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Why we need to be careful how we talk about suicides among veterinary professionals
Hardly a week goes by when I don’t receive a Google alert or see some glaring headline about suicides in the veterinary profession. Even Time Magazine has weighed in on this heavy topic with a headline that reads “Veterinarians face unique issues that make suicide one of the profession’s biggest worries”. But while we are […]
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Stop Being a Martyr and Start Modeling Healthy Behavior
It is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to instilling wellness into the veterinary profession…veterinary care providers who would rather be a martyr than model good behavior for their colleagues and staff. I’ve seen it all too often: the veterinarian who always stays late to see the end-of-the-day emergency, the technician who […]
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Five Tips for Battling Burnout in Veterinary Practice
Do you feel emotionally drained by your clients? Are you frustrated by your work or feel that you are working too hard? Does working with people all day require massive effort? Have you stopped caring what happens to some of your patients? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you are probably […]
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How to Deal with a Difficult Co-Worker
If you’re anything like me then you have had interactions with co-workers that were less than desirable. I think you know what I’m talking about. The eye rolls…the rude comments…the standoffish behaviour. These can all create a lot of discomfort and tension in the workplace. Veterinary medicine attracts a lot of different personalities and it […]
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Five Strategies to Stop Being a People-Pleaser
Do you apologize often, pretend to agree with everyone, or feel uneasy when someone is angry with you? Do you go to great lengths to avoid conflict and resist saying no, even when you want to scream “he** no!”? If this sounds familiar, then you are like countless other “people-pleasers” who struggle with setting […]
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Euthanasia Conversations Impact Veterinary Team Wellbeing
If you are a veterinarian like me, you have probably lost count of the number of times a client has said “I could never do what you do”. Of course, they are referring to euthanizing animals. And while performing euthanasia procedures is certainly not the easiest task that we do as veterinarians, it is also […]
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Why You Should Form Habits Instead of Resolutions in January
At the start of any year, many of us look to this new beginning as a “fresh start” or “clean slate”. In fact, habit-forming experts say that the start of a new year, season, job, or relationship can be a favourable time to drop bad habits and pick up new ones. That said, when most […]
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The One Thing I’m Taking Away From 2020…
The countdown is on to the end of 2020, a year that will not soon be forgotten, and has been wrought with stress, exhaustion, and isolation in response to COVID-19. I, for one, am grateful for the fresh start that 2021 will bring, with hopes for a tempered pandemic, a renewed sense of optimism for […]
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Five Tools to Help Veterinary Caregivers Stay Resilient During the Coronavirus Pandemic
These are truly unprecedented times. Even the most seasoned of veterinary professionals have not experienced our “new normal”. From streamlining services to only what is considered urgent, emergent, or essential to physical distancing from clients by providing consultations by phone or video, veterinary practice life has shifted in ways we could not have imagined just […]
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Are you using coping strategies as self-care?
At a time when burnout, moral stress, compassion fatigue, and suicide are dominating conversations regarding wellbeing in the veterinary industry, self-care has been broadly advocated as a necessary practice for veterinary care providers. However, the definition of self-care seems to vary depending on who you ask; what many consider self-care practices are more accurately regarded […]
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Why we need to be careful how we talk about suicides among veterinary professionals
Hardly a week goes by when I don’t receive a Google alert or see some glaring headline about suicides in the veterinary profession. Even Time Magazine has weighed in on this heavy topic with a headline that reads “Veterinarians face unique issues that make suicide one of the profession’s biggest worries”. But while we are […]
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How to fix five things stopping veterinary professionals from practicing self-care
It seems that whenever I present a keynote on self-care or mention self-care in a webinar, someone in the audience asks, “but what if you can’t practice self-care”? In the beginning I was perplexed by this comment and asked, “what do you mean, you can’t”? I was then presented with a barrage of reasons that […]