Next Level Business Education For Veterinary Students

Host: So everyone, welcome to the veterinary business podcast, your ultimate resource for developing a successful veterinary practice and career. I am Narayan Arunraja, the founder of the veterinary business podcast and one of the co-hosts. On this podcast, we bring you insights and expertise from industry leading doctors, experts and taught leaders. We cover a wide range of topics including practice management, marketing strategies, leadership development, HR for best practices and multiple. Whether you are a practicing veterinarian, a practice owner, a practice manager or a student, studying to be a veterinarian, this podcast is tailored to help you navigate the unique challenges and opportunities in the business of veterinary medicine.

Host: Every listener of this podcast is welcome to visit veterinarybusinessinstitute.com for additional resources and tools to support your growth. And remember, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and other popular podcast platforms. Today, I'm excited to talk to Dr. Mary Halloway Chuck, who is a CEO and founder of Reviving veterinary Medicine and also, she's a consultant, content provider and medical advisory board member for the vets. And the topic we're going to be talking about today is burnout prevention among veterinary professionals, burnout prevention among veterinary professionals. We're going to, of course, talk about mental health, Dr. Halloway Chuck had a personal experience

Host: which let her to start her own podcast literally three years ago. So we're going to talk about all that. So let's jump in before we get started. Dr. Can you take a minute to kind of tell us about yourself? Who are you? How did you even get into veterinary medicine? Let's start at the beginning. Sure, it's a great question and please feel welcome to call me Marie. I grew up with two veterinarians as parents and so I was immersed in the veterinary profession at a very young age. My mom owned a companion animal practice and she practiced

Host: there for more than 40 years and so I spent a lot of time in the practice growing up. My dad was in regulatory medicine so he worked for the provincial and federal governments around food safety and animal welfare but I knew working in my mom's practice from a young age that I was really taken by the veterinary profession. I loved getting the interact with clients, getting to take care of animals, getting to challenge myself with cases and figuring things out and so that was where I got started. I got into veterinary school and began when I was 20 years old so I started from a pretty young age and I went to the same veterinary school that my parents met and got married at in Saskatoon not far from where I grew up outside of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and then after my veterinary school was completed I did an internship at Washington State University in small animal medicine and surgery and from there I developed my passion for emergency

Host: and critical care which led me to do a residency at North Carolina State University in emergency and critical care and then my path kind of took a big full circle turn I ended up in academia for five years just really nourishing my love of teaching and research and clinical practice and the variability that comes with academia but I did get burnt out and I ended up leaving that roll back at the end of 2013 and since the beginning of 2014 it's been 10 years now I have been living closer to home I live in Calgary, Canada and working as a local emergency and critical care specialist so a relief specialist and predominantly as an advocate for mental health and well being in the veterinary profession. It's brilliant so you had something that happened to you personally made you in a take mental health seriously. Do you think what you experienced is normal in the veterinary profession and what do you think causes it or maybe it's not? Yeah so I experienced burnout when

Host: I was in academia I in a realistically I probably experienced burnout and before that a few times I know as I was nearing the end of my internship I was starting to become really frustrated and jaded and cynical and emotionally exhausted and we know that these are often symptoms of burnout that we see amongst veterinarians and other members of the team and you know it kind of subsided for a bit and then crept up a little bit again during my residency and then I didn't get much of a break between that school to internship to residency to faculty member and it was a really steep learning curve in my job as faculty in academia and a lot of pressure you know to get research grants and to have graduate students and to mentor residents and interns and I put a lot of that pressure on myself, a lot of it was driven by my own perfectionism and workaholism but the long and the short of it is that I experienced pretty significant burnout which I didn't

Host: realize at the time I just thought I'm not cut out for that medicine I'm not cut out for academia at least maybe something else in that med but not academia which led me to leave and then when I left and I was working for myself as a local relief specialist and as a speaker and educator I became burnt out again because you know as many of us know entrepreneurs and business owners are also really at high risk of burnout so I don't believe this experience is unique to me the research would suggest that anywhere between a third to more than a half of veterinary team members are experiencing burnout and I think many individuals like me just have this sense of I guess I'm not cut out for vet medicine and aren't really sure what's happening or what to do about it. Yeah I just want to kind of go a little bit deeper can you define burnout I'm assuming you have studied this topic quite a bit what is burnout and how do you know that your burnout is there like

