Perspective

Every single one of us has bad moments. We all have doubts. We all feel insecure today about something that didn’t bother us before. We all have fear lurking, waiting to pounce on us when we are weak. And somewhere, deep down, we all wonder, “am I the only one”?

I know someone with a button phobia. Even as an infant, she would scream and tear at her clothes if she could see buttons. Large buttons were worse than small ones. Four holes were worse than two. She has had to work around this problem her entire life.

I visited her one weekend, and we were talking about her phobia. I was fascinated (medical geek that I am) by her stories of how she copes. She told me she felt alone and weird, so I did an online search for “button phobia”.  Enter koumpounophobia. I showed her an article about button phobia, and her whole demeanor changed. There were enough people with this issue that someone had actually written about it!

There are so few of us who are alone in our troubles. Unfortunately, we often suffer alone. When I talk to my colleagues about an issue in veterinary medicine, I often hear “I thought it was just me”. When I’m part of a discussion where someone talks about overthinking a problem or working up scenarios in their mind, I’m always a little surprised that this isn’t a quirk that is solely mine.

[tweetthis]Somewhere, deep down, we all wonder, “am I the only one”?[/tweetthis]

Remember in college when they told us be sure to ask questions because there were likely several other people with the same question who were afraid to speak up? It’s like that.

Here are a few simple ways to feel less isolated as a veterinary professional:

• Assume you are not alone: I’ll grant you that there are people out there who are the only ones suffering from a certain problem. The odds of that person being you are next to nothing. If you look hard enough, you’ll find that someone somewhere is right there with you. Most of the time, you don’t have to look hard at all.

• Go out on a limb: If you feel you can, bring your issue up with colleagues you trust. Even if they’ve never experienced the same thing, they will likely show their support, and you will still not be alone. Beware of websites and forums that encourage you to wallow in your problem. Look for like-minded people searching for support and solutions.

• Reach out: If you notice someone else struggling with a problem, offer to help or just to listen while they talk it out. Sometimes feeling useful can reduce feelings of inadequacy. Even if you think you aren’t capable of being strong for someone else, give it a try. There are days where having someone smile at me and say “good morning” makes a difference. Anyone can do that!

• Help someone else with the same problem: One of my favorite things is teaching young veterinarians how to survive the first few years of practice. I was a miserable, anxious new vet. Helping others avoid that fate has given me confidence and satisfaction I never thought possible. Even if you are only able to empathize and offer your support, that could make a world of difference.

• Write about it: Whenever you bring to light a problem in your profession, doors open to solving that problem. If no one will talk about it, no one can fix it. Submit an article or just write down your thoughts. Getting it out can be half the battle.

• Embrace what you perceive as your weaknesses: We veterinary professionals hate showing weakness. Let’s stop thinking in terms of strength or weakness. Rather, let’s look at skills we’ve mastered and skills we have yet to master. There will always be items on both lists. Keep adding to each one and don’t get caught up in comparing the two. Pick one thing at a time you’d like to do better. Choose to do it better – even just a little bit.  Stop telling yourself “I hate surgery” or “I’m no good at bandaging”. Tell yourself that you are an excellent veterinarian who is always trying to do better.

• Stop comparing yourself to others: In this world of constant connection, we see a “first date” version of everyone we know. Everyone has parts of their life that didn’t turn out as planned. Everyone has problems. I guarantee you that someone somewhere has looked at you and felt inadequate in comparison. Surround yourself with positive people who support and love you. Return that love and support.

We are part of a noble profession. There is always someone to give you a word of encouragement. If you can’t find anyone, let me know. I’ll be happy to lift you up; so many have done the same for me in my career. There are billions of human beings out there and hundreds of thousands of them are veterinary professionals! How could you possibly be alone?

There is always someone to give you a word of encouragement.

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.

When I was in elementary school, I was already an overachiever. I had been planning my career as a veterinarian since I was six years old. Somehow, my mother convinced me that my vet school application would contain a section where my grades for grades four through twelve were scrutinized heavily and could make the difference between getting into veterinary school and a life of disappointment and abject poverty.

When I got my marks back from various tests, I would show my mother the 94% on a science test and she would say, “What happened to the other 6%?” She was proud of me and this was clearly sarcasm. I was too young to understand sarcasm. I thought that she meant it. This has led to the feeling that whatever I do, it is never enough. This feeling has set me up well for a career in veterinary medicine.

