I saw a LinkedIn post from a veterinarian recently who was frustrated. He said that a cat in his care had accidentally received a double dose of pain medication before surgery, but had been clinically unaffected. He told the cat’s owners what had happened and now they are refusing to pay for the surgery or any associated expenses because of this medical error.
When the veterinarian talked to some of his colleagues, they told him that things like this had happened to them in the past and they never mentioned it to anyone. The writer went away thinking there are vets out there who make mistakes and pet owners LOVE them, because the pet owners never know about the errors. His takeaway was that maybe vets should be less transparent in order to have happier clients.
This post has bothered me since I read it. I understand the frustration of feeling like you were transparent and honest and got punished for it when others would have just kept quiet. Sometimes it really feels like no good deed goes unpunished.
Often it feels like good people get crapped on, and shady people take advantage. I don’t think veterinary medicine is different from any other profession in that regard. But for me, this story is not a lesson about transparency. It’s a lesson about priorities.
If someone’s top priority is to have the happiest customers then they can make a case that withholding upsetting information might make sense sometimes. That’s just one reason why I’m so adamant that making our clients happy should not be our top priority.
Our top priority should be to practice with the values we wish to be known for. Our decisions should always be driven less by questions like, “What do pet owners want to hear?” and more by questions like “What is best for this patient? What is ethical? What example do I want to set for those around me?”
I’m not saying that I don’t care about our clients. I care very much. It’s just that their happiness should not be our #1 priority. Instead, the priority should be doing good work in a way that we’re proud of. I sympathize with the doctor’s difficult situation and empathize with anyone who faced greater challenges by doing what was ethical instead of what was easy. Still, I think more highly of this person than of those who advised him to hide what happened.
In the end, client satisfaction comes and goes. You will never make everyone happy, and setting the happiness of others as the scoreboard by which you measure your own decisions is a good way to end up miserable. Living a good life though… acting with integrity, kindness, honesty, transparency, and prioritizing medical quality, patient safety, and medical ethics… that seems like the ultimate path to a career we can be proud of. And you can also believe plenty of happy clients will materialize along the way.
