Mandatory Retirement Age

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PrincessButterCup

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I'm curious about the idea of a mandatory retirement age or mandatory physical/cognitive exams for practicing veterinarians. I'd like to see what others who have more experience in vet med think about it.

Has this been a concern that anyone else has run into? Would it be possible to implement some sort of quality-check system in veterinary medicine, or is this a largely unfounded concern?

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I'm curious about the idea of a mandatory retirement age or mandatory physical/cognitive exams for practicing veterinarians. I'd like to see what others who have more experience in vet med think about it.

Has this been a concern that anyone else has run into? Would it be possible to implement some sort of quality-check system in veterinary medicine, or is this a largely unfounded concern?

There are a few threads on VIN that discuss this. In most cases I've read about, a younger partner/associate steps in and talks to the vet with the (presumed) problem and tries to convince them to retire at that point. In some cases, a board complaint is filed but people are (in general) pretty hesitant to report a fellow vet.

A few other considerations: even perfectly mentally capable veterinarians do terrible things and just because you're old doesn't mean you're unfit to be a veterinarian.
 
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I'm curious about the idea of a mandatory retirement age or mandatory physical/cognitive exams for practicing veterinarians. I'd like to see what others who have more experience in vet med think about it.

Has this been a concern that anyone else has run into? Would it be possible to implement some sort of quality-check system in veterinary medicine, or is this a largely unfounded concern?
I've worked for a short time with two vets who would show opposite ends of this argument.

The first was really old. He couldn't bend to reach patients anymore, so there always had to be a tech to help handle animals for exams. He had a bit more trouble with eye sight, so he used extra magnification when he looked at anything smaller than a quarter. But he kept up to date on his CE, and asked questions of the younger doctors about what was changing. He admitted to the faults he had and managed as best he could and asked for help when necessary. He only worked very part time, and did not do surgery anymore, but he had started the clinic and liked to feel like he was still part of it. The schedulers tried to be careful not to schedule him for surgical consults or anything that he would have to follow closely long term. If he got something that was outside his comfort, he referred people to the other vets. So he worked with self imposed limitations and did a great job of customer service and what looked like excellent care within the typical clinic standards.

The second vet was about 60. Said he would retire if he could afford it, but since he couldn't, he would just keep going. He no longer felt comfortable in surgery but instead of turning them away, he would accept soft tissue stuff and schedule them for 6 hour blocks. He often spent the first 2-3 hours of the animal being under anesthesia, running out to pick things from the yard, or go make a "quick phone call." The quotes he gave would be adjusted for a 5 hour spay, and he would get mad at customers who questioned why. He barely kept up on CE hours, mainly by attending local meetings and instead of attending any seminars, he would hang out near the food and booze and talk to the reps or the catering crew. As a result, he was way out of date with current care and treatment options and recommended euthanasia as the best choice for anything that required long term care or management rather than referral. If questioned by a new associate doctor, he often would joke about how he had never been a good student and "just barely graduated vet school" and then fire them a week later and spread rumors about incompetency. If a client questioned him, he used the same joke and then refused to see them again. His office manager was his long time girlfriend and would beg people to alternately stroke his ego and subtly hint that it was time to retire. He had issues with depression, paranoia, and occasionally threatened murder/suicide ideas.

Of those 2, I kinda wished someone would check on the second, though he had to be about 30 years younger than the first. Working with the second did make me wish there was a way to have someone check on him, especially because I heard so much concern from his peers, but nobody did anything because, how else was he going to make money to live and pay off his debt from buying the clinic?
 
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A vet I know of just had a disciplinary hearing regarding some age-related things. She is constantly behind on charts. She always has 30 or more that she takes home to work on, never gets to them, so they sit at her house until the patient comes in again and the clinic needs the chart back. Probably 50% of the exams she does never get any info recorded in the chart, or Rx info, or conversations with the client, etc. Clients don't get billed for weeks or months because she is too busy or too tired to put charges together. She had emergency call hours, but will often just delegate to an assistant over the phone rather than come in. She might lose her ability to do emergency calls, and she might be required to take a course on charting, but neither those things will fix the root of the problem.
 