Host: anything that just like any symptoms or anything she should look out for if people are listening to this. Yes definitely so burnout is a experience that is brought on by chronic workplace stress so individuals arguably could experience burnout that is not work-related but certainly the world health organization defines it around workplace-related stress and the symptoms that you would see really are a little bit variable and depend on you know what scoring system you use or what research you read but the most highly regarded research is around the mass lack burnout inventory which would characterize three main symptoms of burnout the first being emotional exhaustion so that feeling of either you know serious physical exhaustion like you think you just physically cannot keep going with your work or that emotional exhaustion that emptiness when it comes to dealing with anything emotionally tied to the work that you do the second symptom is cynicism so this is you know that

Host: stand-offishness or I'm trying to think of another word one of the other words that is often used to describe it is called depersonalization so it's a little bit of a distancing from our patients our clients in our team and then the third symptom is a low sense of professional accomplishment or professional efficacy where we just feel like you know it doesn't matter how hard I work or what I do I'm just not accomplishing anything worthwhile on the job so those would be the three main symptoms that individuals would want to look out for right and you're saying it starts with stress related to work right and yeah there's a lot of different variables that are believed to impact it but it is by definition related to chronic workplace stress that goes unchecked or unchanged so in the context of veterinary medicine this could be a really exhaustive workload it could be functioning with low staffing levels for a long period of time it could be dealing with a caseload that doesn't

Host: feel very challenging or that feels too challenging you know it can be one or the other it can be working for an organization where you don't feel that alignment you don't feel that your values are congruent with each other feeling not appreciated or not rewarded on the job there's so many different factors that play I think the biggest ones that we're seeing in vet med right now are the low staffing levels and the high caseload that many are experiencing. Right right have you personally experienced a witness the impact of mental health challenges within the veterinary community let's say a small animal practice or just the community at large and if so how did it influence your perspective on the importance of addressing these issues? Yeah so you know I think I certainly have experienced it firsthand for myself and the more that I speak to other colleagues you know within my programs or with my coaching or just out-speaking

Host: at conferences and getting to interact with individuals all over the world essentially everyone is sharing this similar experience you know they're feeling very challenged from a mental health and wellness perspective there's a tremendous amount of overlap between burnout and mental health problems specifically burnout and anxiety so especially in the more chronic stages of burnout a lot of individuals will feel concurrent mental health challenges I think you know this is all compounded by the fact that we've just lived through a pandemic for several years and so everybody regardless of being in the vet profession is feeling challenged from their mental health with regards to those ramifications and yeah you know veterinary medicine is is a profession that has some challenges that that are specific and unique to it as well so in addition to all of the struggles that that all human beings face whether they be challenges with our job satisfaction

Host: or challenges with finances or challenges with relationships or family we also have that extra pressure of having to navigate our clients in a fee for service industry we have access to youth in Asia or the option to do youth in Asia which can lead in some circumstances to moral stress or added psychological distress when things don't go the way we help them to and you know so there are some inherent challenges you need to our profession and veterinary medicine is a whole that I think add to it but again I don't think I can stress enough that I think everyone is feeling mentally challenged in certain ways given what we've been through over the past several years right now again I'm just going a little bit you know based on our conversation so far like you said at least in your case it sounded like this was kind of created by you in the sense you went into a academy and you created a heavy workload and then you became a entrepreneur and again

Host: that created stress and so is this something you're seeing with maybe the younger generations not of course a baby boomers but you know Chen Wai Chen you know in other words I don't know like like I guess our parents they were happy buying a house and a car and you know like that was good good life right like here we we don't have any struggles when we were growing up and we need we need to kind of overachieve and I don't know where do you think this is coming from is it is this something maybe I'm just so crazy not a question but I guess because I'm sure you've thought about this so I would love to get your thoughts on it. Yeah I love the question and I want to be careful not to you know offend anybody with generalizations about generational differences I think we know we know the most about a generation once they've hit the stage of retirement so we're still learning a lot about Chen Wai Genzi you know etc etc that said I think that veterinary medicine

