This is a PodTalk independent production created in conjunction with the Meta and Walkley Foundation public interest journalism fund. Before we get started, this podcast includes conversations about suicide and mental health. So please take care when listening.
When Sophie Putland died, the news sent shockwaves through the vet and the non bad community.
I just wish that so I could see the impact that she had on people. How she was respected within the vet industry. It was just phenomenal. I just wishing you
but I think the thing that I find from a vet industry perspective is that they've now lost someone who was contributing significantly to that community.
Her parents, Kate and Garry and the whole family were at a loss.
She just put so much into her short life years. Yes, she was. She was amazing.
So we have our ups and downs. I think of Sophie every day. I know I shouldn't do this. I go. What the hell happened? What could we have done? Yeah, no, that's the rabbit hole, isn't it? Yeah.
The pain reach Sophie's patients and clients and the many clinics that she worked at, as well as her CrossFit community, her university alumni, and of course, her friends.
I knew her at school and you had growing up and then I knew her as an actual young vet. And she was like one of the strongest people she was like a machine. Almost like scarily strong in terms of her outward persona and and how she seemed, as a vet. So she was happy, playful. She was friends with everyone seemed overconfident. And so that's, that was a really, really upsetting sort of side of things.
That's camera, Gorski done. When he heard about Sophie, like everyone else who knew her, he was devastated and shocked. But as a fellow vet, he also had the stark realisation that if it could happen to her, well, it could happen to any of them.
You see, that sort of stressed out of their mind and running around sweating off their feet, and they're taking sick days, every third day, because they're, they're burning out so bad, but like, you just didn't say that in Sophie. And I know that's a cliche that it's people that you'd like to expect. But this is one of those things where it's like, she seemed like the type of person to be able to overcome all the troubles of it. And so it's just heartbreaking.
It's this heartbreak that's driving me to find some answers to a complex web of issues that's plaguing veterinarians, and that have huge implications for pets, wildlife, and livestock, and you and me.
I'm Caroline winter, a journalist and dog lover, and you're listening to sick as a dog episode to burnout. This podcast is shining a light on a crisis that's making the people who care for our animals very sick. It's burning them out, forcing many to leave their jobs. And in some cases, it's killing them. But there is hope. And over the coming episodes, I'll endeavour to find answers to some very complex questions that affect us all, and can't be ignored any longer. Remember that figure from last episode 15,000 vets in Australia to look after 30 point 4 million pets? Well, that's in contrast to 105,000 doctors to look after 25 million people. Now you might be saying, well, you can't compare human and animal medicine. Maybe, but maybe not. Let's run some numbers and take a closer look at the public benefit of animals.
It takes between five and seven years to study medicine or veterinary science. And it costs an average of $70,000 for each degree. If you have a Commonwealth support place where the government subsidises your fees. But that's where the similarity ends. The starting salary for a doctor is around $73,000 annually. It rises to $103,000 after around three years, with the average GP earning $150,000 Plus after just a few years in the job. When vets graduate, they pocket around $55,000 in their first year, that goes up to around 75,000 Within three years, but they'll be lucky to earn $100,000 annually, even after years in the job. And keep in mind, they're not just dealing with one kind of body, the human body, they need to know the anatomy and physiology of a whole lot of species, from dogs, cats, cows and pigs, to horses, birds, snakes and rabbits. Let's go a step further. Thank you about the relationship you have with your dog or cat, and what that means for your physical and your mental health. Now, take a look in your fridge. I'm sure you'll find meat, eggs, milk or cheese on the shelf. How about those nature walks that you enjoy, where you might spot a koala or a go Anna or even a kookaburra. Or perhaps you're on the land or have an agriculture business and rely on our huge export market to make $1. Whether you have a pet, where will drink lattes, enjoy a steak, like twitching, or don't mind a flutter on the races. There are literally billions of dollars tied up in Australia's animals. And the economic, physical and emotional dependence we have on them mean vets are vital. So is it fair to compare human and animal medicine? I think without a doubt, it is.
The vets I've spoken to say they're not in it for the money, and I believe them. But they do think they should get paid far better considering what they're trying to do. Add the relatively low pay and high University debt to the bucket of other challenges they're faced with day to day, and there's a reason many are thinking of leaving the profession. So what's driving them out? And importantly, what will get them to stay. So I'm driving to bullsbrook, which is an outer suburb in Perth north. It was a rural area for for many, many years. And some bit more densely populated these days. And I'm going to say Cam and Emily, there are a couple of young vets who have been working in the industry for about five years and they've had a pretty rough trot. They've had some really tough experiences, some good experiences, but it's not been an easy ride and I really want to find out more about how they're going, how they're feeling about their careers so far and and I guess importantly, what the future looks like for them. Do they plan to stick around pass this five year mark? Or are they going to be one of those statistics that that leave the industry and do something else?
