AVMA blasts magazine for 'negative' article about DVMs

Schaumburg, Ill.

-- Dr. Larry Corry, AVMA president, skewered

Smart Money

magazine in a letter to the editor for an article titled “10 Things Veterinarians Won't Tell You” (Aug. 7, 2009).

The article fosters “a feeling of mistrust of veterinarians,” Corry says.

“Your choice of headline and the wording of subheads throughout the article, combined with an overall negative tone, and the use of innuendo and inflammatory language, are regrettable,” Corry writes. “Veterinarians are compassionate doctors who work extremely hard to provide quality health care at an astonishingly reasonable cost. Contrary to the article's title, communication is the cornerstone of the veterinarian-client-patient relationship.”

The article's subtitles included quips like, “Good thing you love Sparky like a son. His care could cost as much,” “Vaccinating your pet may do more harm than good” and “Surgery is a cinch. It's the overnight stay you should worry about.”

Corry points out that trust and communication are key to the veterinarian/client relationship and calls out Smart Money for mocking that relationship.

“Despite the fact that the scientific community, the American public and even the U.S. General Accounting Office have appraised veterinarians as indispensable experts on both animal and human health, your article fails to accord these doctors that respect,” Corry writes. “Indeed, one can scarcely imagine the backlash Smart Money would feel from both the public and the medical community by running an article entitled ‘10 Ways to Avoid Following a Pediatrician's Advice.'”