Title: Convenience Euthanasia: When it is and when it isn't.
Date: Sunday, April 23, 2017
Presenter: Dani McVety, DVM
Description: When it comes to ethical-border-line euthanasia requests, we have a very important decision to make as veterinarians, but we need to ask the right questions from the start. By requesting euthanasia in the first place, the family is communicating to you that the human-animal bond is broken. We can either help change the situation for them, or do nothing by sending them home because "I just can't do it." Remember, medicine is not our product in the veterinary world, the human-animal bond is. Without that bond, they are not coming into our clinics. When euthanasia is requested, the family is telling us that there's something wrong with that bond and they care enough to tell you about it instead of letting the dog or cat go on the side of the road. So what should be done in these extreme cases of uncomfortable euthanasia requests? Let's push the boundaries a bit in this open conversation about the most difficult and widely debated aspects of our profession, "convenience" euthanasia.
