Dear Veterinary Professionals,
We are essential. We have always been essential, just as our human healthcare colleagues have always been essential, just as our teachers and childcare personnel are essential, just as parenting is essential. When your role is to care for others, the need to care does not simply go away in the face of a political, economic, or public health crisis. If anything, the work intensifies. It has truly taken a pandemic for caretakers to be recognized for the work they have dedicated their lives to.
Our essential status is certainly a mixed blessing. On one side, there is the validation that comes with essential status. It feels good and gives credence to what we do. It also means at least partial job security at a time when joblessness and financial crisis are very real for so many people. The financial burden is certainly not leaving us unscathed, but in a comparison across industries, we have much to be thankful for. On the other hand, our essential status means we knowingly put ourselves at risk by going to work and interacting with colleagues and clients. As a profession we have taken huge steps towards minimizing exposure: curbside appointments, expanded telehealth services, reduced wellness appointments, and increased attention to cleanliness and sanitation. However, clipping a hotspot on a wiggly lab or collecting urine from a fractious cat is most often a two person job. Maintaining six feet of distance is simply not feasible for staff members at an animal hospital. Finally, we are operating in large part without a full compliment of personal protective equipment. I don’t think any would argue that our human colleagues have a greater need for it, but it can still leave one feeling a bit naked.
Another area in which our profession has offered us a mixed blessing is in our educational background. We don’t need the popular language of ‘flattening the curve’ to understand the herd health benefits of slowing transmission through social isolation. We all took epidemiology. We also took virology and understand modes of transmission, incubation periods, and the difference between PCR and serology tests. We know about false positives and false negatives. We understand statistical fallacies and how testing patterns skew our perception of morbidity and mortality rates. In short, we have all the knowledge we need to clearly recognize the complexity of our current circumstances and to be thoroughly frustrated by willful ignorance, misinformation, and urban myths. To be clear, ignorance by itself is neutral. It is simply the state that exists in the absence of information. Ignoring or dismissing information that should inform a decision is another thing entirely. Our scientific brains are beautiful but they can make reading the news a painful exercise.
A blessing and a curse. It’s a longstanding joke in veterinary medicine that many patients would be improved by temporary ownerectomies. COVID-19 has made that joke a reality with curbside appointments. Many ‘difficult’ dogs are now being handled with ease, diagnostics and treatments are performed with greater efficiency reducing our patient’s overall stress, and our own safety is improved as we are not relying on an owner’s handling skills. This is great! Until you have a grieving family of five that can’t be present for a euthanasia, or difficult news that can’t be delivered in person, or you are explaining a complex medical scenario over speakerphone to a family whose responses you are unable to gauge. Emotional tension in conversations may also be elevated as baseline anxiety and financial concerns are increased for a large percentage of the population. Give and take, up and down, blessing and curse.
We are essential. Our various roles, difficult to balance in the best of times, have only increased in their complexity. Our approach to work is different, our approach to home life is different, our approach to self-care is different, and the very fabric of our society feels different. The stress of all these differences coupled with the loss of our roadmap routines can be overwhelming.
Contemplating self-care and processing the circus that has made mock of our normal rhythms is daunting. I invite you to join me on a wellness journey through this blog and my podcast: Veterinary Mental Health – Turning the Stethoscope Around. We need to take the time to listen to ourselves, particularly when we are living in a world gone wild, and not in the beach and cocktail way.
I know, you don’t have any time, but I wonder whether your commute is 20-30 minutes long? There and back again? If you aren’t going into work, I would fit in nicely while you fold laundry, shop for groceries, or go for a walk. We have much to discuss, much to think about, and there is much that I would like to see you doing to take care of yourself. I will be your cheerleader as you seek to improve your wellness habits. I will ask you to think deeply about topics that may provide insight into your mental landscape. I want to offer strategies and tools for managing your mental health over the long term as well as framing your response to current events. I want to show you it is possible to achieve excellence in your caretaking role without sacrificing a lifestyle of joy, fulfillment, self-care, self-knowledge, and mental wellbeing.
Join me Monday, May 18th for my three-part COVID Self-Care Package: Overcoming Overwhelm, Revising your Routine, and Salvaging Self-Care. I invite you to sign up for my twice-monthly newsletter to have my blog, links to my podcast, and related self-study handouts delivered directly to your inbox.
Take care always,
