Jessica Vogelsang DVM

I’d like to start with an analogy. To put it in perspective for all of us medical people, it’s like kidney disease. Rarely is it caused by ethylene glycol or grape ingestion, it’s caused by a gradual loss of function and concentrating ability so subtle you don’t realize it is even happening. The diagnosis is generally made only once there is failure and we can’t compensate anymore. When we are pissing on everything and drinking excessively. Yes that was a double entendre. The treatment is rarely dialysis or kidney transplant but hydration, proper diet, and supportive care.

The key to mental health is not a single event. Suicide is not a split second decision, it’s a mental sickness where someone feels like they are suffering and their quality of life is so poor that they don’t have a choice. It is generally preceded by an intermittently slow and rapid loss of quality of life. We don’t often pay attention until someone is failing, but what we really need is to pay attention to ourselves and each other when we are seemingly healthy and normal. In these times we can create reserves and the ability to compensate for stress and tragedy. With that said I’d like to share insights I’ve gained in order to help all of you have a better quality of life and better mental health in the veterinary profession.

 

Be yourself – Normal is something you want for your patients not your Facebook profile. You’ve been rewarded and punished throughout your life according to what other people thought or wanted but you’ll find that the most impactful rewards are when you are true to yourself.

Mentoring – This is one of the biggest complaints and stresses I see for new grads and I personally find that this sets the tone for your career. A mentor is a supportive role model who isn’t perfect but shares their insight and knowledge willingly. They show you the ropes and pick you up when you fall.

Communication – written, verbal, non-verbal. Write thorough records, talk to your clients, talk through your exam. Most important is talking with your coworkers and your support network. A study I just made up showed that those who talk are more likely to be heard.

Boundaries – these aren’t the walls that Trump wants to magically appear or the lack of them on private email servers. I’m talking personal boundaries like leaving work and shutting your phone off, about not answering emails or texts when you are at the movies, not answering a call from work when you are on vacation, and about not jeopardizing your license because a client insists you do something. If you don’t respect yourself and your time, others will follow your lead.

Imposter syndrome – I had the lowest admittance GPA in my class, it took me three applications to get into vet school, I was surrounded by friends and classmates that ace’d their tests and could spit out miller’s anatomy like their Starbucks order. It wasn’t an accident you got into and through vet school.

Compassion fatigue – Passion is in compassion. When you find yourself no longer passionate about what you do, you need to take a vacation, a stay cation, or consider taking a step back to see if your passion has changed.

Quality of life – for you. Make a list now of what makes you passionate. Start with things outside of our profession and then include in the profession. Use this to find your niche.

Your coworkers are your work family. Say hello, acknowledge them, thank them for what they do and reinforce how often they do something right. Everyone makes mistakes, all of us do, and we focus on them. I tell my behavior clients to reward their animals for doing what we want them to. You and your staff and colleagues likely do 99% good and helpful things but most of our conversations are about mistakes. Our support staff suffers many of the stresses we do and many of the successes we do. We are not an island and you will interact more with your staff than other vets so celebrate them, support them, acknowledge them and you will find your job significantly better, happier, and easier. Your clients will notice too.

Lack of perfection.You will make mistakes, you will kill something, you will even repeat mistakes, and you will piss off clients. These do not make you a bad vet, they make you human. They force you to learn and grow.

Self-care. Eat. Go to the bathroom, play the candy crush level. Despite how romantic and simple a urinary catheter and colostomy bag sounds, don’t do it. Go au natural and use the restroom. Sit down and take a load off. Take a shower everyday. No please, take a shower! Take your lunch break. Chew your food. Your jaw doesn’t dislocate. Be honest and don’t lie to others or yourself. Lies are like spicy food, what goes through your mouth today will burn your butt tomorrow.

Find a therapist, ideally someone who is familiar with veterinary medicine, if not at least those familiar with human medicine.

Know the warning signs – change in behavior, distancing themselves, more easily aggravated, lack of enthusiasm, not using vacation time, never sharing any details. Personally I worry more about those of us who seem normal and act normal. We are all individuals and unique. When suffering it is easier to try to suppress our problems and act normal. People don’t ask about normal, they don’t bother normal, they don’t notice normal. We don’t want attention for our problems, we want to be perceived as strong, as capable, as perfect. What better way to avoid problems and attention than by acting normal. It’s okay to have problems, I argue that it is normal to have problems, to need help. We are here to help.

Don’t be afraid to say suicide. Like the legendary tyrant who shall not be named. No not a politician, I mean Voldemort. Voldemort continued to lurk in the shadows creating more and more destruction until he could not be ignored, his influence was felt by all and then they talked about him and addressed his presence. Then they banned together, became a true community, and prevented his evil from taking hold. We are at a turning point in our profession where we are discussing suicide, we are studying it, and we are addressing it.

