Session: Health Humanities and Education Flash Session
Experience with futility contributes to moral distress in veterinary technicians in North America
Friday, October 13, 2023
5:00 PM – 6:15 PM ET
Location: Waterview AB (Lobby Level)
Moral distress is well documented in ICU nurses providing futile care to people. Veterinary technicians (VT) in North America act as immediate care providers like nurses and operate under the same hierarchical constraints. To date VT experiences associated with futile care have not been examined. This study aims to document their experience and its impact on moral distress. To this end, a cross-sectional study using a web-based survey was distributed through the National Association of Veterinary Technicians of America. In total 1944 VTs responded with nearly all respondents (97.8%) reporting having witnessed futile care during their careers and 94.7% reporting having provided futile care. A large majority of respondents (83.7%) reported having been asked or directed to act against their conscience in providing futile care to terminally ill patients; 80.8% reported having done so. Negative emotional and physical symptoms of stress were common with only 3.4% and 16.6% of respondents reported experiencing no negative responses associated with futile care respectively. Troublingly, 41% of respondents reported having self-medicated with drugs or alcohol and 8.1% reported having considered or attempted self-harm. These results suggest that providing futile care to pets causes significant moral distress among VT, is associated with both emotional and physical symptoms, and may lead to harmful behaviors. Mitigating this will require the veterinary profession to engage with VTs about futile care and to develop a framework for resolving moral distress associated with providing care to terminally ill pets.
Kelly Foltz – Technician Education – BluePearl; LIsa Moses – Center for Bioethics – Harvard Medical School; J Boyd – Psychiatry and Medical Ethics – Baylor College of Medicine