Host: has changed dramatically in the last several decades and probably the most ever just within the last few years I think back to when I was little in my mom ran her veterinary practice times were so much simpler than you know there were not electronic medical records there was no social media there was no Google or Yelp reviews you know things were just very simplified to the appointments that you could fit in your appointment book that was written by hand and you know maybe the sporadic walk-in depending on how the day was going and then at the end of the day there was the emergency practice that all of the veterinarians contributed to that all of their patients went to and then in the mornings they took their patients back again even specialty medicine at that time was just a very very early growing phenomenon and you know fast forward now today and we have all of these extra added pressures so there's more knowledge now that our younger generations are

Host: required to know than ever before there's added technologies there's added burden of technology in terms of access to veterinarians you know by way of cell phones and email and Facebook and other forms of social media so I do think that there is a tremendous pressure that is being placed on veterinarian team members that we didn't experience before and you know from a generational perspective I think that you know the baby boomers were generation that really thrived or wanted to work very very hard with a focus on advancement in their careers and and really embracing their job for the decades that they were within it and so on when you moved down a to generation X you know that really shifted they're started to be more of like a well I saw how my parents struggled and they never had time for themselves and they built up a wonderful life for themselves very often out of nothing but all they did was work you know I hardly saw them

Host: and we didn't do much together as a family so a little bit of shift away from that and that shift seems to be continuing as we move down into the younger generations and so I think that also is adding you know perhaps an extra I don't want to say burden on the veterinary profession but there is this this movement away from working six to seven days a week eight to 10 to 12 hour days to a more reasonable workload especially in light of the pressures of veterinary practice which is also you know I think I don't want to say that that's the result you know the result of that is the staffing shortages but all of these shifts are just things that the veterinary profession is having to you know to adjust to from a mental health perspective specifically there is evidence to demonstrate that younger generations are experiencing mental health challenges more than the proceeding generations did we don't really know why that is you know that could be

Host: a societal shift again the exposure when I was young I didn't watch the news I barely listened to the news and there was in social media so I was in exposed to all the news feeds that children and young adults are exposed to today which no doubt if I had been exposed to those I would experience higher levels of anxiety as well so it's a very nuanced conversation um hard to make broad generalizations but there's a lot to think about there yeah I think I mean I just just reflecting on what you said I bet your mom didn't have to worry about google reviews right probably not there exists right now I mean you just saw many things you have to worry about you worried about word of mouth because there was still that you know and so the word girl was always you know your best way of getting clients and you know you still wanted to have a good reputation and so on but it was just you know I was actually lamenting with my mom

Host: over the holidays it just it seemed like veterinary practice was so much simpler than you know it was just and not to diminish the the incredible work that my mom did I mean she was a very successful business owner and incredible veterinarian her clients loved her she was a magnificent surgeon you know so there's all of that and it was at a very different time and we're just seeing a lot of change and our profession especially in the last five to ten years yeah this is uh I'm sure I can't talk to you for hours and hours on this topic this is such a fascinating topic um what is some common signs of mental health struggles I know you kind of touched on it already or burn out among veterinary professionals and how can colleagues or employees so let's say I'm the owner of a practice and I'm noticing or what should I be looking out for in my team because you know you see I mean you want to you want to you know look at what can you look at in others

Host: to make sure they're okay yeah you know I'm so glad that you asked that because I think that we have a tendency as human beings especially in this you know post pandemic world where everybody seems to be a little bit more heightened emotionally a little bit more standoffish a little bit less patient with each other I think we can come into work some days and we can see a team member who seems frustrated who seems like they don't want to be there they're a bit resentful maybe they're dodging cases they're like you know I don't want to deal with another um you know XYZ owner and we can jump to the conclusion that they're just you know cranky and you know that we don't like to work with them anymore and you know make it about them as a person rather than them potentially experiencing a problem and so what I would encourage practice owners managers team members to do is when you see a team member that is behaving in a way that is not typical

Host: for them it's not characteristic for them to snap at somebody or to chronically show up late for work or to dodge cases or to you know just seem really cynical when it comes to their job to have a conversation with them you know to ask them if they're okay to share what you've noticed to open up a discussion for whatever might be troubling them and not to be the one that has to fix it because that wouldn't be your job but to share with them resources whether those are resources that have helped you personally whether there's those are resources that you're practice or your veterinary medical organization has available but to you know listen not judge hear them out express empathy you know that they are going through something challenging and direct them to resources that may be a benefit to them because I think too often again we're sort of rolling our eyes you know like oh you know I can't stand working with that person anymore