[tweetthis]We are all searching for that elusive 6%.[/tweetthis]

This feeling drove me to work and study hard so that I could get accepted to veterinary college and eventually get a surgery residency and a surgical oncology fellowship and then get a tenure track faculty position and then get tenure. Maybe one day, if I keep working hard and getting good marks on my annual review (aka report card) I can be a full professor. It never ends. It has also helped me to be humble, which is a good thing. However, as you may suspect from reading this, a general feeling of inadequacy can be unhealthy.

I don’t think that I am alone in this feeling. When I look around at my veterinary colleagues, I see the same desire to achieve more. We are all searching for that elusive 6%. At the beginning of each oncology rotation where I teach, our final year students will introduce themselves and tell us their plans for after graduation. For the students that are going into general practice, they will say, “I’m just going into practice.”

Because just being a general practitioner and a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, is not enough and they feel judged. They judge each other and they judge themselves. They think that I must be judging them too because I am a specialist and they are not. This always breaks my heart. Of course, being a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine is enough. In fact, it’s fantastic! I always have to correct them, pointing out how important the job of the family veterinarian is and how I believe that being a veterinary general practitioner is one of the hardest jobs in our profession.

We do it to ourselves and we do it to each other. When I say “we” I mean veterinarians, but it might be bigger than this. I have noticed a trend in the workplace of pointing out the one thing that a colleague is not doing, rather than focusing on all of the great things that they do. No one can ever get 100%. It is not possible. If you or the people you work with are consistently hitting about 80-90%, then that is enough. It has to be enough.

Sometimes, the people you work with are not going to do this well. Sometimes they will fail. A failing veterinarian is a person in trouble. You need to pick them up. You need to help them. So, heading into the new year, I am encouraging you (and myself) to stop looking for 100% in yourself and in your colleagues. Don’t compare yourself or your colleagues to others. At this stage, this really is like comparing apples and oranges. If your workmates bring more positive than negative to the day, then take it, that’s as good as it’s going to get.

[tweetthis]Stop looking for 100% in yourself and in your colleagues[/tweetthis]

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.

Let me ask you a hypothetical question: When you think about your job, would you rather be the best person in your city at what you do and have everyone think you are the worst, or be the worst and have everyone think you’re the best?

It’s an absurd scenario — and obviously, we’d all hope for somewhere in the middle — but I’ve been thinking about it for the better part of a week. I think most of us struggle with this when we’re honest with ourselves. We all want to be great, but how do we know we’re great if we don’t see that greatness reflected back at us in the opinions of others? Can we feel confident in our abilities without someone telling us how we’re doing?

When we were in school, many of us used our report cards to validate our success. Grades seemed to provide us (myself included) with a clear system to know how good we were at what we cared about. In our eyes, that concrete number represented our level of personal worth and success.

Now that we’re in the working world, many of us still need an external source of validation; so we judge ourselves based on our clients’ opinions. We look to their reactions to tell us if we are skilled or valuable or useful or kind. If they tell us we are good at our jobs, then we glow like a kid getting a gold star in elementary school. If they tell us we aren’t, we believe them, and we despair at their disapproval.

[tweetthis]Can we feel confident in our abilities without someone telling us how we’re doing?[/tweetthis]

Looking for feedback from others because we want to improve is smart. If we wish to serve and understand people, we need to listen to them. But relying on validation from others in order to form our own sense of self-worth is something different. When we do that — when we look to everyone else to tell us whether or not we’re any good at what we do — we strip power from ourselves and place it into the hands of others. We allow other people to determine whether or not we are having a good day, a good year, or a good feeling about life in general.

If we want to take back control of our own self-worth, I believe there are two questions we must be able to answer for ourselves —

“How do I define success?”

“How do I think I’m doing?”

If you know your answers to these two questions, then you have a strong voice in the internal debate over your own value and esteem. Here’s an example from my own experience:

A few weeks ago I was seeing appointments when a dog struggling to breathe came into the clinic. I was the only veterinarian in the building and thus ended up in that terrible situation where I had both a critically ill patient and a full schedule of appointments. Things went about as well as they possibly could, until I walked in to see a dog who needed an annual examination and some vaccinations. As I entered the room, the dog’s owner said earnestly, “You know, doc, you’re too busy. I waited 20 minutes to be seen, and it’s because you all are trying to do to much.”

