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Wellness

Uncharted Podcast Tackles Reducing the Risk of Suicide in Your Practice

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Dr. Andy Roark and Co-host Stephanie Goss talk about the new #4eyessavelives initiative in their newest Uncharted Veterinary podcast. Goss interviews Roark about why he believes that restricting access to lethal drugs can save lives in veterinary medicine. The duo discusses the reasons this approach makes sense, how to implement it into your own practice, and also the criticisms that have been raised of the movement.

This podcast contains detailed discussion of suicide and suicide methods. If you are having thoughts of suicide, text 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor right away or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Listen here:

The topic of suicide is a potential trigger for those struggling with feelings of guilt after the loss of a friend, colleague or loved one. If you are experiencing these emotions, please reach out for support. You may also find related resources here.

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 Power of Positivity

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For some reason no matter where I am in life, I have never felt good enough. It started early on in life and always overshadowed any success I had. I knew in high school that I would become a veterinary technician, so I worked toward that goal. When I got the letter (yes, I’m that old – they sent letters) I had passed my VTNE, I had two thoughts. I thought I should have worked harder and gotten a better grade. Then I wondered what do I do now? I’d achieved my goal, had the fleeting feeling of success but reminded myself I could do better.

This feeling carried on in my career. I moved from a general practice technician, to an emergency and specialty technician and back again. I worked myself to exhaustion and all the while thought I should know more for my patients, would be a better technician if I could master more skills or would prove how good I was by pushing myself harder. That feeling didn’t come and I just kept looking for the day I would feel that I had finally achieved the status of good enough.

I had veterinarians who made me feel less than by yelling at me or telling me I wasn’t good enough. Those vets only solidified the little voice nagging me in my head. The voice that – despite being able to place an IV catheter in a 2-pound kitten or running anesthesia on a thoracotomy surgery, I was still just OK – nothing great, nothing special. Then it happened. I had someone who I had never really met take notice of all the things I did to advocate for our profession. They saw all the ways I tried so that no technician would ever feel the way I did. Instead of just saying “good job” and moving on, this person did something I’d never experienced. They believed in me. They told me I was good at what I do and not just that, I was a good person. They invested their time into encouraging me.

A funny thing happened. When that someone placed their faith and energy into letting me know I was good enough, in fact, I was better than enough, I flourished. I started advocating more for support staff. I started using my shaky voice to make sure those people knew they were more than good enough. Not just that, but I found my footing and my own confidence. This supporter would call to check in and give me pep talks when I needed them. They would also call me out when I reverted to that nervous, confidence lacking technician. The power of just one person believing in me, showed me the true power of leadership and friendship.

Thank you, Andy Roark. For believing in veterinary medicine, the entire veterinary team, positivity and change. Most of all thank you for believing in me. I want everyone to know the positive place the DAR team has created for those in the field. No matter what our role in veterinary medicine, we all can believe in someone. Believing in someone may change their world, may allow them to be better and create a cycle of positivity. If we want a positive profession, we must be the ones to change it. Thank you to all those who believe, encourage and build up others. Change comes slowly but we can do this.

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.

A Letter to the Moms of Veterinary Medicine

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As a mother in veterinary medicine, I can tell you one thing, it hasn’t been easy. I am a divorced mother who has been co-parenting with my ex since my son was three years old. I have busted my butt as a technician to be able to provide us a place to live, rent and the necessities. There have been times when I had to do CPR on a patient and then rush off to a school assembly. Switching gears from a tech to a mom is tough. I’ve also missed several plays, awards ceremonies and sports events due to my work schedule. The guilt that comes with wondering if I am doing enough is insurmountable. But I want all mothers to know that they are not alone. We are all doing the best we can. Our children see this.

Mother’s Day is a day to realize that we are pretty fierce mothers. We spend our time nurturing caring and pouring ourselves into our children. Even if you don’t have children, having the heart of a nurturer is a beautiful thing. Whether your kids have two legs or four legs and fur, the love you put into taking care of something is motherly. All of us in this profession pour our hearts and souls into our line of work. Not only do we pour our hearts into our patients and clients, but we also go home and give our all to our children, pets and families. Sometimes it can feel like everything we are giving isn’t enough. I promise you it is.

There were days I came home hours late from my shift with just enough time to make my kid dinner, bathe him and get him ready for bed and feed the animals. It was difficult feeling I may have missed out on moments that I wouldn’t be able to recapture. But when I would come home, I would be greeted by wagging tails from my pets and a child who was just as excited to see me. My son would ask if the pet I was taking care of was ok. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t. But it opened conversations about life, death and all the things in between. He would attentively listen as we would snuggle on the couch with our dogs.