Host: rather than taking a step back and thinking wow this is really behavior that is not like them I'm worried that something might be going on and I'm going to have a human to human heart to heart with them to make sure that they're okay so really just being concerned right just saying hey I just want to make sure you're okay just like letting them even just giving them a place to talk to right because a lot of times I think it's like it's very isolating since COVID so we just even more isolated so you just and that kind of makes it even worse as opposed to just being able to talk to a friend and just letting it all out and somebody listening to you kind of takes the load off takes the stress off right so I agree you know and I think you know building off of your point I think we've created a culture in veterinary medicine where we don't need help where the caregivers and the culture is to just pull up your bootstrapsing and get the work done

Host: no matter how hard it is and people can feel very ashamed that they're struggling and they might feel embarrassed to reach out or to tell anybody or they might be looking around and thinking well everybody looks like they're doing okay what's wrong with me which was my experience when I was in academia I was like I don't hear anybody else complaining you know they all seem to be doing well so clearly I'm the one that's not cut out for this because this doesn't feel a little sustainable to me so I think opening up that conversation not with judgment and even you know even better if you have the comfort in sharing your own struggle or your own story not of course making it about you in light of their struggle but just to say you know I I also struggle especially during the pandemic with with the sorts of feelings that you're describing this is what helped me I wonder you know if that's something that might help you as well and again we don't want to

Host: prescribe or diagnose or push anything on anybody the best thing that we can do as you said is to be considerate and to just be open and honest in what we are experiencing as well to normalize what the other person's difficult experience might be absolutely let's talk about the next question this is kind of very personal to me and something that I'm struggling with I'm 48 my two daughters one is 21 one is 18 and I kind of saw myself as the caregivers which is working working working and I guess work was my escape and that was my excuse just to kind of I'm busy providing for everybody right that's my story but now the story doesn't exist anymore like kids are going and they don't need me and both my parents passed away so I didn't have to take I don't have to take care of them so but I guess I ignored myself and I don't know if that's just true for most people or I was just unique and I didn't really like always me got went to the

Host: bottom of the list right like oh yeah yeah I need to work out but oh well I have I have planned meetings or always like me was the vacation oh yeah yeah it's flat you know some excuse or the other like all we kind of we always found the reason so this idea of like engineering my own life to kind of make sure it's the life that I want but I'm also happy about the life as opposed to just see myself as a person doing a job or you know doing a duty but it's the family or so that has been kind of challenging for me so I guess the question is you know this idea of maintaining a healthy life and of course work life and I know we keep using the word balance but just how do you create that healthy life and especially just in general I'm even though I work with a lot of veterinary practices and I have a pet and you know I know a lot about the industry I'm not in the in the in the profession so just in general and also for people in the veterinary

Host: profession like how do you how do you think about this and I I guess having gone through what you've gone through I'm assuming these are things you have thought about and done something about in your own life yeah absolutely and I I'm on the other end of this spectrum is you I'm in my 40s as well but I have a three year old at home so I feel like I have a long road ahead until I catch much of a break but never the less I'm not complaining I'm very grateful to have her in my life and it's so interesting with these life these seasons of our life and these what's the word I'm looking for you know transitions into different stages are needs and our abilities especially when they refer to self care or work like violence are going to be very very different you know when I was without child without partner without anything you know earlier in my career I had the flexibility to really dedicate myself to building my career to working longer hours to

Host: carving out that that time in the evenings to go to the gym and and to do whatever else it was that I wanted to do to take care myself and then moving into motherhood it my time for myself became so much smaller as you said being a caregiver to these other humans in our lives and so we have to work with that we have to modify that and this whole idea of work life balance I want to make sure that everybody who's listening recognizes there is no pressure here to feel as though you are perfectly balancing everything that is that you have a perfect amount of life personal family time compared to work time that's that's not really the goal the goal is to recognize what you need to both thrive and enjoy the love you do and also find joy in your life outside of work and so most of us we get a feeling of imbalance when we're spending a lot of time at work and we don't want to be there we're like I'm done this is enough I feel like I've clocked enough hours