At this point, I was tired and stressed. Plus, now I had a voice in my head saying, “See? You’re a C-minus veterinarian. You’re too slow, and now he’s going to go to a new vet and probably tell all his friends that this place is chaotic and disorganized.” Ever heard that internal voice yourself?

Most days, this person’s comment and my subsequent negative self-talk would have sucked all motivation out of my morning. But on that day they didn’t. I heard his point and understood his frustration. I saw areas where I could improve (I should have had someone tell him when he came in there would be a wait, but it slipped my mind — we’re working on that at our clinic now). And although I started down the road of, “Woe is me, this guy is mad at me, so I must be a terrible veterinarian,” I then stopped myself. I made myself pause and answer my own two questions.

• How do I define success? Success for me is largely about helping animals and people in a meaningful way while creating a great atmosphere for my technicians to work in. It is not about me making every single person I encounter happy every moment of the day. (Tip: If that’s your definition of success, find a new definition.)

• How do I think I’m doing? Given these circumstances, and given all the veterinary situations I’ve seen involving beloved pets struggling to breathe, I’m doing pretty darn well here by being able to take care of this critically ill animal and tend to my regular patients. I may not be capable of creating extra time on the clock, but who is? I’m doing the best work that can be done in a very bad situation.

I made the choice to consider my own knowledge and beliefs about this difficult situation. I decided how to feel about myself and the work I was doing. I listened to my own voice — in addition to listening to my clients’ concerns — because I knew it was right.

[tweetthis]I listened to my own voice – in addition to my clients’ concerns – because I knew it was right.[/tweetthis]

We are taught that serving others means valuing their needs above our own, but when it comes to assessing how good a job you’re doing, this approach is critically flawed. Sometimes people will have needs that cannot be perfectly met and opinions that don’t show the whole picture.

Never stop listening or working to understand those around you, but never forget to listen to yourself as well. Ultimately, you’re the one who decides whether you are successful, valuable, and worthy of the great work you set out to accomplish.

 

One of my favorite songs is “I Lived” by One Republic. The lyrics include:

 

I owned every second that this world could give

 

I saw so many places, the things that I did

 

With every broken bone, I swear I lived.

 

Isn’t that what we all want to do? If I could give a new graduate one piece of advice, it would be, “Don’t limit yourself.” The veterinary degree that you sweated bullets to earn can open up a multitude of possibilities.

 

[tweetthis]If I could give a new graduate one piece of advice, it would be, “Don’t limit yourself.”[/tweetthis]

 

Like most of you, I knew I wanted to become a veterinarian about as soon as I could form coherent thoughts. And like you, I adopted a wide variety of critters when I was a child: snakes, gerbils, fish, dogs, cats, turtles, and even a Madagascar hissing cockroach. Growing up, I worked hard, got good grades, and spent a lot of time with a variety of veterinary mentors to figure out my focus. When I was accepted into veterinary school at Michigan State, I knew that I wanted to practice small animal medicine, so I built my electives around that choice. I couldn’t envision doing anything else with my life.

 

When I graduated, I found a job with a progressive small animal practice in Midland, Michigan. My bosses were excellent mentors, both clinically and in terms of client service. But I had married a classmate and he wasn’t faring so well, so I followed him to Minneapolis, where he found a job in industry, and I took the only job available in a not-so-progressive small animal practice.

 

 

In that era, industry jobs were viewed as the “dark side.” (How could you leave practice?) But far from being dark, I saw my husband thrive. He was partnering with colleagues in practice; helping train them to provide the best care possible for their patients. And for the first time in our professional lives, we not only had time for a personal life, but could actually pay our bills.

 

Our next move was to Kansas City; again, we moved because of my husband (this time, he got a promotion). There weren’t many practice jobs available and I couldn’t find one that matched my practice philosophy. I saw how happy my husband was professionally, so I thought, why shouldn’t I investigate an industry job?

 

A veterinary journal was looking for an editor at the time. I had always loved English in high school and college, and the position was a great fit. I collaborated with specialists and honed my editing skills. I eventually grew into a position where I oversaw all things clinical, including the journal, website, and CE conferences.