I'm curious about the idea of a mandatory retirement age or mandatory physical/cognitive exams for practicing veterinarians. I'd like to see what others who have more experience in vet med think about it.

Has this been a concern that anyone else has run into? Would it be possible to implement some sort of quality-check system in veterinary medicine, or is this a largely unfounded concern?
I would vehemently oppose this. There are plenty of old-timers out there that are incredible practitioners of every stripe. 'Ageism' in this country continues to rear its ugly head. Since when did old = incompetent? There are plenty of old timers out there that are worlds more competent than a fresh grad. Young folks should take a back seat and learn a thing or two. Until an individual directly shows signs of losing their edge, more power to them to practice. They have my support.
 
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I guess my question should really be about quality control. If the odd vet who loses eyesight, has dementia, whatever age-related problem - if that person decides not to retire, what can be done about the diminishing patient care? It goes for any vet who privides substandard care for whatever reason.

I don't know, the situation I know of is making me feel disillusioned about quality control among practices. It seems to be related to age in this case, which is why my question was regarding that.
 
I guess my question should really be about quality control. If the odd vet who loses eyesight, has dementia, whatever age-related problem - if that person decides not to retire, what can be done about the diminishing patient care? It goes for any vet who privides substandard care for whatever reason.

I don't know, the situation I know of is making me feel disillusioned about quality control among practices. It seems to be related to age in this case, which is why my question was regarding that.
If I were on the ethics board reviewing a case like this, you'd have to prove it. If medical evidence corroborated a true risk to patient safety, then I'd be moved to take action. Mandatory retirement age- No, not ever. That's discrimination, plain and simple. Show me compromised patient care directly linked to an age-related, biological change- sure, then your claim is valid. Until that point, no dice.
 
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I knew a vet in her late 30s that was ALWAYS behind on charts. As in she almost never got to them.
Is it not as big of a deal as I think it is? It feels huge and irresponsible but maybe it's not as much as it seems.
 
Is it not as big of a deal as I think it is? It feels huge and irresponsible but maybe it's not as much as it seems.
It is irresponsible but it doesn't panic me.


I honestly worry about myself in this area a little bit. I hate paperwork. I hate hate hate hate it. Sitting down to do paperwork makes me sad and angry lol
 
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I worked for a vet who was 60+. His hands were too shaky to do surgery, but he had two other vets that could do those. Other than that, he is the most compotent, fastest thinking vet in that building. Managed all of the business as well. No plans to retire. I think with a standardized retirement age, you'd knock out a lot of amazing vets.
 
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Is it not as big of a deal as I think it is? It feels huge and irresponsible but maybe it's not as much as it seems.

It is irresponsible but it isn't age related. I've met many vets who can't seem to write up their charts. It only bothers me when I have to follow up with the client the next day and I have no information so I look like a damn idiot. The other time it bothers me is incomplete notes and they've faxed those over...and, again, I look like a damn idiot.
 
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I've worked for a short time with two vets who would show opposite ends of this argument.

The first was really old. He couldn't bend to reach patients anymore, so there always had to be a tech to help handle animals for exams. He had a bit more trouble with eye sight, so he used extra magnification when he looked at anything smaller than a quarter. But he kept up to date on his CE, and asked questions of the younger doctors about what was changing. He admitted to the faults he had and managed as best he could and asked for help when necessary. He only worked very part time, and did not do surgery anymore, but he had started the clinic and liked to feel like he was still part of it. The schedulers tried to be careful not to schedule him for surgical consults or anything that he would have to follow closely long term. If he got something that was outside his comfort, he referred people to the other vets. So he worked with self imposed limitations and did a great job of customer service and what looked like excellent care within the typical clinic standards.

