Veterinary end-of-life mobile practitioners: Motivators, challenges, job fulfillment and burnout

Abstract A growing specialty within veterinary medicine is end-of-life (EOL) care, including EOL mobile practice. EOL care is a broad term referring to euthanasia services, as well as hospice and palliative care for terminally-ill patients. This study was designed to better understand how EOL mobile veterinarians feel about their work, including the benefits and challenges, their reasons for choosing this career, and their levels of professional fulfillment and burnout compared to other veterinary professionals. To this end, an online, anonymous, cross-sectional survey was developed using Qualtrics, and adult EOL mobile practitioners were recruited for the study. A total of 162 veterinarians responded to the survey. Results suggest that the primary reasons why veterinarians are drawn to mobile EOL work include the ability to make a positive impact and provide personalized care to pets and families, and enjoy a better work environment. When participants were asked to indicate how challenging they found 16 EOL mobile practitioner work-related factors, the factors reported as “very challenging” by the largest number of participants included a lack of health benefits (24/99, 24%), followed by the hassle of the business side (e.g., taxes, recordkeeping, etc.) (21/122, 17.2%). When assessing burnout and professional fulfillment, a total of 21/142 (14.80%) indicated they felt burned out and 99/142 (69.72%) participants’ scores fell above the cutoff for professional fulfillment, suggesting that mobile EOL practitioners have higher job fulfillment and lower burnout than other veterinary professionals. These results suggest that engagement in euthanasia, per say, does not necessarily lead to a negative impact on mental health. While not for everyone, mobile EOL practice appears to be a viable career path for some veterinarians.