It's World Veterinary Day: 4 facts to think about on your next vet visit

Saturday marks World Veterinary Day, which celebrates the veterinary profession and honors the lifesaving work performed by vets around the world.

While veterinary clinics, animal hospitals, schools, and organizations host a variety of events today, the College of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue hosted its annual open house earlier this month.

In the interest of full disclosure, my wife is a veterinary surgeon, so I am keenly aware of the challenges and rewards of the profession. I was there the day she decided to pursue it as a career, so I have spent much more time around veterinary schools, veterinarians and vet hospitals than most.

Here are four reasons to respect and celebrate the people that keep your furry friends healthy.

Doyel: My greyhound Cap is 7 years old, and learning how to be a dog

Veterinarians don't make as much as you might think

Student debt is growing 4.5 times faster than income for new veterinary graduates, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

The mean educational debt for all U.S. veterinary college graduates for 2020, including those without debt, was $157,146, according to AVMA.

Veterinarians earned an average salary of $109,920 in 2021, according to U.S. News & World Report, but that number can be misleading. The top five best-paying cities are in New York or California, where the cost of living is much higher.

Vets often work in smaller cities and rural communities, and the bottom 25% made an average of $78,000.

While still a good salary, it often comes with the previously mentioned debt, long hours and stressful work. Despite similar training requirements, even the $109K average pales in comparison to their human medicine counterparts. Physicians came in at $252,480.

The pay for veterinary technicians is even more eye-popping. The average tech makes less than $37,000 per year, with the lowest earners making less than $30K.

The low pay and emotional toll of dealing with injured or dying animals is leading to a concerning national shortage of both veterinarians and techs, which are instrumental in making sure your pet gets the care it needs.

What it takes to become a veterinarian

While generations of children have considered their love for their pets and declared their intention to become a veterinarian when they grow up, there's a reason so few actually follow through. It's a difficult career path on several levels.

No professional program demands more of its prospective students, according to the veterinary medicine publication Vetstreet.

It requires an incredibly rigorous college course load that is nearly identical to medical school. Classes like genetics, cell biology, microbiology, calculus, organic and inorganic chemistry, physics, and biochemistry are daunting, to say the least.

While the courses are similar, Vetstreet says the hours are what makes it more demanding than applying to medical school. All veterinary schools require between 45 and 90 semester hours of undergraduate credits for application. For medical schools, 40 to 60 hours are more standard, according to Vetstreet.

Doyel: Loving Theageek was so easy; making that final decision was so hard

Along with the demanding requirements, there is a relatively small number of veterinary schools in the country with a high number of applicants per school. This makes the process extremely competitive.

On top of the four years of undergraduate studies and four years of veterinary school, many vets complete a one-year internship after graduation. Just like in human medicine, there is also the option to specialize in a field like surgery, oncology or internal medicine that requires another three years of extremely demanding and low-paying residency.

So if you're seeing a board-certified specialist, they likely have completed at least 12 years of schooling, internships and residencies to get to their position.

Cost of veterinary medicine

A common complaint from pet owners is that vet visits are just so darn expensive.

While pet ownership can be a costly responsibility that shouldn't be taken on lightly, there is a misconception that veterinary medicine exorbitantly marks up costs or that vets are trying to squeeze every dime out of each visit.

As an outsider who has witnessed countless conversations between veterinary professionals, attended more veterinary conferences and presentations than any journalist should, and owned numerous pets that have required care, I can safely say that overall this is simply not true.

While there are outliers in any profession, the vast majority of veterinarians did not join the profession for money and their practices reflect that fact.

Consider this. According to a research study in the Journal of American Veterinary Medicine, the average retail price of human medication was higher than the pet price on the same drug for 93.3% of those they compared.

When it comes to costs for procedures and hospitalization, a key difference to remember is that hospitals are often billing your insurance far more than the veterinarian is charging you for similar procedures and supplies.

The majority of pet owners don't have pet insurance, though the number is on the rise.

Advancements in veterinary medicine should also be considered. Procedures like MRI's can be costly due to the price to buy and maintain the equipment, as well as paying qualified staff to run and interpret the tests, and they are far more commonly used today than 20 years ago.

Keep reading: More pets, fewer vets bring strain on veterinary profession

World Veterinary Day

With all of these facts in mind, here's one more to think about as we take the day to appreciate veterinarians around the world. Veterinarians have one of the highest suicide rates of any profession.

One out of 6 veterinarians has considered suicide, according to studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Male vets are 1.6 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, and female vets, which make up roughly 80% of the profession, are 2.4 times more likely.

Long hours, student loan debt, verbal abuse from angry owners and the emotional toll of the job all play a part.

So, the next time you take your animal in for care, remember your vet and their technicians care about your animal immensely and only want the best outcome for them. For most, it's the only reason they're still in the profession.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: World Veterinary Day: 4 facts to think about on your next vet visit