End-of-life decisions: A focus group study with German health professionals from human and veterinary medicine

The Emotional Impact of Patient Loss on Brazilian Veterinarians

Veterinarians, unlike human physicians, could potentially care for the patient for several years, from conception to end-of-life care. Because of their close relationship with the animal, healthcare providers (for example, veterinarians and staff) are more likely to be affected by bad events and end-of-life care. The purpose of this study was to assess the emotional impact of patients' deaths on Brazilian veterinarians; 549 Brazilian veterinarians (78.3% females) completed a 20-item online questionnaire. Females were more emotionally affected than males by having to talk to the owner about their animal's death and more emotionally affected by the animal's death itself. Furthermore, the emotional impact of an animal's death was heavily influenced by the number of animals euthanized and varied greatly across veterinarians based on their age, with vets over 50 years old being less affected than vets between the ages of 31 and 40. The majority of responders (91.0%) were not trained to deal with grief during their degree. Those who had some training reported being less affected by bereavement. These findings indicate that patient death is a significant emotional concern for veterinarians. Specific education during the degree course, aimed at preparing future veterinarians to deal with death and death communication, is lacking but necessary.

Quality-of-Life Assessments in Zoo Animals: Not Just for the Aged and Charismatic

Zoos should aim to provide all of their animals with a good quality of life (QoL) throughout all life stages. In parallel with the evolution of QoL assessment questionnaires and tools in human and domestic animal settings, in recent times, some individual zoos and zoo industry associations have incorporated such instruments into their animal management practices. This has been conducted predominantly to inform, monitor, and document end-of-life decision-making for large, charismatic mammals. There is scope to expand the use of these tools to improve their utility, validity, reliability, and value to an animal welfare program. Assessment of QoL is a complex task given that the notion being measured is abstract and self-determined, and the design and purpose of the tools to do this require careful consideration. This review explores the QoL concept as it applies to animals, the assessment indications and methodologies relevant to a zoo setting, and the importance of considering QoL at any life stage across species. An overview of current thinking and the applications and limitations of QoL evaluation of captive wild animals is offered to promote and aid facility practice reviews and to help direct future innovations that leverage concurrent and converging advances in zoo animal welfare science.

An anthropologist's voice in a veterinarian's noise: gearing up for new cultural realities

Over the past three decades, the veterinary profession has faced a cultural shift towards postspeciesism that requires a reassessment of the foundations of the existing distinctions between human and non-human animals proclaimed by the speciesism paradigm, which represents institutionalized discrimination against species and recognizes only the subjectivity of humans. Based on ethnographic observations in anthropological fieldwork and using speciesism/postspeciesism distinction, we aimed to explain the main causes of small animal practitioners' work-related stress and apply humanistic knowledge to recommend ways to alleviate the negative effects of the work environment. The explanatory model of disease, illness, and sickness, the example of the concept of family, and the circumstances of the feminization of the veterinary profession are discussed to illustrate the divergence between speciesist naturalistic veterinary knowledge and the postspeciesist cultural framework and its consequences. By failing to accommodate the changing values towards animals and by failing to challenge the anthropocentric hierarchy of values, the speciesist rationale of the veterinary profession contributes to many of the problems faced by practicing veterinarians. The incorporation of a modern moral-philosophical mindset towards animals may not even be possible because veterinary science is subject to a paradigm that is irreversibly tied to institutional discrimination against species and defies reflection on veterinary science itself. However, the veterinary profession has a privileged position in establishing an alternative ontological thinking and an alternative conception of "animal life." Anthropological knowledge was applied to anticipate further intervention of social and cultural sciences in the problems of small animal practitioners. Rather than further diversifying and increasing expectations towards veterinarians by expecting them to acquire additional skills, we propose another practitioner who can support, mediate, and enhance veterinary performance - the cultural anthropologist. With their deep knowledge of cultural differences and social dynamics, they can collaborate with veterinarians to act as a liaison between cultures, paradigms, and species.