The Cost of Caring

We are Barnas Creative and we are on a mission to make our film, The Cost of Caring, free worldwide.

The Cost of Caring is a documentary about the high incidence of veterinarian suicide rates in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Veterinary Medical Association published a joint study in 2019 indicating that veterinarians were more likely to die by suicide as compared to the general U.S. population. Men were 2.1 times more likely and for women, it was worse at 3.5 times. The researchers cited multiple stressors that may play a role: the daily demands at work which include euthanizing pets, burnout, compassion fatigue, poor work-life balance, and being cyber bullied and vilified by pet owners for not meeting their expectations. This film delves into those issues and exposes this crisis in the pet med industry today.

This journey started 4 years ago raising enough support to produce a feature-length documentary. We were able to complete the film for under $150,000. We paid everyone but ourselves, keeping the budget as low as possible. Now, the film has won numerous awards in festivals, is available on Amazon Prime and Vimeo, and will be distributed on PBS March 2025.

We are really proud of how well the film has been doing, but we want to remove it from behind its paywalls and make it free for everyone around the world to see. Our goal all along has been to get it seen by as many people as possible so we can help change the perception that veterinarians and vet staff play with cute puppies and kitties all day and to show the real struggles within this profession. With your help, we can make it free on Amazon Prime, Vimeo, and Youtube so that clinics worldwide can share it with their staff. We would also like to add free extras to our website that are not included in the film and send the film, free of charge, to pre-vet and veterinary schools to use as a tool in their curricula. We believe the film will not only change the perception of the general public towards veterinarians and vet staff but will also help those going into the profession and already in the veterinary field.

In short, your tax-deductible donation will allow us to remove any paywalls that prevent the film from being seen by the masses.

We hope you can help us make this possible so others will see the importance of this topic. We want to change the general public’s perception of what veterinarians and vet staff do every day for so many of us, and create a sense of belonging, connection, and shared purpose surrounding this difficult topic among all vet med workers and the rest of us.

To view the trailer, the film, or for more information about the mission, please visit www.thecostofcaring.com.