In this episode, Dr. Cari Wise discusses burnout among veterinary professionals, highlighting three key indicators: consistently arriving early and staying late, skipping lunch breaks, and disengagement from life outside of work.
She explains that these behaviors stem from misconceptions about productivity and self-care, and they can lead to inefficiency and neglect of personal wellbeing. Dr. Wise advises professionals to critically evaluate their work habits, communicate openly with leadership about scheduling, and prioritize self-care and personal interests.
She emphasizes that these patterns can be unlearned and encourages seeking support, such as through the Vet Life Academy program, to achieve a balanced and fulfilling life.
Key takeaways:
- Indicators of Burnout:
- Arriving Early and Leaving Late: This behavior can lead to inefficiency and is often unsustainable. It may indicate a need to evaluate work habits and communicate with leadership about scheduling and staffing issues.
- Skipping Lunch Breaks: Forgoing breaks to catch up on work can perpetuate neglect of self-care. Taking even short breaks can significantly improve energy and focus.
- Disengagement from Life Outside Work: Sacrificing hobbies, friendships, and self-care can lead to burnout. Re-engaging with personal interests and relationships is crucial for a fulfilling life.
- Actionable Strategies:
- Evaluate Work Habits: Consider if the extra hours are necessary or if there are underlying issues that need addressing.
- Take Breaks: Ensure to take lunch breaks and short breaks to recharge.
- Re-engage with Personal Life: Prioritize self-care and personal interests to maintain a balanced life.
- Support and Resources:
- Vet Life Academy Program: This program can help veterinary professionals regain control over their work-life balance.
- Mindset and Support: Change is possible with the right mindset and support, leading to a fulfilling life even in a demanding profession.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain typos.
Hi there. I’m Doctor Cari Wise, veterinarian, certified life coach, and certified quantum human design specialist. If you’re a veterinary professional looking to uplevel your life and your career, or maybe looking to go in an entirely new direction, then what I talk about here on the Joyful DVM podcast is absolutely for you. Let’s get started. Hello, my friends. Have you ever wondered if you are actually in burnout in your veterinary career or in your life in general?
Well, here over the next few minutes, I’m going to share with you three indicators that you’re headed for burnout in your veterinary career and also give you some tips on what to do about it. So, indicator number one that you’re heading for burnout is coming in early, before your shifts, and staying really late. Now, when I say coming in early, I’m not meaning arriving five or ten minutes early.
I mean coming in like an hour early to get things done in advance of the day or staying hours and hours afterwards to get things done after. Now, a lot of us who get stuck in this pattern of coming in early and staying late just think that’s what’s required to get the job done. And there may be opportunities to look at the way the day goes and to look at our own efficiency within the day and even to have some high value conversations with leadership in regard to scheduling and staffing.
But aside from that, there’s a lot of opportunity for us to come in to work simply our shifts and to go home that we are actually not noticing, because we are believing that if we can get ahead of things, then we can have a better day. Unfortunately, when we start to drop into this habit of coming in really early and staying really late, it actually reinforces a cycle of inefficiency.
Coming in early and staying late has us putting off work that we could get done in the moment to different times. And I know that hearing this might sound a little upsetting for some of you because you’re thinking, Cari, I’m working as hard as I can. I can’t get any more done during the day. And I’m not here to judge you at all. My point in sharing this with you today is to show you that this is one of those indicators that you’re headed for burnout, because it’s just not sustainable to come in really early and to stay really late.
And if you’re believing that that is required to do your job, there are opportunities there for you to either adjust the things that you’re doing. Maybe you’re being a little bit of a control freak. Maybe you truly don’t have enough staff. Maybe the scheduling really needs to be adjusted or there’s opportunity to have a conversation with somebody that can help make some changes so that coming in really, really early and staying really, really late isn’t part of what is required.
Now, if you work in an organization where it is expected that you come in hours early and you stay hours late in order to complete all what they might consider to be the extra stuff of your job, I want you to consider whether or not the job itself is a good fit. Because the things that we’re required to do as part of this job, which include things like medical recordkeeping and callbacks, that is part of our daily duties, and there should never be an expectation that we do that stuff outside of business hours.
