Straight from the heart

Dear Dr. Forsythe:  I have been reading your advice column for several years. Most of the time I agree with you in your answers, but every once in a while I get a little prickly feeling and think you overstep your boundaries.  Your medical advice seems outstanding, but don’t you think your personal advice to couples, mothers, and people writing to you about important non-medical problems would be better served by a non-veterinarian writer?

Just a thought

Dear thought:  I couldn’t agree more that when a person writes to me about peripheral issues to veterinary medicine, there are probably many better qualified people who could give advice that would be most helpful.  However the old saying goes “nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care”.  I think my readers have come to know that their problems matter to me and I will give them answers from my heart.  So when a person seeks my advice about what to do when it comes to pet related issues that impact their lives deeply and personally, readers need to remember that I am more than a veterinarian.  I am a father, a single gay man living in a small town, a baby brother who was disowned by all my siblings when I “came out” 10 years ago.

Like any Baby Boomer in the community, I wear a number of different hats.  I have a lifetime of experiences from which to draw on when I dole out advice in my column. The medical advice is the easy part most of the time because the rigorous training we veterinarians receive is very cut and dry and very thorough, so it is fairly routine to sort through the medical data we have and pluck through and dispense the necessary information. The other advice, how to somehow empathize with a person who is in pain or in confusion about deeply personal issues that may arise collaterally from people’s pets, well, that is much riskier business.

All I can tell you is that I try my best to offer advice and love to people who reach out to me the best I can.  Sometimes I am harsh and bitchy, other times I know I’m a little mushy and overly sincere.  If I’ve given you  “prickly” feelings when you’ve read my recommendations over the years, that probably confirms that I shoot from the heart — and have missed the mark more than once.

It also means that not everything I say will suit every palate.  It isn’t supposed to, and I don’t think it ever could.  But as long as it is sincere, comes from my heart, and is intended to help the person who wrote me, I’ll continue doing the best I can, even though a non-veterinarian might handle the task much better than I.

Thanks for your input!

Dr. F