Dear Peloton, we need to talk

You may have heard that veterinary professionals across the nation are not very happy with Peloton, a company that makes high-end indoor stationary cycles complete with touchscreen WiFi enabled tablets for live and on demand cycling programs. Let’s break down the story of what happened and why everyone is upset.

A veterinarian in a social media group recently posted that she was so excited to finally purchase a new Peloton because she wants to stay healthy to live a long, happy life–so she can care for her patients and her family. She was happy to note that there was a discount for healthcare workers for the monthly membership fees. According to a recent article from the New York Times, the base price of the Peloton Bike is now $1,495 (a $400 price drop) and the Peloton membership is $39 per month. With the membership fee, you receive unlimited access to a growing library of live streaming and on-demand classes, scenic rides, challenges, and real-time performance tracking.

Being a veterinarian and considering herself a healthcare worker, she applied for the discount and was very surprised when she received a response from Peloton that denied her request.

Peloton’s response to her:

“The Medical Personnel list that qualifies must be a doctor, physician, physician’s assistant, nurse, emergency medical technician, or other person authorized under State or Federal law or regulation to collect blood and urine specimens. With that being said, your position does not fall under any of the categories listed above according to Federal Law.”

Predictably, that response has triggered an angry reaction from those in the field.

In my opinion, looking at the first sentence of the response directly qualifies veterinary staff as we regularly collect blood and urine specimens from animals, not only that we help protect ourselves and other humans from zoonotic diseases that could be transferred from those samples.

The following sentence is of particular interest because it suggests that veterinary professionals are “lesser” than our human medical counterparts. We are “real doctors” and “real nurses”. Veterinarians were even called upon during the height of the pandemic to help vaccinate humans, which, when you consider our experiences vaccinating various species, made us uniquely qualified to help.

According to Matthew J. Vance, Esq, an employment and benefits lawyer in New Jersey, “there is simply no requirement for a private company like Peloton to rely on federal regulations when deciding which healthcare providers qualify for their discount program. Peloton could easily change this policy no matter what these regulations say.”

This argument also has nothing to do with suicide statistics that have been used as retorts, as that is not something to throw around lightly, neither is it respectable or useful in this argument. That topic is a private individual struggle, not to be used as emotional warfare. We are also not here to say that we are better than any human medical professional, as we do not raise our profession up by berating others. We want our expertise and skill to be equally valued and respected in society due to our contributions, often under-the-radar, that we provide for both humans and animals. I have also witnessed degrading comments by human medical students to veterinarians supporting the Peloton email, whose account has since been deleted.

Veterinarians hold countless essential positions throughout society. We care for military dogs, companion animals, keep our food supply healthy to prevent famine and save wildlife from disasters. We advocate for our environment and ecosystems across the globe, assist in global trade regulations, provide surveillance on zoonotic diseases and even oversee research for human and animal pharmaceuticals because our interspecies training is a unique and valuable asset that only veterinarians receive. We have specialists in every category mirroring human specialties with internship and residency requirements.

As this issue reoccurs quite frequently about veterinarians not being recognized for the amazing doctors that we are, it should be addressed by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). They are our greatest voice and should be advocating for our equal respect and placement next to our human doctor counterparts. Any current or future governmental veterinarians should absolutely be aware of this disparity and advocate on our behalf on capital hill. 

Ego has no place in medicine, it does nothing but create animosity. Human doctors and veterinary doctors are both animal healthcare providers, with human doctors overseeing the human species and veterinarians overseeing all other animal species.

But, here’s the facts: we are real doctors, we are real nurses, and we are real healthcare providers, whether Peloton or any other company tells us otherwise.

Update: The company responded to reporters at 10 Tampa Bay with this statement:

"Veterinarians are doctors, too, and Peloton values the important work vets and their teams do for our animal friends. We sincerely apologize for the initial oversight and are looking into this[.]"

However, the company has still not implemented any changes to its discount program as of the time of this writing.