Kindness in Veterinary Medicine: When Common Sense Becomes Scientific Literature (#757)
Do we really need a scientific paper to remind veterinarians to be kind?
A recent article in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) caught my attention. Published on October 9, 2026, the paper, entitled Kindness in veterinary practice: clinical behaviors that support safer care, was authored by Rustin M. Moore and four colleagues.
It is a ten-page narrative review, supported by 51 references, three tables, and a conceptual diagram.
Its central message?
Veterinarians should treat animals gently, communicate respectfully with clients, explain treatment options clearly, support their colleagues, and create working environments that encourage compassionate care.
My immediate reaction was simple.
Isn't this just common sense?
I have spent more than five decades in veterinary medicine, as a clinician, educator, specialist, and academic. Throughout that time, I have regarded compassion, courtesy, respect, and effective communication as fundamental professional responsibilities.
They are not optional extras. They are part of being a good veterinarian.
So why do we now need a scientific paper to tell us what should already be obvious?
When Kindness Becomes a Clinical Skill
The authors make an interesting distinction.
They argue that kindness should not simply be regarded as a desirable personality characteristic. Instead, it should be understood as a collection of observable behaviors that can be taught, practiced, evaluated, and incorporated into clinical routines.
These include allowing anxious animals time to settle, asking clients about their concerns, explaining procedures before undertaking them, presenting treatment options without judgment, checking that instructions are understood, and conducting brief team discussions after emotionally difficult cases.
There is merit in this approach.
Not every veterinary student arrives at veterinary school with equally developed communication skills. Not every technically accomplished veterinarian communicates effectively. And not every clinical workplace provides an environment in which compassion can flourish.
Teaching these skills deliberately is therefore worthwhile.
But are we discovering something new, or simply giving established principles of professional conduct a new scientific vocabulary?
Low-stress handling, client-centered communication, shared decision-making, and respectful teamwork are hardly recent inventions. They have been discussed, taught, and practiced for decades.
The authors have brought these familiar principles together under the umbrella of kindness.
That may be useful educationally. But assembling established ideas into a new framework is not necessarily the same as advancing scientific knowledge.
Where Is the Evidence?
The paper draws on neuroscience, behavioral science, human healthcare, and veterinary literature to suggest that kindness-related behaviors may improve patient safety, client cooperation, treatment adherence, and workforce well-being.
These are plausible relationships.
A frightened dog may be easier to examine when handled gently. An owner who understands a treatment plan may be more likely to follow it. A veterinary technician who feels respected may be more comfortable raising concerns about patient safety.
None of this is particularly surprising.
More importantly, the authors acknowledge that veterinary-specific evidence demonstrating causal relationships between these behaviors and improved clinical outcomes remains limited.
The paper is a narrative review, not an original experimental investigation. It does not report new clinical data, test an intervention, or demonstrate that kindness produces measurable improvements in veterinary patient outcomes.
Indeed, the authors explicitly identify the need for further research to establish these relationships.
This raises an important question about the distinction between scientific evidence and reasonable professional judgment.
Must every sensible clinical behavior be subjected to scientific investigation before we can recommend it?
Certainly, evidence is valuable. It can help determine which communication techniques are most effective, which interventions improve patient welfare, and how clinical teams can function more safely.
But there is also a danger in treating scientific validation as a prerequisite for accepting principles that are already deeply embedded in professional ethics and everyday human experience.
We do not need a randomized controlled trial to establish that humiliating a colleague is unacceptable.
Nor should we need one to recognize that frightened animals deserve gentle handling.
The Problem With Measuring Kindness
One of the paper's principal recommendations is that kindness-related behaviors should be incorporated into clinical workflows and evaluated through quality-improvement measures.
The suggested indicators include client complaints, care-plan agreement, restraint escalation, follow-up contacts, and staff retention.
These may be useful measures of practice performance.
But are they measures of kindness?
A veterinary practice might have few client complaints because clients are reluctant to complain. A high rate of treatment acceptance might reflect effective communication - or persuasive selling. Staff retention might indicate a supportive workplace, or simply a lack of alternative employment opportunities.
The authors appropriately acknowledge that their proposed indicators are not direct measures of kindness or validated causal endpoints.
Nevertheless, I wonder whether we risk confusing what can be measured with what actually matters.
Kindness is not simply a checklist of behaviors.
Kindness involves judgment, sincerity, empathy, and an appreciation of another individual's circumstances.
A veterinarian can follow every recommended communication protocol and still appear indifferent.
Conversely, a genuinely compassionate veterinarian may depart from a prescribed communication routine because the circumstances demand something different.
We should be careful not to transform kindness into another administrative performance metric.
Kindness in the Corporate Veterinary Workplace
For me, the most interesting part of the paper appears relatively late, under the heading Organizational Commitment Matters.
Here, the authors acknowledge an uncomfortable reality.
Kindness cannot compensate for inadequate staffing, excessive workloads, unrealistic appointment schedules, or poor leadership.
They also recognize that production-based compensation may create conflicts between compassionate care and financial performance.
A veterinarian who spends additional time explaining treatment options, comforting a distressed owner, or allowing an anxious animal to settle may see fewer patients during the working day.
