LVH started providing Urgent Care during COVID because so many people got pets during the pandemic and the Emergency rooms were overwhelmed. Veterinary Medicine (Vet Med) was already short on veterinarians and veterinary technicians, so with the huge influx of pet owners, many professionals left the industry. Whether it was older folks who didn’t want to risk working during the pandemic or were already close to retirement, many left the field completely. This left a huge shortage of staff and an implosion of workload. Burn-out continued to plague the overtaxed industry.
As natural disasters continue to happen and America moves pets around en mass away from disasters to safer locations, we have also introduced viral, parasitic and bacterial loads to geographic areas that weren’t accustomed to managing these new bugs. Each vet professional was challenged in multiple ways-the increased case load and the stress of seeing new things and adjusting to managing them is a lot to deal with.