Darren Stinson is a veterinarian based in Sudbury.(Markus Schwabe/CBC)
Stinson says the pandemic has added to that stress, as vets try to keep staff and clients safe.
The group behind the social media campaign is a charity called Not One More Vet, which was founded in 2014 after the suicide of a prominent veterinarian in the U.S. It currently has a Facebook group involving more than 26,000 veterinary professionals from all over the world. Veterinary medicine, unfortunately, has the highest suicide rate among professionals in the United States, and it s very close in Canada as well, Stinson added. It affects everybody personally. I lost a classmate to suicide several years ago. I was shocked. He seemed to be an extremely happy-go-lucky fellow during school. It didn t seem like anything bothered him. Obviously, probably things were bothering him.