We do, however, have an obligation to try to be as efficient as we can within the hours that we are scheduled. This is where being part of a team is really important. Being able to delegate those things that not only you can do, training your staff members, your team members to be able to do things on your behalf, and then trusting them to do their job. Because the more we try to hold on to all the things we’re just trying to grasp at perfectionism, and perfectionism does not create outcomes.
Perfectionism is not going to be your safety net to make sure that clients are happy and patients get better, but it is absolutely going to be one of the quickest ways that you end up in burnout. One of those little hints about that is this coming in early and staying really late. Because if you’re believing you’re the only one who can do all the things, or that you must do them yourself in order to keep yourself safe and to get the outcomes that you want, then I want you just to consider that letting go of some of these things and stepping back into just letting work be at work is going to help you a lot.
And if you, again, like I said, if you believe that this is not possible because of the organization where you work, then I want you to consider that maybe this isn’t the right fit. We don’t want this wrong fit job to be the reason that you end up in burnout. Burnout indicator number two is always skipping your lunches. Now, there’s a lot of this that comes back to the same thing as we talked about in number one, coming in early and staying late.
So if you’re skipping your lunches in order to get all caught up, and that is your normal way of doing things, then I want you to realize that you are also putting yourself into this habit situation where you don’t have any downtime or where you’re not taking care of you. The truth is that there will always be more things for you to do. It’s okay if there are things that are left undone, whether it be so you can go to lunch or that you can go home at night.
If you get stuck in a trap of believing that you can’t rest until all the work is done, then you are never going to rest, my friends. Because when it comes to the practice of veterinary medicine, there will always be more that you can do. Unfortunately, many of us have grown up being taught that we are not allowed to have any fun or any recreational time until all of the chores are finished, until all the to do list is done.
And we have then transferred this rule, this manual, into our professional lives. When we end up in a career like veterinary medicine, where the to do list is really perpetual, then we can end up in a cycle of never resting, of never having any fun. And this is part of the reason why we have such a hard time leaving work at work. So the greatest gift you can give yourself is to allow things to be undone and you can even start building in a little bit more time.
Maybe you know that the blood work is going to be back tomorrow, but why don’t you go ahead and just let those clients know that you’ll be in touch with them in two or three days. If you have a case, of course that is more urgent, then you’re going to prioritize those to the top. But a lot of these routine things, they don’t need to have an immediate callback.
You can also delegate those callbacks to your team members. And this is just one area of opportunity. But if your workflow is requiring you to skip your lunch every day, I want you to take a look at the reasons why, because that’s certainly not a sustainable way of engaging in this career. Like I said, there will always be more to do. And it’s really imperative that you learn how to take a little break in the middle of the day.
Even if it’s just 15 minutes to go sit in your car. Those 15 minutes of not having people asking you questions and not having all the activity and noise around you can go a long way in helping you recharge to make it through the rest of that day. Those 15 minutes, you can eat your lunch, you can read a book, you can listen to something like an audio podcast.
There’s a million things that you can do in 15 minutes. And don’t underestimate how valuable 15 minutes can be. Now, of course, I’m advocating that you take an entire hour to yourself in the middle of the day. But if that seems like too big of a jump to begin with, then I want you to just to try with the 15 minutes and notice how that actually helps you to be recharged and more focused through the end of your shift.
Then start paying attention to all the things that you’re putting on your lunch hour. What are you putting off in the morning? Saying that you’ll get to it at lunch. Unless it’s truly an emergency, it doesn’t require or deserve your break time. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing. So maybe we need to build in more time in our client expectations. Maybe once again, we need to consider, do we need to have a conversation with our management or our ownership in regard to the way appointments are scheduled, the way that staffing is scheduled as well, and the density of what happens in the morning.
Of course, from time to time, the rails are. The train’s gonna go off the rails, right? From time to time, things are just gonna go sideways and we are going to have a lot of chaos. But their busyness in a veterinary clinic is just kind of the way that things roll. And because veterinary clinics typically are busy, that does not mean that it is okay for you to not get your lunches.