The second vet was about 60. Said he would retire if he could afford it, but since he couldn't, he would just keep going. He no longer felt comfortable in surgery but instead of turning them away, he would accept soft tissue stuff and schedule them for 6 hour blocks. He often spent the first 2-3 hours of the animal being under anesthesia, running out to pick things from the yard, or go make a "quick phone call." The quotes he gave would be adjusted for a 5 hour spay, and he would get mad at customers who questioned why. He barely kept up on CE hours, mainly by attending local meetings and instead of attending any seminars, he would hang out near the food and booze and talk to the reps or the catering crew. As a result, he was way out of date with current care and treatment options and recommended euthanasia as the best choice for anything that required long term care or management rather than referral. If questioned by a new associate doctor, he often would joke about how he had never been a good student and "just barely graduated vet school" and then fire them a week later and spread rumors about incompetency. If a client questioned him, he used the same joke and then refused to see them again. His office manager was his long time girlfriend and would beg people to alternately stroke his ego and subtly hint that it was time to retire. He had issues with depression, paranoia, and occasionally threatened murder/suicide ideas.

Of those 2, I kinda wished someone would check on the second, though he had to be about 30 years younger than the first. Working with the second did make me wish there was a way to have someone check on him, especially because I heard so much concern from his peers, but nobody did anything because, how else was he going to make money to live and pay off his debt from buying the clinic?
Wait what? Like you said, sounds like this was more than an age thing...

I worked with a vet who has an uncontrolled seizure condition who did surgeries anyways even after talking about how she shouldn't be (and would regularly talk to the tech and I about how to close and what to do if she were to have a seizure during surgery). I wish there was more that could be done without necessarily reporting a vet to the state. However, so many clinics rely on one vet, and if that one vet is no longer allowed to perform a service that brings in thousands a week and they're the business owner...they may be pulled in the wrong direction (or at least in my case, she definitely was). What do you do? Launch an investigation and see if the vet is suspended until she can prove her condition won't put patients at risk? Would a state board even be able to investigate such a claim since you can't exactly probe someone's medical records? I don't know.

I don't think this is an unfounded concern (in general), especially when the current vet students will likely be working many more years to pay off their debt.
 
I do think it's easy for us to talk about this because we are all pretty young. I'm sure it's extremely difficult when you are late 60s, things are starting to progress, your body is betraying you but you still love what you do. It's hard to be at that point where you are ok telling yourself it's time to stop. No one wants to admit that they aren't good enough to continue.
 
I don't know how much I want to say here, but this question stems from a conversation I was having with my coworkers about one particular veterinarian. Someone pointed out that there are fields that have a mandatory retirement age (I think commercial pilots were one), and we began speculating on the possibility of that practice being applied to this situation.

Some of the things the staff have dealt with recently are her anger (screaming level) that comes on suddenly with no obvious cause, and conversations with her that are completely forgotten the next day. She's gotten unreliable with hand-eye work and euthanasias are really stressful, and she regularly can't hit or blows multiple veins. Things like that. With everything else, it feels like a bad situation that's not going to get better.

I realize there wouldn't be a non-discriminatory way to enforce mandatory retirement, and there are many great vets of all ages. It's this specific situation that has me frustrated. I was curious how common this concern is (and maybe none of what I've described is actually age related? It seems to have come on in the last few years though). Especially considering how many vets are practice owners and their own boss, what happens if a situation does develop where it's unsafe for a vet to continue practicing and they don't realize it for themselves?



Probably I'm letting one circumstance color my interpretation of a much broader reality. I need to talk to some of these amazing vets to fix my head.
 
I do think it's easy for us to talk about this because we are all pretty young. I'm sure it's extremely difficult when you are late 60s, things are starting to progress, your body is betraying you but you still love what you do. It's hard to be at that point where you are ok telling yourself it's time to stop. No one wants to admit that they aren't good enough to continue.

I definitely agree.
 
Somewhere out there my sociology professor is going to bed happy because she was right, and her class really was relevant to me. This feels like a conversation for a sociology lecture.
 
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So knowing where you work, I don't think it's just you who feels that way. I have a friend that lives pretty much across the street, and I went to her house with a classmate who is from here and when she saw the clinic, she went on a rant about your boss. And she's never even worked there haha

I don't think there should be a mandatory retirement age, but I think there should be some sort of competency check (for everyone!), to make sure there aren't any sort of issues that could be compromising the safety of patients or standard of care. Obviously someone can be reported to the state board, but some other sort of monitoring before it gets to that point to correct issues would be nice.
 
