracks. For the next ten years I used its ER extensively because the dog
developed a serious recurrent condition. The care was always compassionate and
well informed. And costly.
It is important for people who anthropomorphize
their pets to understand that while all medicine is equally demanding on both
the intellect and the pocketbook -- a hamster's liver is no less complex than a
human's -- pets are not citizens. Your health insurance does
not cover their hospital bills and your Medicare taxes don't either. Veterinary
research and education does receive some public subsidy but it is not really an
entitlement at any level. So when you take your pet to the Small Animal Clinic,
you should be prepared to confront the full cost of this sophisticated
applied science. It is not in the same position that HUP is, for example, with
relation to the health-care marketplace.
The job of a vet school is to graduate
veterinarians, so that they may subsequently make a living by selling their
services to pet owners. Once again, vets can't make a living off insurance
payments; they need paying customers. Vets generally are not as prosperous as
other health-care doctors, although their field is just as demanding, because,
well, most animals don't earn much money compared to humans. The Vet School has
a clear policy of trying not to compete with its graduates in
providing routine pet care. That's not what it's there for. It's still a great
resource in this neighborhood and one that is there when you really do need
it.
-- Tony West
Gail
wrote:
>When I
moved to Philly, I was happy to be near a Vet School again,
>remembering how nice the KSU school was. Much to my suprise and >dismay, the
Vet School here is a whole 'nuther universe. I called
them
>up and
asked to make an appointment for a checkup and regular shots
>for my
dog. "We don't do that here!" replied the grouchy woman at
the
>other end
of the line. "huh?", I said, "i thought this was a vet school?
>don't you do normal stuff?" "NO!", she shouted at me "you have to go >to a vet
for that!"
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