Dr. Thomas Hamilton has become a celebrity vet because he does something which few other veterinarians do. He takes more than the usual amount of time to gain the trust of the animal patients that he treats; he bucks the normal trend. Veterinarians are under pressure to process their patients as quickly as possible. It’s quite hard for a vet to make a good money as far as I can tell. And veterinarians want to make a good living because they feel that they deserve it. And it can be hard to slow down and be patient with patients.
But Dr. Tom does it. He recognises that his patients are often frightened and takes time to gain their trust. And in doing this he has become a celebrity on social media. I am sure that he is making more money than he would have made if he was processing his patients quickly 😎. A good business model. Wise. Companion animal caregivers want to see this in a vet. They love it. Here is a comment on TikTok:
“This is so adorable to watch. The fact that you take the time to gain an animal’s trust before examining them is absolutely beautiful.” – Allecia Snyman.
Dr. Tom became famous with the TikTok video of him lying down with a scared dog. The dog was clearly very timid and submissive. They may have been mistreated. It looks like that to me but I don’t know the back story. Dr. Tom takes an awful lot of time to gain the trust of this dog by lying down on the floor to be submissive to the dog to allow the dog to feel more confident.
It’s a great video which you can see below. And above is the video of him cuddling an anxious ginger tabby cat who is almost certainly male. They make good videos and people love to see this. Animal lovers love to see their veterinarians being tender and gentle with their beloved companion animals.
@drtom83 Patience with the patient! #drtom #veterinarian #vetlife #viral #fyp #foryou #animaldoctor #fypシ #vibes #veterinariansoftiktok #love #dog #dogsofttiktok #compassion
As I said, it is veterinary behaviour which moves in the opposite direction to that which we tend to think happens at veterinary clinics. Perhaps we have a misconception about veterinary clinics and the “processing” of their animal patients. But Dr. Tom believes in being patient with patients and I think that’s a great mantra.
It must lead to better health care and it is certainly the best possible publicity a veterinary clinic can have. Dr. Thomas Hamilton is a smart veterinarian. He is also a good-looking bloke. This makes him particularly marketable on social media. I am sure that he recognised this and decided to use social media to his advantage which was wise. It has been a great success for him.
It seems to me that the moral of the story is that if you want to make a decent living out of being a veterinarian, provide an excellent service. You might end up with more patients than you can treat. Then you can expand your veterinary clinic and build another branch at another location and you’ll make that money that you so richly deserve.
Below are some more articles on veterinarians.