In a production-driven environment, that veterinarian may be financially disadvantaged.
This is where the discussion becomes particularly important.
What happens when the economic priorities of a veterinary organization conflict with the professional responsibilities of its employees?
What happens when veterinarians are encouraged to demonstrate compassion but are given insufficient time to practice it?
And what happens when an organization promotes kindness in its public messaging while measuring success primarily through revenue, productivity, and financial returns?
These questions deserve considerably more attention.
The authors recognize the problem, but I would have welcomed a more extensive examination of the organizational structures that can undermine compassionate care.
Kindness cannot simply be delegated to employees.
It must also be demonstrated by those who own, manage, and lead veterinary organizations.
A corporate veterinary practice that expects kindness from its veterinarians should show equal concern for their professional autonomy, workload, compensation, and well-being.
Otherwise, kindness risks becoming another corporate slogan.
What About Veterinary Education?
The paper also raises questions about how kindness should be taught in veterinary schools.
I certainly support teaching veterinary students to communicate effectively, recognize animal distress, respect clients' circumstances, and work cooperatively with colleagues.
But I would distinguish between teaching specific communication techniques and teaching professional values.
The former can be accomplished through lectures, simulations, clinical exercises, and feedback.
The latter depends heavily on example.
Students learn about professional behavior not only from what faculty members tell them but also from how those faculty members behave.
They observe how clinicians speak to clients, how senior faculty treat residents and interns, how technicians are respected, and how administrators respond to disagreement.
They also notice inconsistencies.
A veterinary school can teach compassion in the classroom while tolerating intimidation, dismissiveness, or disrespect elsewhere in the institution.
The authors refer to this as the hidden curriculum: the informal lessons students absorb from the culture surrounding them.
I would argue that this deserves greater emphasis.
If we want graduates who demonstrate kindness, we must provide educational environments in which kindness, honesty, integrity, and respect are consistently practiced.
Professional values are taught most effectively when they are demonstrated, particularly by those in positions of authority.
The Difference Between Important and Original
I do not question the importance of the paper's central message.
Kindness matters.
Kindness matters to animals, clients, veterinarians, technicians, students, and everyone else involved in veterinary care.
Nor do I question the authors' intentions. Their attempt to encourage more compassionate and safer clinical environments is commendable.
My concern is different.
Scientific journals serve several purposes. They publish original research, synthesize existing evidence, identify unanswered questions, and offer educational perspectives.
A narrative review does not need to present new experimental findings to justify publication.
But it should offer readers something beyond an elaborate restatement of what they already know.
In this case, the most useful contribution is the proposal to treat kindness-related behaviors as teachable clinical skills and to incorporate them into practice improvement.
That is reasonable.
However, the paper offers limited new evidence that these interventions produce the outcomes suggested in its title.
Its scientific framework is more developed than its veterinary-specific evidentiary foundation.
And I am left wondering whether the central argument could have been communicated more effectively in a much shorter article.
Ten pages, 51 references, three tables, and a diagram seem an elaborate way to remind a caring profession that kindness is important.
When Common Sense Becomes Scientific Literature
There is a broader issue here.
Scientific and professional literature increasingly uses specialized terminology to describe familiar human experiences.
Courtesy becomes "a communication intervention."
Respect becomes "psychological safety."
Compassion becomes "an observable clinical behavior."
Listening becomes "agenda-setting."
Asking whether someone understands becomes "teach-back."
These terms can be useful when they describe specific techniques or facilitate research.
But terminology should clarify understanding, not create an illusion of novelty.
There is a risk that we become so occupied with defining, categorizing, measuring, and documenting desirable behaviors that we overlook the simplicity of the underlying principles.
Treat others as you would wish to be treated.
Listen before speaking.
Be gentle with those who are frightened.
Explain rather than intimidate.
Respect the people with whom you work.
Recognize that professional competence involves more than technical expertise.
These principles were important long before anyone developed a clinical framework for kindness.
They will remain important long after the framework has been replaced by another.
A Final Thought
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of this paper is not what it tells us about kindness, but what its publication suggests about the veterinary profession.
Why, in 2026, do we consider it necessary to publish a scientific review explaining that kindness contributes to better professional relationships and potentially safer care?
Have we become so focused on efficiency, productivity, specialization, financial performance, and measurable outcomes that we need to rediscover the human qualities on which good veterinary medicine has always depended?
Or does the paper reflect a more troubling possibility - that kindness, once regarded as an unquestioned professional expectation, can no longer be taken for granted?
If so, the answer may not lie in developing more checklists, communication protocols, or performance indicators.
It may lie in examining the values, priorities, and leadership of the institutions in which veterinarians are educated and employed.
The real challenge is not to prove scientifically that kindness matters.
The real challenge is to create a profession in which kindness is consistently practiced, genuinely valued, and never sacrificed in the pursuit of productivity or profit.
And surely, that should be common sense.
Reference
Moore RM, Haskins C, Etter C, Davidson J, Legred J. Kindness in veterinary practice: clinical behaviors that support safer care. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. Published online October 9, 2026. https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.26.06.0498
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