 

It was professionally fulfilling and I stayed for quite a while. But eventually, I felt stale. About this time, I had a conversation with a friend who told me that he likes to reinvent himself every seven years to grow and feel challenged. I got it. So I looked at my options and moved on again.

 

 

I’m now with Putney, a veterinary generic pharmaceutical company. It’s an amazing small company with a very entrepreneurial feel. More importantly, what we do is vital to veterinary medicine. Our mission is to make pet healthcare more affordable by providing veterinary approved generic drugs so that clients can make decisions based on their pet’s medical needs vs. their paycheck. I feel proud to be a part of that mission.

 

The position involved a move from Kansas City to Portland, Maine, which wasn’t easy for my husband (but it was my turn for a move). The change in scenery has been fantastic – the ocean, mountains, lakes, lobsters. We love it.

 

I don’t know where you are on your own professional journey, but I want you to know that there are a lot of options out there and many ways to fulfill your passion for veterinary medicine, even if you’re sure you know exactly what you want to do right now. I recommend that you own every second of your experience. See places, do things and take the risk of trying something new. For me, that has been the key to no regrets.

 

[tweetthis]Own every second of your experience. See places, do things and take the risk of trying something new[/tweetthis]

 

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Dr. Tracy Revoir graduated from Michigan State University (Go Green!) and practiced in Michigan, Minnesota, and Kansas. She is currently Manager of Veterinary Support for Putney, located in beautiful Portland, Maine.

 

 

 

This post made possible by:

 

There’s always been a soft spot in my heart for cheesy action movies. Think: Robert Downey Junior in a metal suit, Bruce Willis in a skyscraper, or Arnold Schwarzenegger anywhere except a political office. I love bad dialogue, implausible situations, and good guys blowing things up.

 

I think anyone who has ever watched that kind of movie is familiar with this scene: Hero turns and walks away from some asset of the evil empire he or she has just conquered, and as the tank/airplane/helicopter/fortress explodes into oblivion in the background, our hero just keeps walking, with nary a backward glance.

 

If you’ve seen as many of these scenes as I have, at some point you’ve probably asked yourself, “Why don’t they look back? That’s a REALLY loud noise. And how often do you get to see an evil genius’s blimp explode, anyway?” Movie-lovers throw this question around on the Internet from time to time, actually, and I recently stumbled across a response I think nails it. The gist of it is this:

 

We don’t really want our heroes to look back at explosions. Striding confidently away without turning around is a sign of certainty, and that’s a trait we like in our heroes.

 

[tweetthis]Striding away without turning around is a sign of certainty, a trait we like in our heroes[/tweetthis]

 

Think about it for a moment. When our hero shoots a rocket at the alien’s spaceship and then turns and walks away as a big cloud of flames ignites, we know two things:

 

1. Our hero is absolutely sure that this was the right thing to do.
2. The job has been accomplished completely.

 

Our hero is not wondering, “What if there’s just a little explosion and I only knocked out the spacecraft air conditioning system?” No. They shoot the rocket and walk away because this is the right thing to do and it’s going to work.

 

We want heroes with that confidence and certainty, because we wish we had it ourselves. But we veterinarians don’t always have it — or at least, if we do, we don’t show it. Deep down, I think we know we have the knowledge and skills to save pets’ lives, to conquer the “bad guys” of disease and injury. But we don’t always show that confidence.

 

[tweetthis]We forget that we are here to save the day and that pet owners NEED us.[/tweetthis]

 

Think about this: How often do we make wishy-washy recommendations that don’t convey confidence in what we do?

 

We’ve got to stop saying things like, “Your pet has dental disease. We can treat it… or maybe wait and keep an eye on it?” Keep an eye on it? It’s a progressive disease and we know it. It’s not going to get better. We have the skills, training, and equipment to deal with this problem — so let’s tell the pet owner it’s time to get this scheduled and fix it. Let’s blow up that dental disease and then walk away without looking back!

 

Listen, I’m not saying we should fake any confidence we don’t actually have. It’s got to be real, and it’s got to come from a place of integrity. Don’t endorse products and services that you don’t truly believe in. Don’t look a pet owner in the eye and recommend a procedure you’re really not sure about. But do work to learn and master the treatments and protocols you can really stand behind, so that when a pet owner comes to you with a problem, you’re ready to solve it with confidence.

 

Then blow it up and save the day.

 

[tweetthis]Blow it up and save the day.[/tweetthis]