How internet habits are adding strain to veterinary practice
Bottom line
Veterinary Practice News has published a commentary from Therese Castillo arguing that the internet isn’t just changing client behavior, but actively reshaping the pressures veterinary teams face every day. In the piece, Castillo describes how online searching, social media narratives, review culture, and digitally amplified expectations can erode trust in the exam room, add emotional labor for teams, and deepen frustration on both sides of the client relationship. That argument lands against a profession already managing persistent burnout, retention strain, and online harassment. AVMA’s 2025 economic report says 8.6% of veterinarians were considering leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement, with mental health, lifestyle/work hours, and difficult or ungrateful clients among the leading reasons cited. (ebusiness.avma.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this isn’t only an opinion about “Dr. Google.” It connects directly to workforce stability, client communication, and practice operations. Recent literature has found that client communication demands, including the need to correct misinformation from self-directed online advice, can add to burnout risk, while earlier survey work found more veterinarians perceived clients’ internet use as harming, rather than helping, the client-veterinarian relationship. At the same time, practices are operating in a highly digital environment: AVMA reports that 64.1% of practices use an online pharmacy, 59.9% use client communication software integrated with PIMS, and 33.4% offer online appointment scheduling, meaning the profession is also helping create the always-on expectations it now has to manage. (mdpi.com)
What to watch: Expect more discussion around digital boundary-setting, misinformation response, and online reputation management as practices look for ways to protect teams without weakening client access or convenience. (vettimes.com)
A new Veterinary Practice News commentary from Therese Castillo puts a sharper edge on a familiar complaint in companion animal practice: the internet isn’t just informing pet parents, it’s changing the emotional and operational terms of veterinary work. Castillo’s argument is that online research, social media, and public review platforms can undermine professional trust and intensify conflict, while the profession itself has helped normalize this digital dynamic by embracing convenience tools, visibility, and constant connectivity.
That message arrives at a moment when the profession’s workforce indicators remain fragile, even if some headline metrics have stabilized. AVMA’s 2025 economic report says burnout scores have eased somewhat from pandemic highs, but only about half of veterinarians reported being satisfied with the profession as a whole. The same report found 8.6% were considering leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement, and the top reasons had more to do with mental health, work hours, and difficult clients than compensation alone. (ebusiness.avma.org)
Castillo’s framing also lines up with a broader body of research on communication strain. A recent scoping review on veterinarian-client communication and burnout found that the relational demands of client-facing care can function as a burnout driver, and specifically noted that veterinarians describe extra corrective labor when pet parents arrive with online misinformation or delayed help-seeking shaped by internet advice. Earlier survey research from the UK similarly found that 54% of veterinarians felt clients’ internet use had a negative effect on the vet-client relationship, compared with 37% who saw a positive effect. (mdpi.com)
There’s also a second layer to Castillo’s point: veterinary medicine has, in some ways, trained clients to expect digital immediacy. AVMA data show widespread adoption of online-facing tools across practices, including online pharmacies, integrated client communication platforms, and online scheduling. Those systems can improve access and compliance, but they can also blur boundaries around response times, price comparison, and the idea that veterinary advice should be instantly available, easily challenged, or publicly rated. That’s an inference based on the adoption data and the communication literature, but it fits the tension Castillo is describing. (ebusiness.avma.org)
Industry commentary is increasingly focused on the misinformation side of that equation. Vet Times, summarizing a review on how the profession can tackle social media misinformation, argued that veterinary teams need a more active role in vetting online claims and pointed to veterinarians using short-form video to debunk false information around nutrition, behavior, and breeding. Other professional resources have focused on the reputational fallout when online criticism turns abusive rather than merely negative. (vettimes.com)
That concern is not theoretical. AVMA-linked and industry reports have described cyberbullying as a real workplace risk for veterinary teams, extending beyond bad reviews into coordinated harassment, threatening messages, and reputational attacks. A 2023 AVMA member survey cited by AAHA said 40% of respondents reported that they or someone they work with had experienced workplace cyberbullying, and companion animal veterinarians saw a notable increase versus 2014. AVMA and affiliated groups now promote reputation management and cyberbullying response resources as part of professional support. (aaha.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, Castillo’s commentary is useful because it reframes internet-related frustration as a systems issue, not just a client attitude problem. If online misinformation, review pressure, and constant-access expectations are adding communication labor and emotional exhaustion, then the response can’t be limited to telling individual clinicians to be more resilient. It points instead to practice-level decisions: clearer communication policies, stronger digital triage, firmer response boundaries, staff training on misinformation conversations, and proactive online reputation planning. In a labor market where retention still matters and “difficult/ungrateful clients” remains a cited reason some veterinarians consider leaving, those operational choices may be workforce strategy, not just customer service. (ebusiness.avma.org)
What to watch: The next phase is likely to center on whether practices and professional groups move from acknowledging the problem to standardizing solutions, especially around cyberbullying response, social media misinformation, and realistic digital access expectations for pet parents. (acvim.org)