Hello, Good, how are you? The house sits amongst them pretty bushland and the air feels fresh and crisp. This must be when I say hello to baby Ren the dogs and the cat and I'm chatting with Emily as her husband can walks in the door after what's clearly been a long day. History straightaway goes over to pick up his son and give him a big cuddle.
Probably gonna be like a wild ride because we're both like sleep deprived and super awkward.
Cam and Emily Rogowski Dunn met at Adelaide University while they were studying, they're now married with their first baby. And they've been working as vets for around five years. But it's surprising that they're still in the industry.
I don't want to be here in 30 years time doing this and facing this. So either something has to change, or I need to quit the industry. And I know that a lot of people don't have that option of just quitting the industry. And so what are they left with?
From day one Cam and Emily's first jobs as new graduates working at a clinic in rural Western Australia. The cracks began to show they were supposed to work under a senior vet. But when she left the practice soon after they arrived. They were on their own.
We had a lot of experienced locums working at the clinic that would sort of come through. However, not many people wanted to come out to work where we were so it was never a constant. You didn't know whether you're going to have help one week or the next. The first time we were left completely by ourselves to be the only two that sort of I guess like Running the clinic on that side of things, I think we were probably two and a half months in maybe. And we were doing like four days, five and a half days a week, and then on call. And it was very difficult.
We kept a surgical field stare out without tears. But what
we did have was your locum vets who came through and the couple in particular were amazing for us in terms of teaching us, there was one husband, wife, who were that's who you'd like them to there. And they came back I think, probably three times throughout the 12 months, we were there to do stints with us. And they were essentially our mentors and had been massive influences for us, and were huge supports for us. I think we were
particularly lucky that we had each other and I think that outcome would have been completely different. If we hadn't,
would you still be verts if you hadn't had each other?
Probably not, I wouldn't say definitely not thinking you might think you have a little bit more perseverance.
Now might be easy to say, well, we all have those first jobs, those first experiences that make or break us in whatever career you choose, and you'd be right. But adding Life and Death moments, emotional clients, financial hardship, and isolation. And well,
we've both come in and out of burnout several times.
As I'm sitting around the kitchen table, watching Cam and Emily with their baby and listening to their story, I'm really struck by how compassionate and smart and driven they are, or be sleep deprived. They're the kind of couple you want to hang out with and have a wine with. And definitely the kind you want looking after your pet.
They survived their first posting in regional WA, well just and decided to move to Perth, great a big city with bigger clinics, and the hope there would be more support and staff that would help them find their feet again,
I guess that's what we hoped. But for both of us, it was really different, like very different, I was really hopeful that I was going to have a mentor and things were going to get better the workload would be less there'd be places that we could refer to. So we wouldn't have to have that kind of after hours responsibility. Unfortunately, the clinic that I was at, kind of worked me to the bone and didn't have quite the mentorship that I was looking for. I probably burnt out within a couple of months of being there. But I was kind of holding on. Because the bit that was meant to be mentoring me was going to come back to work. And I remember her sitting me down one day and saying, Emily, I noticed you're not really that happy at work. And I thought she was gonna throw me a lifeline. This is exactly what I've been waiting for, thank goodness. And she said to me. She said to me, I'm hoping that maybe you can not talk about your problems at work, because you're really bringing down the morale at the clinic. And yeah, that that was probably the moment where I most thought about leaving the industry. I just felt so let down. And it kind of broke me in terms of my view of the world because I kind of intrinsically believe that everybody is good. And that if you just keep doing the right thing, like good things will happen. And it wasn't the case, the reality
was that she'd start work at 830 in the morning and finish at seven each night consults with patients were 15 minutes tops. And while she was supposed to get a half hour break for lunch, that really happened,
the difficulty in 15 minutes is you can't really provide the level of service that you would like to provide and that a client or pet deserves. So if you can't build a relationship and you can't build trust, then people will never be able to sign off on spending money and doing tests. And as a result, you can't really work anything up. You can't find out what's wrong with their animal because you can't get them to trust you and that was really dispiriting.
We were also just so under the pump that you'd be in surgery and you'd be so stressed that your consults were starting in an hour, half an hour, people would be coming in saying to me when are you going to be done? Like there's someone out here waiting or you'd be in surgery and someone would have walked in off the street with the dog that was unwell. And they'd come in and say you coming out like a newbie elbow deep in a dog trying to explain and why you couldn't do that. Or it would be 645 at night, and the phone would ring. And you would just know that instead of telling them to go to an Emergency Centre, but after hours care, they would be told to come there, even though they would know full well that you wouldn't be able to deal with that problem. So that's really
stressful. How do you feel like kind of revisiting that while we're talking about it
makes me feel sick.