I want you to find one or more support groups that let you freely share your concerns and needs and that get it. For those who have graduated, feel free to Facebook message me and I would be happy to add you to Not One More Vet. For those of you who haven’t heard about the group it is a “secret” Facebook group with one goal and two rules. We share our triumphs and our loses. We share humor and dark sarcasm, we curse and we praise, we query and we discuss. We get passionate and most of all we support. 8,000 of us come together. Our goal is in our name and it’s about improving mental health in veterinary medicine. We are a community of colleagues who understand each other better than anyone else. Together we can support each other, together we can make a difference, and together we can solve this problem.

I’d like to thank Conejo Valley Veterinary Hospital and my boss, for giving me the opportunities to develop my passions. Because of them I am able to provide a great internship that will provide great mentoring and set graduates up to be successful in GP and emergency medicine. I get the opportunity to teach externs and interns about vet med and about mental health. Because of them I have finally found a place that I will want to retire at.

I’d also like to thank my many colleagues who have supported me in my times of need and have provided me encouragement to share these thoughts. I’d like to close with a phrase I want you to all remember. You are not alone, we are ALLONE!

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Sweitzer, DVM, RVT is an associate veterinarian at Conejo Valley Veterinary Hospital in Thousand Oaks, CA. He does general practice and emergency medicine for small and exotics animals, as well as wildlife, with special interests in behavior medicine, management, and teaching. He balances his life with family, playing field hockey, and voluminous quantities of bad jokes and puns.

How do you like to be appreciated at work? Think about it for a minute. This is a question that I ask everyone at the end of our interview.  It’s a simple question really, with a straightforward answer. Thank you. That’s it! Most people want verbal recognition by someone thanking them for a job well done. For most of us, we want the thank you to come from the doctor that we work alongside day in and day out. Funny thing is, we usually don’t.

My career began with a doctor that said if he didn’t say anything at all, then that was a good thing. He told me this on day one and I accepted it. He appreciated us in other ways. Paid CE to include travel, hotel and conference once a year. He took us out for team building even though it wasn’t labeled as such. I received a $1 raise every year.

What I lacked was a simple thank you: for staying late 3 days out of 4; placing a catheter in a difficult vein; mastering the art of getting treatments done on time (when you have rooms to triage, anesthesia to induce/monitor, radiographs to take out the wazoo, ultrasounds to hold for, bloodwork, and 5 chemo’s to get done by noon when they dropped off at 10); dropping everything to fill a script for a client that just walked in and cut 100 pills in half because said client is 90 and I am nice; and everything in between. The lack of thank you is why I decided to pursue another job 6 years later. I felt underappreciated and needed more, even though I accepted that I would never receive verbal appreciation.

My next job was the complete opposite of what I was used to. I worked alongside a doctor for 5 years that thanked me every single day and respected me not only as a veterinary technician, but as a person. I’m not upset with my previous doctor for the lack of thank you. I am upset at myself for not knowing how much a thank you really meant.

Thank you goes along way because:

• It’s a positive recognition that we did our job to the best of our ability that day
• It motivates us to work even harder
• It boosts our self-confidence after a long, emotional and stressful day
• It builds team morale
• It helps build lasting relationships
• It helps us feel valued and respected
• It shows appreciation

Thank you should be a part of a doctor’s daily vocabulary and used often. I’ve heard countless times that a thank you is not deserved because we are just doing our jobs we were hired to do. You know what, we provide a service that allows you to make your production and go home on time. We deal with most of the chaos throughout the day so that you can keep going. Yes, we do it because we love what we do and can’t imagine doing anything else. Yes, it is our job. But thank you is free. It takes no effort. It’s two words that can mean the world to someone and make a difference. I challenge you to try it and say it often. We as a profession deserve verbal recognition and a pat on the back for all that we do on a daily basis. It all ends with those two simple words.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tosha has been a CVT since 2002 working in emergency, internal medicine and neurology. She has a passion for mentoring technicians to create a more positive work environment. When Tosha is not interviewing prospective candidates for Veterinary Practice Partners and their hospitals, you may find her dancing at a country music concert or relaxing at home in her hammock with Jagger and Dirty.

 

Dr. Andy Roark spoke at my veterinary school graduation. I remember being inspired by his words; his advice and wishes for our future were so…right, so applicable, so funny. Now, I don’t remember anything he said. The first oh-so-challenging months of a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery have all but swept away that bright-eyed idealistic feeling.

