What you wish you learnt at Vet School (but didn't)

I recently asked for input from colleagues about what skills, other than technical skills, they wish they had learnt at Vet school.  I was pleased to receive a great deal of comment on this subject. Most of the issues boiled down to communication and/or money in some form or another. And no, the vets are not money hungry greedy individuals  but treatment and medication is expensive and there are few things more frustrating than continually being hampered in your ability to treat an animal because the owner is unable or unwilling to pay. Of course this situation could be alleviated if more owners would take up pet's health insurance. For a regular budgeted expenditure most major illnesses and injuries can be dealt with. I find it inexplicable that take up worldwide is so low.

I quote from some of the replies I received:
Ability to deal with difficult, unreasonable clients.
Teach them how to talk to vet nurses without being condescending.
Time management.
How to balance what you should do with what you can do while taking into account what the owner wants or can afford and the pet will tolerate and what your ethics say is acceptable.
Talking money with clients and accepting the 3 options of care 1. gold standard, 2. budget and 3. doing nothing.
How to increase pet insurance uptake from the current 5% (in Australia) to the UK's 55%.
Teach new grads not to feel guilty if owners cannot afford treatment.
How to talk to people and like them.
Financial  and career advice. A vet degree costs $250 000 (AUD) plus the opportunity cost  of 5 to 7 years out of the workforce.
Talk to them about when the job is not right and it is time to leave.
How to recognise and deal with workplace bullying.
Teach students that it costs a lot of money to run a vet clinic and that vets need to generate enough income to cover these costs, their wages and the wages of support staff. Even though to a new vet prices might seem high in comparison to their wage, excessive discounting or not charging properly because of guilt or the "cringe" factor hurts the business and makes it difficult to impossible to maintain a high standard of practice.

Comments welcome!