A vet I know of just had a disciplinary hearing regarding some age-related things. She is constantly behind on charts. She always has 30 or more that she takes home to work on, never gets to them, so they sit at her house until the patient comes in again and the clinic needs the chart back. Probably 50% of the exams she does never get any info recorded in the chart, or Rx info, or conversations with the client, etc. Clients don't get billed for weeks or months because she is too busy or too tired to put charges together. She had emergency call hours, but will often just delegate to an assistant over the phone rather than come in. She might lose her ability to do emergency calls, and she might be required to take a course on charting, but neither those things will fix the root of the problem.

How are those age-related things? I knew a vet in his 30s who was weeks (maybe months) behind in his charts. Not recording info in the file? Yeah, also not age-related......I've known many vets (unfortunately) that do that, and none of them are over 60. Turning away emerg calls is also not age related, and the worst example I know of that (he was disciplined for it) was in his 40s.

Quality is not about age, it's about intent (either intent to do badly, or intent not to care about doing it properly).
 
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I do think it's easy for us to talk about this because we are all pretty young. I'm sure it's extremely difficult when you are late 60s, things are starting to progress, your body is betraying you but you still love what you do. It's hard to be at that point where you are ok telling yourself it's time to stop. No one wants to admit that they aren't good enough to continue.
I think when you're "pretty young" it's also easy to blame those things on age. When you get older and see you eyesight or mobility declining, you know you can compensate for it and it doesn't need to keep you from doing things properly.
 
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I'm curious about the idea of a mandatory retirement age or mandatory physical/cognitive exams for practicing veterinarians. I'd like to see what others who have more experience in vet med think about it.

Has this been a concern that anyone else has run into? Would it be possible to implement some sort of quality-check system in veterinary medicine, or is this a largely unfounded concern?
you aren't even in vet school yet and you want to throw the older vets out? in the med school universe that character trait is referred to as "gunning"
 
you aren't even in vet school yet and you want to throw the older vets out? in the med school universe that character trait is referred to as "gunning"

She literally said she was curious what others thought and admitted lack of experience in her first post.... and later throughout the thread admitted bias. I hardly think that's gunning, I think it's looking to further her education. Don't be a jerk.
 
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you aren't even in vet school yet and you want to throw the older vets out? in the med school universe that character trait is referred to as "gunning"

She literally said she was curious what others thought and admitted lack of experience in her first post.... and later throughout the thread admitted bias. I hardly think that's gunning, I think it's looking to further her education. Don't be a jerk.

Hehe. It's @sb247 . He's a lovable jerk (outside of SPF, then he's just a jerk ;) )
 
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I think measures of fitness other than basic competence are troublesome. Who is going to set these metrics? It's easy enough to have governing bodies set out basic competency exams - we see that all the time - but things like surgery speed, keeping up with charts, poor eyesight, health issues, etc? What about mental issues? Are we going to have vets subjected to full physical and mental exams every so often to determine "fitness"? I understand PBC's concerns, but I think it would be impossible to implement and could lead to concerning bias down the road.
 
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She literally said she was curious what others thought and admitted lack of experience in her first post.... and later throughout the thread admitted bias. I hardly think that's gunning, I think it's looking to further her education. Don't be a jerk.
I forget how sensitive people outside of spf can be to ribbing. Take a deep breath, no harm intended
 
There are also some age discrimination laws in effect, where mandatory retirements are usually frowned upon, except in certain professions/government agencies.
 
So knowing where you work, I don't think it's just you who feels that way. I have a friend that lives pretty much across the street, and I went to her house with a classmate who is from here and when she saw the clinic, she went on a rant about your boss. And she's never even worked there haha

I don't think there should be a mandatory retirement age, but I think there should be some sort of competency check (for everyone!), to make sure there aren't any sort of issues that could be compromising the safety of patients or standard of care. Obviously someone can be reported to the state board, but some other sort of monitoring before it gets to that point to correct issues would be nice.