But that feeling is coming back. I can almost taste that same sweet sense of possibility that was so inspiring at the start of the summer.

I was unprepared for the rigors of being an intern, especially in a high-volume private practice. I spent my first month working long shifts overnight in the ER. I managed to get through on little sleep and less confidence, but lacked the perspective to know the value of all that I learned in that time. I have never been more emotionally fragile in my life. Thankfully I was able to hold it together at work, but at home anything sad, happy, or cute – basically, anything on the internet – was enough to set me to weeping. I sent my mom a sappy birthday card that was so out of character for me, I later called to apologize in case she thought it was a sign of a mental breakdown (which perhaps it was…)

I’m here to write this, so clearly I survived that harrowing start to my veterinary career. I’m even far enough removed from that trauma to know that it was (probably) worth it. I’ve seen scores of cases and am so much more equipped with necessary skills to communicate effectively with clients and colleagues.

So what else have I learned? Plenty of medicine, sure. That’s the point of this trial. But here’s a list of arguably more valuable lessons that apply to life outside of veterinary medicine (which is to say, when I’m no longer an intern and I have a life outside of veterinary medicine, I can apply these):

1. When someone takes the time to teach you something, have the humility to listen and absorb without defensiveness.

2. Try to develop perspective on your experiences. If you can’t see the value now, give yourself time and distance (mental and physical) to appreciate the lessons.

3. Celebrate things large and small: the shifts survived, the lives saved, the paperwork completed, the days spent working out, the days spent doing nothing.

4. Set yourself up for success and happiness with goals and rewards.

5. Don’t be a doormat. Advocate for your patients. Advocate for yourself.

6. Comparison is the thief of joy. The people around you are sharing in your life, not competing to be the best at it.

7. Power stances, aphorisms, pictures of puppies. Find what you need to get your head in the right place at the start of the day. These sayings greet me on my mirror before every shift:

Never let anyone treat you like a yellow starburst. You are a pink starburst.

Be a faucet, not a drain.

Be extraordinary.

Maximum effort.

Keep moving forward.

It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My name is Kendra Rushing, I am a recent graduate originally from the Pacific Northwest. I’m currently a small animal rotating intern.

 

Well, the day we’ve been waiting for is finally here. No more political commercials! This has been a tough few months guys; as if practicing veterinary medicine isn’t hard enough, we’ve had to tiptoe around the landmines of a contentious election as well. Few things are worse than being stuck listening to a client’s tirade about (insert any topic you disagree with) when you can’t say a thing in return because you’re trying to focus on taking care of their pet. Take a breath. It’s almost over.

No one is paying attention to anything else today and we realized no one is going to be in the mood for our typical posts, which is completely understandable. On that note, we decided to step aside from our usual schedule of professional development topics and instead encourage any and all of you to get in some much needed self care today.

Today’s Self Care Suggestions are brought to you by the letters D, O, and G.

Take a walk.

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Have some ice cream.

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Turn off the TV and look up at the sky.

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Take a long nap.

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And if you’re stuck at work, at least you’ve got dogs there to keep you company. They don’t care who you vote for.

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It’s easy to forget in divisive times, but we are united by so many wonderful things. I wake up every day proud to be a member of the veterinary profession. Thanks for sticking with us here at the site as we grow, and I look forward to the future with all of you! -Jessica

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

The National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA) is seeking participants in the National Credential Initiative survey.

The goal of NAVTA’s National Credential Initiative is to standardize the credential for our profession in terms of credentialing requirements, title, and scope of practice throughout the nation to unite the profession of veterinary technology. In the current state, veterinary technician titles can be CVT, RVT, LVT, or LVMT and have varying standards to meet throughout the nation depending on the state of credentialing. This leads to confusion of the profession’s identity and value within the veterinary field and with the public.

Whether the title of the profession to be promoted should be “Veterinary Technician” or “Veterinary Nurse” is one of the several aspects of the initiative NAVTA is working diligently on and would like the opinions of all types of veterinary professionals. NAVTA has been having productive discussions with national human nursing regulatory and advocacy groups with signs of support rather than opposition.

56% of veterinary technicians change jobs within the first 5 years of employment and half of them leave veterinary medicine altogether. With a key reason for leaving being the lack of respect and recognition in their role, the issue weighs heavily on the profession’s future.

It is important for all veterinary professionals to be a part of this change and help shape the future of veterinary medicine by participating in the discussions with veterinary technicians.

