Is It Possible to Achieve Work-Life Balance in Veterinary Practice?
Work-life balance is incredibly difficult to find in veterinary medicine, and the reason why runs far deeper than just being busy.
When working in a veterinary hospital, you take a lot of hits. Every day, all day, there are incredible challenges coming your way.
Owners get upset.
Patients get aggressive.
Colleagues grow impatient.
Schedules run behind.
Interruptions never end.
Bad news has to be delivered.
Emotions run high as families weigh the costs of treatments and, in the hardest moments, grieve the loss of their beloved pets.
This isn’t what you pictured when you were a kid dreaming of working with animals some day, and it isn’t the picture that was painted for you in veterinary school. Nothing prepares you for the relentless stress involved in this work.
Hit after hit, your anxiety grows, and if it isn’t processed, it lingers.
As if this wasn’t hard enough, there’s that part about how busy you are. Being busy isn’t as much the source of your stress as it is fuel being poured on the fire.
Your daily schedule keeps pushing you forward from exam room to exam room, from hospital to home and then back again the next day to start all over. There isn’t time to cope.
This is one of the biggest reasons veterinarians struggle with depression, anxiety, and even anger towards the job they dreamed of winning and worked hard to earn. There’s no way to get off the roller coaster of emotion.
It’s also a reason why our relationships suffer. Who else will carry the brunt of our stress than the people closest to us? When we carry so much unresolved hurt home, it causes us to do and say things we regret.
So, we can all agree on how And if you don’t find a way to cope with the stress, it follows you home.difficult this is, but you need to hear this. If you have experienced this cycle, you are not alone.
And most importantly, you are not out of options.
Finding work-life balance in the veterinary world is partly about managing your schedule, but it is primarily about managing your thoughts and feelings.
In a moment, we will discuss a way to process the hits you take throughout the day and achieve true mental and emotional work-life balance. First, let’s take a look at why this is so hard and what compounding factors make it even more difficult to manage life in veterinary medicine.
Why does the stress of veterinary work throw us so far off-balance?
When you face a tense, stressful event in the hospital, your amygdala fires and sets off a powerful emotional and physical reaction.
Adrenaline kicks in.
Anxiety, anger, fear, and frustration take over.
Your body gets tense, and your mind starts to race and get clouded, making it hard to focus or even remember basic treatments and protocols.
This only makes you feel embarrassed - if not terrified - of what the people around you are thinking.
Now, we are talking about one stressful event here. Maybe it was talking to a client about an expensive treatment needed for their pet. Maybe you made a mistake with a patient. Maybe you sensed that an older owner was looking down on you for your age and doubting your diagnosis.
Whatever it was, this adrenaline-filled moment was just one of many throughout the day. The stress and exhaustion keep building.
Why is it so hard to recover from the stress of the workplace at the end of the day?
It takes time to develop the right coping mechanisms for managing stress.
Early career veterinarians are often still in survival mode from the craziness of their studies in veterinary school and the internships which follow. There’s a good chance that you have picked up bad habits in terms of nutrition and health. Fast food becomes the rule rather than the exception. Exercise? What’s that? Sleep is hard to find when you’re stressed, and the amount of caffeine you use to get through the day isn't helping, either.
All of these physical factors pile on to the exhaustion and emotion you feel and lead you to reach for unhelpful coping mechanisms like binging TV or playing video games to shut down your mind, or “self-medicating” with alcohol or other substances. Many early career veterinarians go on shopping sprees as a way to relieve their stress.
You also might be trying hard to cope! You might be trying a yoga class, meditation, exercise or other things to stay healthy.
The problem is, nothing stops the harmful scripts that are running in your mind in response to the stressful events you have experienced. Nothing has stopped the cycle and given you true relief.
Work-life balance in veterinary medicine begins with mental discipline and a technique for coping with stress.
For many years, I was the owner of a 24/7/365 general, referral and emergency veterinary hospital that employed up to 15 Veterinarians and 35 support staff, and I saw first hand how hard it was for my team to process the hits they took day after day.
The early years of your veterinary career are especially difficult. Adjusting to the realities of veterinary medicine is tough, and it’s a journey that causes far too many talented young professionals to abandon their careers.
So, first of all, let me repeat two things I said above.
You are not alone. This is a normal, shared experience among early career veterinary professionals.
You are not out of options. I spent 11 years developing a technique that helps you pace yourself throughout the day and thrive in a clinical environment.
The technique I developed and now coach you on is called The Power of Pacing®. At a high level, this is how it works. I call these “the 5 R’s.”
Let’s say an owner becomes abusive and combative over the costs of treatment for their pet. Normally, you would take the hit, absorb it, and carry the stress with you to the next exam. Meanwhile, your body and mind continue to speed up and struggle throughout the day.
Instead, The Power of Pacing® teaches you to . . .
Recognize what’s happening to you physically, emotionally, and mentally - and why.
Redirect your reaction into a controlled response.
Replace the mental script running in your mind with one that restores calm.
Repair the physical effects of the event you just experienced.
Refocus on the task ahead of you, or the next exam room on the schedule, with a clear mind.
This isn’t therapy. It’s a simple, repeatable technique used to reframe stressful moments and take back your day. It can serve as an excellent companion to professional counseling as part of your journey towards achieving work-life balance and wellness in the workplace.
And it is achievable to learn on a busy schedule. This private coaching process only requires a handful of sessions to complete.
You can schedule a brief, zero-pressure introductory call with me to ask any questions you have and learn more about how this works.
I’ll be here when you are ready. The one thing I care about the most is helping you find a healthy, positive pathway for enjoying the career you worked so hard to pursue.
“Dr R”
William Rogatz DVM, DABVP - Canine & Feline Specialty
Lead Performance Consultant - The Power of Pacing®