I write this to remind you all of what amazingly resilient and tough momma’s we are. I want you to know that your children and your families remember the time you spend with them. They remember the love and care you give them. Your pets are always forgiving and ready to meet you with a purr or a tail wag. This is unconditional love – when no matter the circumstances love prevails over everything. No matter what games you missed or how long your pets were waiting for dinner, they are just happy to see you. A mother’s love is always unconditional. We have the gift of passing this on to our children, families, pets and even our patients.

Do not fear you aren’t ever doing enough. Know you are doing the best you can and that is enough. Don’t focus on your mistakes or times missed but be present for the time you are there. Never forget being a mother isn’t an easy task, but you give it your all every day. Today we celebrate a mother’s heart, whether it be for her children or her pets. Thank you for everything you do. I see you. You’ve got this.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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.

Breakup Letter to My Student Loan Debt

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Dear Debt,

It’s finally come to this. After years of struggling with you. Waiting for you to change. Feeling dragged down by you. Feeling ashamed of how big and scary you are. I just can’t do it anymore. I know now that I can’t keep hoping you will change. You will never change as long as I can’t even look at you.

And so, we need to breakup.

I’m tired of keeping you in the closet. Tired of pretending you don’t exist. I can’t keep ignoring you or giving you the silent treatment. Just the thought of you stresses me out and gives me stomach cramps. No more. No more.

I refuse to be your prisoner anymore. I refuse to feel ashamed of you any longer. I’m sure you could sense this breakup coming. After all, we go way back.  And rather than a breakup I’m going to reframe all this and call it, a breakthrough. Because in order for this breakup to be healthy I have to get to a different place with you. I need to leave this shame behind and embrace you for the value that you have given me.

So thank you.

Thank you for all that you have given me. With your help, I was able to become a skilled and capable veterinarian that saves lives. Because of you Maggie, Mako, Bentley, Abby, Bella, and Harley (to name a few) are all alive and happy and healthy. Because of you, there have been more kisses, more tummy rubs, more belly laughs, and more smiles in this world. Because of you, I have been able to do this. To save lives. To perpetuate the purest of unconditional love that is shared between human and animal. You helped me do that. And for that, I am so grateful.

And though you may be big, no longer will I let the tiny legs of shame creep into my chest when I think of you. I will face you with my head held high and plan for your demise.  And please, don’t feel like I never loved you. Because you are the purveyor of love. And that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Love,

The Purposeful Vet

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.

Thanks for the Reminder to Feel

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As vets, we have wins and losses. That’s the job. And amidst challenging clients, long work hours, insurmountable debt, huge caseloads and attempts at work/life balance, it is easy to lose track of why we entered this field. We advocate for the innocent, we heal those who are deeply loved (and in that process, those who love them), and when the time comes, we give them a death with dignity.

Often I don’t feel sad after a euthanasia. I normally feel the burden of responsibility, but not sadness. And that is a choice I actively make; we as veterinarians can’t emotionally survive if we don’t put up those barriers. But that is a dangerous path – barriers become walls, and walls become apathy.

BUT, once in a while, a critter comes along who dulls the sharp edges of those barriers, who reminds us why we choose this career in the first place. A sweet animal who makes us feel not only their loss but the loss of all the other animals we’ve helped to die.

In my case, that critter came in rather… unusual… form.

Andie was a hairless rat, with a kink in her tail. She was presumably found abandoned in a graveyard five months ago. When I carried her around in my scarf under the guise of “monitoring” her (her owner saw riiiiight through that), she surprised and delighted my colleagues. She was so imperfectly perfect. She melted my heart in a way far “cuter” critters have failed to do.

Yesterday, I was the one to give her her last breath. And I feel so, so deeply, painfully sad about that; yet I also feel honored that she arrived in my life just in time to give me such a beautiful kick-in-the-shins to remind me to, you know, FEEL once in a while.

Goodbye, sweet Andie, and thanks for the reminder.

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carrie Daly is a 2009 graduate of the University of Minnesota and a transient ER veterinarian – having practiced in Hong Kong, Minnesota, Oregon, and soon Colorado. She is a mom to 4-year-old twins and a 3-year-old son, and thus considers herself to be both a manager and purveyor of chaos. She enjoys international travel, unsuccessful attempts at meditation, running trail ultramarathons, writing on her Facebook blog (The Five Mayhems), and above all else – napping.

