Recognising clients

Any vet will see numerous clients on a daily basis, with small animal vets in particular often interacting with more than 30 in a day. There are, of course, a number of “regulars” that have many animals, or seemingly a spate of bad luck and end up bring their beloved pet to us repeatedly, which makes up a selection of familiar faces.

However, most clients will only bring their pets to us yearly for vaccinations and, while they might remember exactly what their vet looks like, their vet is unlikely to return the recognition.

I have sometimes had clients (or I can only presume they are clients) stop to say hello in the local supermarket – they clearly know who I am, while I feel very awkward not having a clue who they are… particularly in the absence of the associated pet.

Awkward

I always feel awful for not being able to recognise them, because it makes it seem as they and their pet are just another client and patient through the door. While the myriad patients seen by a vet each day do tend to become a blur, it doesn’t mean we care any less during the consultation in which we give them our undivided attention, it’s purely down to the sheer number of people we see every day.

The last time I went to get my hair cut, my usual hairdresser was off, leaving me in the capable hands of the salon owner. As I sat opposite the mirror making idle small talk with her, she asked what I did for a living.

When I answered, I expected the usual reactions: “Oh, I always wanted to be a vet” or “I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t bear to see anything put down”. Instead, she asked which practice, and said she used us for her dog, but wasn’t sure if she’d seen me before. I didn’t recognise her either, so explained that, as a mixed vet recently doing a bigger proportion of the large animal side, it’s highly likely we hadn’t crossed paths recently.

Bad reaction

She started to laugh, relieved, and described her last visit to us. Suffering from a severe allergy to rabbits, her asthma had been hugely triggered when she bought her dog in, as we’d had a rabbit in earlier that day. Coughing and spluttering her way through the consult, she had felt silly and couldn’t get out of the room quick enough to get some rabbit hair-free air.

As soon as she started to tell the story, I immediately remembered that exact consult. It was definitely me who had seen her – I remembered vividly trying to examine her dog while being moderately concerned she might cough up a lung. I think it made both us feel better that neither of us recognised the other.

She explained that she experienced the exact same thing when clients recognised her, but she didn’t recognise them – especially those who only came in to the salon sporadically. The pure volume of people both of us interact with on a daily basis makes it so difficult to keep track of everybody.

Not the only ones

Sometimes, as vets, I think we can get caught up in our niche community and think the obscure situations we find ourselves in are unique to our profession only.

However, while we are likely to be the only ones discussing the weekend’s gossip while lancing a cat abscess or castrating a dog, we are not the only ones to deal with a great number of members of the public as clients, which comes with a variety of challenges very relevant to anyone who provides a public service.