Emily knows now that it wasn't her. But it was actually the culture of the clinic that was toxic. She finally left and she found a new path as a locum. And while she still experienced burnout, the support network around her was much stronger.
I guess you just kind of have to reevaluate what your passion is, as well. Like, it became apparent to me that loving animals wasn't really a good enough reason to want to be a vet. I wanted to help people as well. And even in cases where you can't help the clients, I did find once I started low coming, at least I could help my colleagues and I felt like, you know, when I turned up, people were happy to see me and I was taking some of the load off them. And that was really rewarding. So I guess in that regard,
Cam's experienced that his small animal practice has been far better. There are still the 15 Minute consults and a heavy workload and at times dealing with the emotional blackmail from clients, but he says the supports there, and that makes all the difference.
Our clinic is run by a manager who just values the staffs mental health values the staff needs and appreciates the difficulties of the industry and isn't just there to make sure that the ship is still running.
By Cameron, Emily have had what they describe as serious mental health struggles. They've suffered anxiety and depression, and at times have fallen into deep dark holes. Fortunately, they've managed to help each other out again. But they've lost friends along the way.
Last interaction we had was I sent her a card like thanking her for being there for me and telling her that she's the reason why I kind of made it through. And then she just sent me a message saying that it made her cry and she appreciated it and that was the last time we spoke so you can't help but feel like you could have done more.
Joanne Evans was a vet in rural WA when she took her own life in 2021. She was just 35 and Emily read attribute at Jo's Memorial.
Dr. Joanne Evans was a wonderful vet, but an even better friend. She was the type of person who so rarely meet in our tight industry. Someone who simultaneously impresses and inspires you with the type of Joe was
an experienced vet who moved to the clinic just a year earlier. And by Emily's account really embraced Outback life.
Jo loved being a vet that she also loved dashians dangly earrings and dancing. She overcame so many challenges, but that's not what I remember her for
what but in the end, it was just too much.
When something like this happens, the common refrain is that no one saw it coming. But Joe was a smart woman. She was intuitive and she knew her own limits. She was open about how scared she was of losing her vision. And with her purpose and her livelihood. She spoke about how burnt out she was becoming an overworked she was how she was struggling with the isolation and lack of support that comes with working we're really we all loved her and we supported her. And while they're passing in no way to find it would be disrespectful to her memory not to acknowledge that while no single one of us failed her, maybe outbreak and profession did.
I think one of the most upsetting things about this when we have hundreds of people, we know people who are close to us people who have had similar experiences who have committed suicide that the aftermath of it when it becomes a very thoughts and prayers like response. There's obviously a massive amount of being upset that's there. But there's a certain level of anger about it, that everything was to get to put to the side as if it's just an individual case and it's separate to the industry and that it's down to those individual circumstances and we're sitting there going like, we were there. We worked in this And clinic, we experienced that isolation, we experienced that workload and the pressure and the emotional bind, you get put in, in that situation. And so seeing what happened in that situation, it's like, well, that would have been us, right? If we didn't have each other that would have been asked, I can say firsthand, it would have been made.
It's hard to hear that. But cam is pretty clear that those experiences aren't unique. And the incidence of mental health isn't either. And he also believes there are strong links between the two.
I don't know many vets who aren't on some form of medication for anxiety, depression, those sorts of things, it's really kind of an exception to the rule that they're not. And when you have that kind of track record of saying, oh, you know, this person is having difficulty in the profession, because because they have anxiety, or because they have depression and all that, because they have this. That's the issue. It's not the industry. What do you believe? I believe that it's hard to avoid the correlation between the amount of vets who are on anxiety or depressive depression with medications, and say that there is at least some link there, and it gets ignored pretty heavily. And when tragic things happen in the industry, often a lot of it ends up getting put back on to the individual and their individual circumstances, rather than saying, hey, maybe we should look at this.