No One Warns You About the Loneliness

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Everyone tells you that you will learn more in your first year as a veterinarian than your year on the clinic floor in veterinary school. They tell you about the long hours, the mountain of debt, the anxiety and the high rate of substance abuse and suicide, but we are not warned about the loneliness.

The first year out is tough.

This is what we’ve always wanted, but it is something we have never experienced. It is disorienting to transition from a set schedule, with cut and dry goals (exams, classes, semesters) to an open-ended span of days, weeks, years where you just… work.

Many new jobs involve a big move. This move can be far from the home you’ve known for the past four to eight years – new roads, new stores, new culture. Not only are you far from home, but you are also far from friends and family. After graduation, the friends who were just minutes away are now hundreds of miles away. The fellow vets you’ve shared blood, sweat and cow manure with now may go months to years without seeing one another. Contact dwindles down in some cases and isolation can set in. 

As working veterinarians, our schedules are both unpredictable and predictable. We can predict that we may be late to functions, may have to cancel plans or that we may be in bed by 9 pm on a weekend. But we can never predict what will come through the clinic door at any time. This lifestyle can make it difficult to make new friends as young professionals. We are typically tired, often poor and once we reveal our job we are asked for free vet advice rather than cultivating new and lasting friendships.

Your words have meaning.

In the workplace, we have to maintain professional boundaries with staff members. As a veterinarian in the clinic, my mentor impressed on me that my words have meaning. What I say matters, so make sure it needs to be said. As a student for over 18 years, combined with being at the bottom of the hospital food chain during clinics, my words have rarely held weight as they do now. This responsibility brings with it anxiety over things I say or have said. Missing the friendships from school, I talk to the fellow animal-lovers in the clinic. These wonderful human-beings are often my own age and are experiencing similar life changes like moving, getting engaged/married, starting a family and even losing loved ones. I love to talk and have to actively stop myself from engaging in certain conversations during the work-day as I feel that can be a distraction to the staff. When we have a job to do, I need to know that my words will carry meaning so that we as a team can accomplish the tasks at hand.

Our significant others are the most resilient of humans.

Many journeyed through school by our side. They braved the late nights of studying, the tears, the rants, the mini-breakdowns over finals and stressful rotations. Out in the world, they now brave the working veterinarian with an unpredictable schedule and emotionally taxing work life. I feel guilty for unloading my frustrations of problematic clients, difficult cases or co-worker interactions on my fiancé during the week, so many times I keep things to myself. I feel that venting about my job is a form of failure on my part. That I am somehow failing my clients, my employer, my colleagues and myself.  I feel guilt that I am belly-aching about something I have worked so hard for. Something that I finally get to do. 

Practicing medicine can make you feel alone.

Wracking your brain for the mechanism of action of a drug, trying to remember how a certain disease will impact the rest of the body, figuring out what the weird gray shape on that radiograph is – my mentor has termed it “growing pains.” It is this period of organizing your brain to function from an academic and test setting to a clinical and practical setting. You also have to sharpen your maturity to be more “professional.” The problem is, I have no real idea on how to be professional. Not yet, anyway. I’m a 26-year-old with the license to wield a scalpel who also binge watches Game of Thrones and eats ice cream out of the container.  I have somehow gained the knowledge base to graduate and pass state and national licensing exams but when it comes to being in the “real world,” I’m still figuring it out. Impostor syndrome is real. It is so easy to be wounded by the one negative client than it is to experience the fulfillment and joy of the countless wonderful clients and patients. It will take time and effort, and the “growing pains” may change along the way, but hopefully, I can find a healthy balance of being a flawed human being who also practices veterinary medicine. 

No one prepares you for the loneliness.

I know that I have the support in this career field to do what I love. I have my family that loves unconditionally, my fiancé who can always make me laugh and feel loved and my classmates who are also experiencing the first-year out of school. I have my mentors who know what I am going through and who look out for me and my well-being. Veterinary medicine can be full of stubborn people, myself included and I am determined to let others know that they are not alone in feeling isolated. Our job can be hard, it doesn’t mean our lives have to be. Someone out there is feeling the same way you do. So, tell someone.

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ashley DeAtley is a 2018 graduate of Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. After eight years in Alabama for her undergraduate degree and veterinary school, she moved across the country to southern California for her first job as an associate veterinarian. When she isn’t working, she can be found sleeping, going to the beach, watching Netflix on the couch with her fiance and loving on her two cats Atlas and Ecko.