Ethical conflict and moral distress in veterinary practice: A survey of North American veterinarians

Abstract

Veterinarians report widespread ethical conflict and moral distress across many practice types and demographics. Most veterinarians have little to no training on how to decrease the impact of these problems. Ethical conflict and resulting moral distress may be an important source of stress and poor well-being that is not widely recognized or well defined. Well-researched and effective tools used to decrease moral distress in human healthcare could be adapted to ameliorate this problem.