Please take the survey located at http://www.navta.net/?page=VeterinaryNurse to let NAVTA know your thoughts.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kenichiro Yagi, BS, RVT, VTS (ECC, SAIM) practices at Adobe Animal Hospital in California as an ICU and Blood Bank Manager. He is an active educator lecturing and providing practical instruction internationally, and has authored texts, chapters, and articles on transfusion medicine, respiratory care, and critical care nursing. He serves on the board for the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society, Academy of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Technicians, and the Veterinary Innovation Council, and as the NAVTA State Representative Chairperson and a co-chair of the NAVTA National Credential Task Force. Ken invites everyone to ask “Why?” to understand the “What” and “How” of our field, and to constantly pursue new limits as veterinary professionals.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenichiro-yagi-a89b3897

Close your eyes and picture a veterinarian’s home life. What do you see? I bet that your scenario includes a menagerie of animals, including at least one dog, perhaps even a small farm or sanctuary. I’m willing to wager you are definitely not picturing someone with no pets at all. Clients and new acquaintances love asking about my pets, and  95% of the time, this question is framed as “Do you have any dogs?”

I haven’t had a dog since my old Labrador mix passed away last spring. Painfully aware that a non-dog-owning veterinarian is considered a strange anomaly, I quickly add “I’m not ready.”  This is true, but probably not for the reasons you’re thinking. The uncomfortable truth is, I was no longer “ready” to be a dog owner well before he died.

I ensured, of course, that Loki received the loving care he deserved. He was family, and we were devoted to him. I don’t care to imagine how our lives would have been without his gentle patience and unconditional love, but after he died, I was relieved.

My unreadiness was affirmed a few months before his passing. We fostered a sweet, feisty, cuddlebug of a terrier puppy as he healed from a broken leg. He had the typical puppy behaviors that caused inconvenience, but they were mild, and with gentle shaping and communication of expectations, he would be a great addition…. to someone else’s family.

I am not currently that person with the time or energy to invest in the training, daily exercise, and attention that all dogs need and deserve. When we adopted Loki, we were a childless couple with plenty of space, free time, and energy. Life evolved and we adapted. I flexed my schedule, brought him to work, and used doggie daycare, but my love was increasingly tainted by vague guilt.

I’d listen to clients recounting daily trips to the beach or park, abundant exercise, and lots of interaction, and feel that twinge. My current life includes two children with special needs, a growing business, and a chronic illness that has drastically reduced what I can accomplish in a given day. When we returned the puppy,  I wasn’t sad. Charming and adorable, he deserved more than I am able to give, for now.

Likewise,  I suspect we have one cat too many. Number Three was a “foster fail” among a litter of feral kittens that we caught and adopted out. She was so difficult to socialize that when I spayed her, we notched her ear in case I had to return her to the colony. By the time she warmed up to us, she was integrated into the family, and to this day we are constantly entertained by her weird little quirks and idiosyncrasies.

I think the cats would agree, though, that three is a bit crowded in this little home. Cats require abundant resources and space in order to get along. There are skirmishes, and it’s not too bad, but it’s clear when we foster now that it increases the strain on their dynamics. When our oldest kitty makes his way to the Rainbow Bridge, I won’t be in a rush for another cat.

Being an animal lover is often equated with owning a lot of animals. I think it should equally mean respecting the needs of those animals, and making a selfless choice to limit ourselves when necessary. Many pet behavior “problems” are either the result of natural behaviors (scratching, territorial marking) incompatible with our own lifestyles or a response to the stress we cause by forcing animals to conform to our circumstances (separation anxiety). Quality means more than quantity.

And yet we are urged to adopt more animals, to save more animals. Actually, no. You adopt one animal, you help one animal. In my community, approximately thirty thousand animals enter shelters every year. Even if all were healthy and able to coexist peacefully with humans, there aren’t enough available homes to sustain the adoption model. Data from around the United States make the solution clear: tackle the problem at its source by reducing the number of births. In communities where spay and neuter programs have substantially increased the percentage of sterilized animals, shelters are often able to stop euthanizing animals for space.

Of course I am an animal lover with a professional life committed to improving animal welfare. That doesn’t I need a dog – not for now, anyway. It’s better to take on what I can reasonably handle so my pets and I enjoy the bond we share to its fullest, and to support spay and neuter efforts with my time and money. For now, I am content to enjoy dog ownership vicariously and to steal a few cuddles and kisses from my patients. I may meet that special someone tomorrow or in ten years; until then, this is plenty to keep my heart and my life full.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn Naun, DVM is the owner of Arms of Aloha, the first hospice-only veterinary practice in Hawaii. She regularly writes about quality of life for pets, pain management, and the human-animal bond on her website:www.armsofaloha.com/category/education. You can also follow @armsofaloha on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.