Attack of the Crazies

Being a veterinarian is the most wonderful and the most awful job in the world.   No where else can you experience true joy and saving a life of animal  and later read  about yourself in an online review about how much someone hates you.  

Years ago, the only real way to find out about a business or professional was word of mouth.  You would ask someone or hear a story and it would help you form an opinion about them, their services, and whether or not to use them.    At the same time,  you could see the person, converse with them,  read their body language etc.  This was always helpful to filter out the crazies

We all know who they are- the crazies who always complain.  They complain about their steak and get it for free- never mind the poor waitress who gets to pay for it later.   They always argue about their bill and keep the line at the store held up forever.   Everyone has ripped them off and they never make mistakes.   In person, they can be seen for who they are, but online they are invisible.

We vets hate online reviews because the sane people never write them.   Good clients for whom we have treated their pets for years do not go online and write reviews- unless people love you because you are cheap.  But, the crazies,  they love reviews.    No where else can they omit part of the story,  forget that they declined recommended services,  ignore that they called my technician a bad word, not mention that they bounced a check and best of all,  just make stuff up.   Trying to answer one of these just draws more attention to it, so it makes you feel so frustrated and wondering why be a vet at all.

My latest experience involved a dog with a perforated intestine from eating sticks.  My team and I saved his life against all efforts of his owners who did not follow instructions,  walked him a mile after being discharged from the hospital,  and no showed his rechecks.   Much to our surprise when three weeks later, he ate stuff again, we were told how terrible we were that we refused to use test results from the first surgery to diagnose the problem today.  Yes, people,  we cannot use x-rays from three weeks ago to figure out what your dog ate today.  Not surprisingly the clients got mad and sure enough, wrote a scathing online review.  

There is a saying that you can't fix stupid.  This is what I try to tell myself when we encounter these situations, but I can't say it isn't extremely hard.   I just hope that most reasonable people can read through the hate,  pick out the bad grammar, run on sentences and recognize the crazie hidden in cyberspace.    I devote my life to helping animals and if I say so myself, do a bang up job with a bang up crew.  It would just be nice to have some recourse without  making myself look like a crazie.   Maybe I need to enroll some of our favorite patients and their baby boomer owners in some online classes;  better yet, just go home and enjoy a nice evening with the doxies- they make all bad things go away.