A vet has spoken openly about the huge psychological pressure in his profession and the high number of suicides in the field. The touching video was published on TikTok by Mihai Măcinic, a veterinarian and founder of a hospital for exotic animals, generating thousands of reactions and comments from the community, many of them saying that the message reflects a reality that is rarely talked about. Dr. Măcinic publicly demands concrete measures from the College of Veterinary Doctors in Romania, the universities and the authorities.
In his message, the doctor claims that veterinarians face daily emotional trauma, exhaustion and lack of institutional support, and the phenomenon is ignored in Romania.
“There is a cemetery that no one sees, it has no crosses, no flowers, no names engraved in stone. It is the cemetery of our colleagues, veterinarians, people who did 6 years of college to save lives and who on a Tuesday night closed the office door and never opened it again.” he says in the video.
The doctor referred to international studies showing that the suicide rate among veterinarians is significantly higher than in the general population, especially in countries such as the United States, Great Britain or Australia.
According to him, in Romania there are no official statistics on the mental health of veterinarians, and many tragedies remain unknown to the public.
“In the United States, veterinarians die by suicide three to four times more often than the general population. In Great Britain, the same, in Australia, the same, in Belgium, in Norway, in Germany, the same. Women in our profession, who are the majority, die three and a half times more often than women in other professions. In Romania, we don’t know, because no one has counted. Because in our country, if a veterinarian takes his own life, it is a private tragedy, the family is silent. The clinic is silent.” says Mihai Măcinic in the video that is gaining more and more popularity on TikTok.
In his speech, Mihai Măcinic talks about the emotional impact of euthanizing animals, the pressure from clients and the lack of support from professional institutions.
“A veterinary clinician administers death thousands of times, not metaphorically, literally, with his hand, while the animal looks him in the eye, and the owner cries, while a part of you that you can’t see, but feel, breaks a little each time.” says Mihai Macinic.
It also describes times when clients end up publicly accusing or offending doctors. “The client who tells you in the office that you are a criminal, a charlatan, a profiteer and then walks away with no consequences, while you are stuck with his words in your brain for weeks.” says the doctor.
“We have at hand the tools of our own destruction”
“We are a category of people who are required, in order to do their job, to have the tools of their own destruction at hand at all times”, says the veterinarian, referring to the substances used for euthanasia.
He harshly criticizes the lack of psychological support programs dedicated to the profession and publicly demands concrete measures from the College of Veterinary Doctors in Romania, the universities and the authorities.
“I didn’t enter the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine to die earlier. I didn’t work for 15 years to bury my colleagues. I didn’t build a hospital from scratch, with my own hands, to be now, not even 40 years old, part of a statistic that no one wants to publish.
I refuse this fate for myself, for my colleagues, for the students entering college this year, for my colleague’s daughter who would be orphaned at 11 years old and who, if one day she tells me I want to become an animal doctor like my father, I want to be able to answer her with serenity, not with horror. If you’re a vet and you’re listening to this, you’re not alone, you’re not weak, you’re not defective, you’re in a profession that’s killing you senselessly, and you have the right to ask for support, to refuse silence, to live.” he said.
Among the requests made are the creation of a telephone support line for veterinarians in crisis, the introduction of mandatory courses on mental health in the relevant faculties and the recognition of veterinary medicine as a profession with high psycho-social risk.
“We no longer accept the ‘that’s the job’ answer to someone’s death”, Mihai Măcinic sent at the end of his message.