Skipping your lunches, believing getting a lunch and missing a lunch is just part of the deal that is absolutely going to contribute to burnout if you continue that pattern. So just consider for yourself, why are you missing your lunches? What can you do to facilitate getting your lunches? And if you really believe that you’re unable to get to your lunch because of the way that you are scheduled, then I want you to have a conversation with people in leadership.
Because, my friends, that is not the sustainable way to do this job, is going to learn out lead to burnout quicker than anything, and it will actually contribute to more turnover, not only in your veterinary practice, but also turnover as far as the jobs for you, because eventually you’re going to hit a breaking point and you’re just going to leave. So that is indicator number two. Indicator number three, being disengaged in the other areas of your life.
This one is a big one. It’s very common that when we go through our academics to pursue a career in veterinary medicine, that we let go of some of the hobbies and friendships and other activities that we did before we were in veterinary school. And we took that time and that focus and we put that on our studies. Once we get out in the real world, though, those things are supposed to come back.
You’re not just a veterinary professional now. You do not exist solely to work and then to sleep and eat and come back and work again. That is not the way this is supposed to work. So if you are disengaged in the other areas of your life, if you don’t have any hobbies or outside friendships, if you have become lax in your self care, eating junk food, not taking care of yourself nutritionally, not moving your body, not having time for your own relaxation, whatever it is that you enjoy, not taking time for your hobbies, your friendships, and instead are spending a lot of time in buffering.
So, watching mindless television, scrolling mindlessly on social media, doing random shopping in the middle of the night, partaking in excess types of fatty or sugary foods, or alcohol, or recreational drugs, I want you just to know that that is a type of disengagement. That is an indicator that your current state of being could use an up level. And this isn’t judgment at all. This is just honest information from somebody, honestly, who’s been there, who has been in burnout and has experienced every one of these things.
And I want you to know that your job does not require you to live this way. I’m going to say that again. Your job in veterinary medicine does not require you to live in a way that you are disengaged in everything other than veterinary medicine. And even when you have time off, if your mind cannot focus on anything but work, or you are stuck in the anxiety and dread of going back to your job, then that is an indicator of burnout.
And that is all opportunity for you to make some changes in your life, to get your life back, to take back the power in your life, and to find a way to work in veterinary medicine in a way that actually builds you up and adds to you and allows you to thrive in your job and in your career and in your whole entire life. So, to summarize, these three indicators that you’re headed for burnout in your veterinary career.
Remember coming in early and staying late, skipping your lunches, and being disengaged in the other areas of your life. When we do this, over time, this way of being becomes a habit. But, my friends, it is a learned behavior, which means that you can unlearn it. And I know that if you’re surrounded by a lot of people who are living this exact same way, it might seem like this is the inevitable consequence of being a veterinary professional, that this is just the way it is, that these crazy hours where you never get a break, this necessity to come in early and stay after your shift, and this loss of these other aspects of your life, that they are just the price you pay to be in veterinary medicine.
That is never, ever true. You just may not be surrounded by people who have discovered there is a much better way to do this. If you need some help making this shift for yourself, I definitely recommend that you jump over to joyfuldvm.com and get on the waitlist for our Vetlife Academy program. Vetlife Academy has recently had a major overhaul, and I’m very excited about the changes that we’ve made there.
And more importantly, I’m excited about how these changes that we’ve made are going to allow us to reach more veterinary professionals than we ever have been able to reach before. And it’s inside Vetlife academy where you are going to learn the one magical skill that is going to allow you to take back control of all of these things. You’re going to break those habits of coming in early and staying late.
You’re going to learn how to stand up for yourself and to take your lunches. You’re going to reengage in the rest of your life. Because unless you prioritize you first, you are never going to be able to experience the life that you are meant to experience as long as you keep thinking that you must get all of the things done and that work must be calm before you can do so.
So, my friends, jump over to joyfuldvm.com vetlifeacademy. If you’re interested in getting some help in breaking out of these cycles that have you headed straight for burnout. And trust me when I say that everything that you want for your life is still possible. Even if you might be believing as a veterinary professional, you have limited what is possible for you. That is never, ever going to be true unless you decide it is.
And I’m here to help you. All right, my friends, have a great week. I’ll see you soon. Bye for now.