That's like many professionals, perhaps like you are being asked to do more with less, less pay less resources, less time, and in some cases, less support. But they're also asking for more in the way of a better work life balance, more flexibility, less after hours, and a better spread of the workload. It's a big shift for an industry that's pretty much always operated 24/7. You may have heard the stories to events going over and above, taking animals home overnight, and having them hooked up on drips in the corner of their lounge rooms, or bundling their children into the car to attend call outs in the wee hours. That's the stuff we don't see. And it's adding to their already long and exhausting days. In what was once a male dominated profession. The majority of vet graduates and working vets these days are women. Slowly workplaces are empowering women and men for that matter, to grow their careers and focus on their families. But it's a huge challenge. The worker shortage, low salaries and fewer opportunities for structured career progression. mean many are looking elsewhere. In an employment survey by professionals Australia in 2020 to 30% of vets said they were thinking about leaving the profession within five years, and 10% were actively looking to leave now. Worryingly, 70% of them said they'd advise others against taking on a career as a vet. That trend followed on from the Australian veterinary Association's workforce survey a year earlier, where more than a third of vet said they were planning to leave or weren't sure if they'd stay, because they were disillusioned with the industry.
We know of people who have gone all the way through that school and got to the end of it and just said, I don't want to work in the industry and never gone into it, and built up the 70 $80,000 house that never worked today, because they couldn't face it.
Cam and Emily have watched friends leave the profession before they ever even worked as a vet. And I've also watched them leave after just a few years in the job. And it's something cam has thought about a lot.
I sort of fluctuate quite rapidly between thinking how can I want to leave the industry and retrain in something else and played with the idea of carpentry, plumbing, electrician, like trade side of things, or whether it's computer science, because that's sort of some of my sort of passion things. I think the hard part is giving up on the fact that we studied for six years. And there is a little bit of like a mental handcuff to the industry that you don't want to give up on that actual dedication that you've sort of given to get to that point. And in terms of like, you know, earning potential and that sort of stuff. You know, we don't make a huge amount of money but we make enough money to at least live comfortably and now having a kid it's more about him it's more about focusing on him and so if I can make enough money to support him and like to maintain the house and all that sort of stuff, then maybe I can keep working because of that
Cam says he's hanging in there for now. He and Emily are focused on raising their little boy And keeping their mental health in check. But turns out they're in the age group most at risk of leaving the industry. Or worse. Remember that research by the Australian Veterinary Association that found 67% of vets and vet nurses have experienced a mental health condition at some point. We'll drill down a little further, and you'll find it's actually women students vet nurses, an 18 to 35 year olds, who are most likely to rate their mental health poorly. And those who are older rated their mental health as very good. Joanne Evans was 35 when she died by suicide, and Sophie partland was 33.
It's a damning statistic to be frank with you that this is so much higher than other industries around the world. We want to be at the preventative end. What can we do to stop this?
When Sophie died, Garry and Kate partland created Sophie's legacy, and they raised over $45,000 to go towards the cause. Their goal is simple, yet enormous. To reduce the rate of suicide in the vet profession. They did a survey of their own and spoke to 600 vets vet nurses, practice owners and other staff. They found much like the a VA study, the top concerns for vets were client abuse and interaction workload and vet staff shortages, burnout, and a lack of leadership and safe work practices, that they also found a generational gap in the experiences of under 30 fives and over 30 fives when it came to poor mental health,
there's been a lot of attention paid to providing mental health services to support people. And I think that's highly appropriate. But I think where we want to put our effort is in the prevention to stop these stressors that are actually causing people to have these mental health issues. The industry does have a negative impact. And we really have to find out why and how we can do something about it.
This survey was just the first step in Sophie's legacy. And in among the challenges which Kate and Garry heard about, that's also told us some wonderful experiences in some practices were workloads were being addressed. Mental Health was being talked about, where there was great leadership and a supportive workplace culture, especially in helping staff deal with abuse of clients. So it can and it is being done, and Sophie's family want to help make that the norm across all clinics.
There is for me some urgency about getting some action in place because one vet takes their life every 12 weeks, approximately in Australia. So I'm hoping that that's the kind of grassroots level impact that we can have is to get people who are in the industry saying this is not good enough, we've got to do something about it.
Next time on sick as a dog in their shoes. What it's really like inside an animal emergency hospital and on the front line. I know it's not an easy decision to make the heartbreak.
The joy for me, I love the variety and the pace. You never know what's coming through the door. I like being on my toes. And so for me it's the busyness and the satisfaction of sending them home when they're better.
And the cost of care. There's never been a focus on how much does it truly cost to run a vet clinic.
What comes through in online reviews or trolling is often they're just in it to make money or call themselves animal
lovers. They wouldn't do it for free. Nobody else works for free and we do a lot of work for free. sick as a dog is written, produced, edited and presented by me Caroline Winter for PodTalk on the lands of the Kaurna people and additional support from Drew Radford. You can support this podcast by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts, share it with others or post about it on social media. And you can find out more online at sickasadog podcast.com.au
