This qualitative online survey (n = 123) investigated what farm veterinarians in Germany perceive as morally challenging situations. Vital moral challenges can be described as conflicts between different actors who make demands on the veterinarians, like (a) animals, (b) farmers, (c) politics, (d) society, (e) veterinary offices (f) colleagues, supervisors, employees and competitors and (g) the veterinarian himself/herself. Or they can be described as the conflict between different roles of veterinarians who describe themselves as (a) advocates for the animals, (b) entrepreneurs, (c) social workers, (d) part of agriculture, (e) colleagues, supervisors, employees and competitors and (f) private persons. It can be deduced that at least some study participants find the described moral challenges a cause for moral distress. The key moral challenge for farm veterinarians, from their own viewpoint, are not so much open ethical questions, ethical dilemmas or “duty vs. inclination” conflicts, but rather situations in which their personal moral convictions are conflicting with external obstacles. Accordingly, a feeling of powerlessness appears in their answers. The extremely limited financial scope of animal owners could be identified as the key external obstacle.

此定性在线调查（n = 123）调查了德国农场兽医认为在道德上具有挑战性的情况。重大的道德挑战可以描述为对兽医提出要求的不同参与者之间的冲突，例如，（a）动物，（b）农民，（c）政治，（d）社会，（e）兽医办公室（f）同事，主管，雇员和竞争对手以及（g）兽医本人。或者可以将它们描述为兽医的不同角色之间的冲突，他们将自己描述为（a）动物的拥护者，（b）企业家，（c）社会工作者，（d）农业的一部分，（e）同事，主管，雇员和竞争对手以及（f）私人。可以推断出至少有一些研究参与者发现所描述的道德挑战是造成道德困扰的原因。农场兽医面临的主要道德挑战，从他们自己的角度来看，与其说是公开的道德问题，道德困境或“职责与倾向”冲突，不如说是他们的个人道德信念与外部障碍冲突的情况。因此，他们的回答中出现了无助感。动物拥有者极其有限的财务范围可以被认为是主要的外部障碍。