I think this would be the only way to go about it if it were even possible. No one has mentioned that age 60 for one person doesn't correspond to age 60 for another person.

Case in point: my grandpa has Alzheimer's, was diagnosed in his mid-late 60's. His very own sister was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 50 and died by age 60. At age 60 my grandpa was still working, backpacking, and fully functional.
 
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I don't know how much I want to say here, but this question stems from a conversation I was having with my coworkers about one particular veterinarian. Someone pointed out that there are fields that have a mandatory retirement age (I think commercial pilots were one), and we began speculating on the possibility of that practice being applied to this situation.

Some of the things the staff have dealt with recently are her anger (screaming level) that comes on suddenly with no obvious cause, and conversations with her that are completely forgotten the next day. She's gotten unreliable with hand-eye work and euthanasias are really stressful, and she regularly can't hit or blows multiple veins. Things like that. With everything else, it feels like a bad situation that's not going to get better.

I realize there wouldn't be a non-discriminatory way to enforce mandatory retirement, and there are many great vets of all ages. It's this specific situation that has me frustrated. I was curious how common this concern is (and maybe none of what I've described is actually age related? It seems to have come on in the last few years though). Especially considering how many vets are practice owners and their own boss, what happens if a situation does develop where it's unsafe for a vet to continue practicing and they don't realize it for themselves?



Probably I'm letting one circumstance color my interpretation of a much broader reality. I need to talk to some of these amazing vets to fix my head.

It sounds like you work for a shtty person, plain and simple. No level of competency testing is going to weed out people who scream at their employees.
 
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I guess I would urge some of the younger folks to be a lot more cautious about associating poor practice with age. Perhaps that is my bias as someone who is older than most people here on SDN, but ..... the vast majority of things I see people complaining about are either a) manageable age-related issues that don't inherently impact performance, or b) not age-related at all.

I would also encourage the same people to remember that you feel young and smart and talented now, but you will be stunned at how fast time goes by and suddenly you are the older person with younger people saying "Geez, maybe we need a mandatory retirement age!"
 
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I want a mandatory retirement age but only if I get mandatory retirement benefits. like no student loans, stipend, etc. :p

Anyway, I think age related requirements are ridiculous. and we do have basic competency requirements in most states - CE requirements are a part of that. The vet board exists to deal with complaints like these. if you and your co-workers were really concerned, you'd report them to the board.
 
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I don't know how much I want to say here, but this question stems from a conversation I was having with my coworkers about one particular veterinarian. Someone pointed out that there are fields that have a mandatory retirement age (I think commercial pilots were one), and we began speculating on the possibility of that practice being applied to this situation.

Some of the things the staff have dealt with recently are her anger (screaming level) that comes on suddenly with no obvious cause, and conversations with her that are completely forgotten the next day. She's gotten unreliable with hand-eye work and euthanasias are really stressful, and she regularly can't hit or blows multiple veins. Things like that. With everything else, it feels like a bad situation that's not going to get better.

I realize there wouldn't be a non-discriminatory way to enforce mandatory retirement, and there are many great vets of all ages. It's this specific situation that has me frustrated. I was curious how common this concern is (and maybe none of what I've described is actually age related? It seems to have come on in the last few years though). Especially considering how many vets are practice owners and their own boss, what happens if a situation does develop where it's unsafe for a vet to continue practicing and they don't realize it for themselves?



Probably I'm letting one circumstance color my interpretation of a much broader reality. I need to talk to some of these amazing vets to fix my head.
Yeah, airline transport pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65. It used to be 60 but was raised for practical reasons. It is pretty controversial though, but remains mainly because young pilots want to push out the old guys and move up in seniority.

It is kind of dumb because all pilots (not just airline transport pilots) have to have regular physicals and have to have regular flying exams to demonstrate their abilities, so it is really a random worthless rule IMO with little evidence based science to back it up.

So I think this is a bad example to use, although, I think what might be a good lesson is that any profession that lives depend on could probably benefit from some sort of recurring "examination" of continuing ability to perform.

