The One Thing I Wish I Could Change About Veterinary Medicine: From Reactive to Proactive Care
Written by Alessandro Didiano (doctor in veterinary medicine, MRCVS)
Disclaimer: This article is personally written by me, a licensed veterinarian with more than a decade of clinical experience.
“Could you prescribe something for his anxiety? It’s gotten really bad” the lady asked, looking at her middle-aged, sad-looking cat.
She explained that the cat had been urinating outside the litter box for years, and no matter what she tried, the problem wouldn’t go away.
When I asked where the cat spent most of his time, she said, “In the bathroom. We’ve kept him there for about five years now because of the peeing problem.”
Five years. In a bathroom. Just imagine that for a second.
She wanted medication to make him less anxious, but what that cat really needed wasn’t a pill. He needed a new life.
Obviously, this is an extreme story. But so much of what we treat in veterinary medicine isn’t disease, it’s lifestyle.
Why We’re Always One Step Too Late
Veterinary medicine (well, actually, medicine in general) is often reactive.
We intervene after the disease has already appeared. We prescribe drugs and perform surgeries (let's be clear: all excellent tools), but rarely do we spend enough time helping people prevent the problem in the first place.
Think about it. We prescribe anxiety medication to indoor cats who live in sterile environments, deprived of sunlight, fresh air, or mental stimulation. We treat dental disease once mouths are already painful and infected, but rarely emphasize daily prevention or early habits that could have saved those teeth. We treat diabetes once it’s already developed, rather than helping owners recognise the early lifestyle factors that lead to it.
We wait for illness to appear before we act, when in many cases, nature had been giving us warning signs all along.
The Missing Piece: True Preventive Care
Preventive care should be more than vaccines, flea treatments, and yearly checkups. It should be a conversation about how animals live, not just how they’re treated.
A healthy pet isn’t just one without disease.
A healthy pet is not overweight, has space and stimulation to express natural behaviors, has emotional balance and lives in an environment that supports its species’ instincts.
We’re quick to diagnose anxiety, aggression, or chronic illness, but rarely do we ask why those symptoms exist.
Maybe the dog that’s “hyperactive” isn’t sick, maybe he’s bored. Maybe the cat that’s “anxious” isn’t unwell, maybe she’s trapped in an environment that doesn’t make sense to her nature.
Why This Shift Matters
When medicine focuses only on treatment, we chase symptoms instead of causes.
When we shift our focus in educating the public about prevention, we empower owners to create balance, and that’s where true pet's health begins.
Imagine if, instead of asking, “What drug can fix this?”, more people asked, “What does my pet’s life look like through their eyes?”
That single shift in perspective could prevent countless medical and behavioral problems.
The Change I Hope to See
If I could change one thing about veterinary medicine, it would be this: that we become educators as much as healers.
That we help pet owners understand that wellness is not just the absence of disease, but rather a good quality of life, physically, mentally and emotionally.
Sometimes, the cure isn’t in a pill, but rather giving a cat their world back.