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"We
dance around a ring and suppose but the secret sits in the middle and
knows.”
“The
Secret Sits,” Robert Frost
My
friend and fellow advocate Barbara Albright has had this quote on her
site, Pocket's Story from New Hampshire, for years, but it was only
recently that I fully understood how it applies to incompetent, negligent vets. Here's how that happened:
At
a public meeting of the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners
(TBVME) in Austin, Texas, one of the board
investigators and I had a conversation I'll never forget: He told me
that whenever you see a vet reprimanded for violating recordkeeping
statutes, it's sometimes because there were other, more serious
violations, but the allegations were in effect “plea bargained”
down to recordkeeping. Because disciplined vets sign an Agreed Order – vets
have to “agree” to be disciplined – they and their lawyers do
whatever they can to get the final results to an outcome they can live
with – a little slap on the wrist, an "informal" reprimand, a “stayed” suspension
(meaning the vet doesn't miss a day of work), and/or a puny fine.
Of
course this board employee wasn't telling me anything that I and my
fellow advocates didn't already know. Even if vets have directly or
indirectly caused or contributed to the death of a pet, or great
harm was done, their goal is to obtain the least amount of
discipline to save face. Vets are rarely, if ever, disciplined only
for sloppy, shabby, incomplete records, never mind that such records
are a giant red flag as to what kind of truly inadequate, deficient
vet you're dealing with.
