This episode deals with death and dying. Please take care while listening.
Dr. Dani McVety 00:06
I never, if I told my younger self what I would be doing, I never would have even believed it. I’d be like, there’s absolutely no way, no chance. There’s no chance I would be that comfortable with that, with that setting at all.
SHIRA GOLDEN [Narration] 00:18
Dr. Dani McVety is a kind of veterinarian people call when it’s time to put their pets to sleep. She runs a business that does in-home euthanasias. A typical day for her staff includes three to five of these – one euthanasia after the next.
Dr. Dani McVety 00:33
You know, a lot of people will look at me and say, Oh, this must be so hard for you. You must hate doing this. This has got to be so difficult, but honestly, it’s, it’s not…
SHIRA GOLDEN [Narration] 00:40
It does sound grim, being around that much death. But Dani finds meaning in her work. Even joy.
Dr. Dani McVety 00:47
It’s so cool …, there was another one that I euthanized a dog on the beach, you know, at sunset and literally I think back and this was like after the family had given the dog like a bucket list day.
00:57
You know, they had, They had a bucket list. They did all the things. They visited their favorite ice cream shop and the dog got ice cream. They visited their family members and the dog got to see everybody. And then I met them at sunset on the beach…
SHIRA GOLDEN [Narration] 1:08
This end-of-life care stuff is vital work. Dani knows that now, but the message she got in vet school was that being a good veterinarian meant saving lives.
Dr. Dani McVety 1:17
It’s just when you’re in a medical school environment. You are there surrounded by the brightest minds that exist in veterinary medicine and their entire reason for being is to save and make, you know, amazing discoveries and to come up with new ways of treating something and new surgical processes, anything.
Dr. Dani McVety 1:39
But the antithesis of that is … death. So it was definitely not something that we talked about, and it was absolutely taken as ah, ugh, we failed.