Question: Have you ever encountered a situation where ethical considerations were at odds with project requirements, and how did you address it?

As a vet we face lots of situations where there are ethical issues, particularly because the animal cannot give consent for themselves and so the owner needs to make choices which are best for the animal and, as a vet, it’s our job to help the owner to figure out their decision. For example, if an animal is suffering and there’s no treatment available, the kindest decision may be to humanely euthanase (‘put to sleep’) the animal, but this is not an easy choice to make, often owners will be crying and sometimes as vets we’re crying too. Other times, there may be a treatment available but it involves giving lots of medicines over a long period of time and the animal may find that stressful (we all know that taking tables can be hard, even when we understand why they’re needed) so again, ethically, we have to help the owner to weigh up whether giving the treatment is OK or not.