10/02/2025
**EDIT TO ADD: We are adding to a wait list again!**
We are taking new clients!
Wow. That feels good to say.
We will be contacting our first set of names on the waiting list in the next few days.
Now, what does it mean to be a client at a veterinary clinic?
** Its a long one, but it's worth it.**
Sometimes a clinic’s understanding and a pet owner’s understanding can be drastically different. And for good reason. Canadian human health care is structured completely differently from pet health care and veterinary medicine has changed a lot in the last 15 – 20 years. We hope the following explanation will help current and future clients better understand our policies and what we are trying to communicate when you call!
Here is some background.
Veterinarians are unable to provide care to a pet unless they are providing it through a licensed and inspected veterinary practice. This helps to ensure that there is a baseline standard of care and that there is a system of accountability for the veterinary professionals providing it. Therefore, when a pet owner brings their dog to a clinic, they are establishing a Veterinary-Client-Patient-Relationship (VCPR) with the CLINIC, not with the individual veterinarian. It is the clinic’s responsibility to fulfill their side of the relationship. It is the client’s responsibility to fulfill theirs.
So what is a Veterinary-Client-Patient-Relationship (VCPR)?
Although the specifics can be nuanced (the legal stuff), ultimately a VCPR is when a client agrees that the veterinarian will assess and make recommendations for their pet, and the client agrees to follow them. Once this agreement is made, the veterinarian can then prescribe treatments based on ‘recent and sufficient knowledge’ of the pet. Usually, this means a physical examination prior to dispensing medications or in the case of chronic conditions, refilling medications until the condition type requires a repeat examination or diagnostics to keep up with appropriate care. Each veterinarian or clinic might have slightly different definitions of appropriate care or how soon a patient needs to be seen based on a whole variety of factors. At Mount Remo Vet, we need to have seen your pet in the last 18 months to refill medications like dewormer, flea/tick preventatives, or allergy meds. More complex cases or at-risk patients may need an exam as frequent as every 4-6 months so that we are not failing to provide appropriate treatment (and compromising our professional obligation).
This is a big responsibility to take on. Sometimes, just squeezing in a new pet results in the clinic having to provide repeat examinations or treatments every 1-2 weeks until the condition is stable and then every 4-6 months. Never mind all the follow-up, research, and figuring out how to order new medications so they can appropriately treat your pet.
This can be scary for a team that is already working as fast and hard as they can or is on the brink of burnout.
So we ask the question again, what does it mean to be a client at a veterinary clinic?
For most clinics, it means that we have seen the client regularly (at least once a year) or have seen that specific pet in the last 2, usually max 3, years. It allows us to have relatively recent knowledge of your pet’s general health to know what we are agreeing to when we see them for a concern.
In Terrace, we do not have an emergency clinic. Our hospitals are general practice clinics that are predominantly focused on preventative care and schedulable interventions. If there is an emergency, we shift around our schedules to accommodate it because we are too far away from true emergency clinics for referral to be an option. That is part of our side of a VCPR. But we are not staffed with enough people or equipped with the training and equipment to juggle our regular case load AND accommodate large number of unpredictable emergencies on a regular basis. So sometimes we must refuse to see a pet that really should be seen – partly because we simply don’t have space, partly because we have no idea what we are committing to when it has been years since we have seen this pet (if ever), and partly because we need to protect our sanity. When every day is chaos and our team cannot uphold what we committed to in other VCPRs, that is when burnout sets in, people quit, or patient care deteriorates.
So, if we add you as a client, we need to see your pet for an examination, document what their current conditions are, and make an agreement about the level and style of care that we, clinic and client, can provide together. If we don’t see your pet for another few years (the equivalent aging of 15-20 years for a human), we cannot continue to commit to see them in case of an emergency. Perhaps we can see them, if the schedule allows, but we might have to say no (for the above reasons).
A Veterinary-Client-Patient-RELATIONSHIP is like any other relationship – its takes effort on both sides to maintain.
We are so excited that we have the staffing and capability to help more people help their pets, but, we thought it was time to try to explain what this actually means.
A beautiful rendition of our logo by the talented Alpine Artistry