FWIW, the absolute best veterinary surgeon I watched was 80 years old, is still practicing, and could suture circles around most of the vets I have seen, let alone young ones like most of my former classmates (and sdners). Of course he just hiked to the base of everest so isn't exactly having physical disabilities right now.
 
She was reported about two years ago by some of my coworkers (I wasn't aware of the report they made until after the fact). The resolution of that report hasn't made a difference at all - and maybe that's because things aren't as bad at they seem to us, and the board recognized that. I can't say for sure. But she has also known and worked with nearly every vet who sat for her hearing, and I don't know if that impacted the case or not.

I didn't realize that other doctors got behind on charts, and because this is something she never did before (and because the excuse she constantly gives to us and clients is that she's old and tired) I associated incomplete charting to age. There are currently boxes sitting on the counter that go back to last July, where the tech notes are dated with the admission info but no doctor notes about the exam. Yesterday someone called for cytology results they've waited a month for. The chart was missing, and she basically said 'I don't remember seeing anything bad so I think the smear must have been fine!' and that was the result the owner paid for. This happens constantly.

I didn't think a mandatory retirement age would ever be practical or fair, and I understand I don't have the experience to see the complexity of this situation. I think my coworkers and I just want some magical resolution to our problems, but that's not going to happen.
 
Yeah, airline transport pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65. It used to be 60 but was raised for practical reasons. It is pretty controversial though, but remains mainly because young pilots want to push out the old guys and move up in seniority.

It is kind of dumb because all pilots (not just airline transport pilots) have to have regular physicals and have to have regular flying exams to demonstrate their abilities, so it is really a random worthless rule IMO with little evidence based science to back it up.

So I think this is a bad example to use, although, I think what might be a good lesson is that any profession that lives depend on could probably benefit from some sort of recurring "examination" of continuing ability to perform.

FWIW, the absolute best veterinary surgeon I watched was 80 years old, is still practicing, and could suture circles around most of the vets I have seen, let alone young ones like most of my former classmates (and sdners). Of course he just hiked to the base of everest so isn't exactly having physical disabilities right now.

And every other vet I've worked with or shadowed in a clinical setting has been at least 15 years her junior, most at least 40 years. That's probably a huge part of why we're attributing so much of our frustrations with her to her age.
 
She was reported about two years ago by some of my coworkers (I wasn't aware of the report they made until after the fact). The resolution of that report hasn't made a difference at all - and maybe that's because things aren't as bad at they seem to us, and the board recognized that. I can't say for sure. But she has also known and worked with nearly every vet who sat for her hearing, and I don't know if that impacted the case or not.

I didn't realize that other doctors got behind on charts, and because this is something she never did before (and because the excuse she constantly gives to us and clients is that she's old and tired) I associated incomplete charting to age. There are currently boxes sitting on the counter that go back to last July, where the tech notes are dated with the admission info but no doctor notes about the exam. Yesterday someone called for cytology results they've waited a month for. The chart was missing, and she basically said 'I don't remember seeing anything bad so I think the smear must have been fine!' and that was the result the owner paid for. This happens constantly.

I didn't think a mandatory retirement age would ever be practical or fair, and I understand I don't have the experience to see the complexity of this situation. I think my coworkers and I just want some magical resolution to our problems, but that's not going to happen.
Yeah...your situation is absolutely frustrating for sure. In my eyes, it's casting a negative light on the entire practice, especially if a client leaves/gets referred and the records sent over are incomplete/nonexistent. I've had the importance of records beaten into my head ever since I started out. I've known my bosses to take paper charts home to finish or have home access to the clinic server to finish records from their own computer. Other practices, doctors would stay until they were done. You can't force someone to do these things, obviously.

I'm not sure there's anything you can really do. If she's not practicing bad medicine (although you could consider not writing up records to be bad medicine, I guess) or doing something inherently illegal/unethical, it may be hard to get the board to take some sort of action. The vet would just be SOL if she was ever taken to court and had no records to cover her a**.
 
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