Host: for this week and I want to be at home that's maybe an indication to set some boundaries with work and to scale back a little bit the flip side is as if we might be having a lot of time at home for ourselves and we might be feeling a little bit fidgety and wanting to get back to work to you know contribute to the veterinary profession again and so just recognizing those signs and cues and working within those from the perspective specifically of taking care of ourselves especially in terms of preventing burnout I think that there's a few key strategies that people want to consider I think one of those for sure is this idea of work life separation so we all benefit and the research shows certainly in human health care as well from having time within our days and our weeks that we are not doing or thinking about work that we can completely shut things off when we are not on call when we are not checking work email when we are not thinking about cases when we are not

Host: completing medical records so making sure that we structure our days in our weeks to allow for that this off-term requires boundaries which is also very helpful for that sense of balance in that opportunity to engage in self care when it comes to engaging in self care there's certainly particular strategies that are of benefit from a burnout prevention standpoint things like prioritizing sleep, practicing mindfulness, connecting with a mental health professional when you feel that you are challenged in that way you know managing your workload or having conversations with your employer to make sure that your workload and your case load our managed appropriately I mean there's so many different things I'm focusing on the things that the individuals have control over rather than the systems that are in place. I would say for me my burnout prevention strategies are really focused mostly on what I've shared already which is making sure I'm getting enough

Host: sleep I'm adhering to my needs and my limits by setting those boundaries I'm carving out time every day for self care in the form of exercise and meditation and then I'm taking care of myself on a holistic level by you know seeing my doctor when I'm sick and connecting with my mental health professional and you know doing all those sorts of things so the key point here is that my plan is not going to be everybody's plan you have to find a plan that works for you. Right but I guess but you have to I have a plan right you have to think about this if you don't you just like like I used to do just it's an afterthought then you're going to get burnt out. 100% yeah there can be a stigma surrounding mental health in many professions how can the veterinary community work to reduce the stigma and encourage professionals to seek help? I think that's a good good question because a lot of people I think don't they think there's something wrong with them

Host: it's a talk about mental health issues or whatever so like they don't even want to talk about it they don't want to even like bring it out they just suffer in silence and so how can this be turned around? Yeah so this is definitely something that's been documented in the veterinary space we know based on surveys done surveying veterinarians that there is a higher tendency to demonstrate that stigma with regards to mental health compared to the general population especially a stigma with regards to social support the belief that people will be kind and caring towards an individual if they disclose they have a mental illness so I think that brings up this fear of disclosure I think that's a very nuanced fear because the fear can be not just will people support me or what will people think of me but what could happen to my license will I be able to practice medicine? So it's very challenging and we do tend to see stigma very commonly amongst

Host: high achieving professionals we also tend to see it more so as well amongst minorities or marginalized populations as well as amongst men compared to women in certain circumstances so again I think it goes back to that you know power through don't tell anybody that you're struggling you know pull up your boot straps and just get through with it so what we can do as a profession to shift stigma is number one to have open conversation about mental health I speak to so many people in veterinary practice that know that a team member has a history of a mental illness they've shared it they've they've talked about it openly and they say to me but but I can't ask them about their mental illness like that would not be okay and I say why wouldn't it be okay if someone told you that they were having a back problem and they were going to physio two times a week you would say how's your back been how's physio coming along we have

Host: this perception that mental health again it's a stigma then nobody talks about it you can ask a person how's your depression been how's your counseling coming along you know how's your anxiety been have you been having less panic attacks like these are okay conversations to have you know to be respectful you may want to have those conversations in private and not at your weekly staff meeting you know so making sure just like I probably wouldn't want my physical health problems broadcast to everybody mental health is the same but in general terms anyway that you approach a physical health problem you approach a mental health problem or conversation the exact same way I think another way that we can reduce stigma is to learn more about it there's a lot of misinformation misconceptions out there around mental health and mental illness specifically so taking a mental health first aid program taking a psychological first aid program like engaging

Host: in these programs and resources that help to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions when it comes to mental health and wellness I think those are two of the biggest things really that we can do as well as watching our language that would probably be the third thing that I would recommend so when I say that what I mean is that trying to avoid stigmatized language such as a person as an addict rather than a person has a substance use problem or to use phrases I hear a lot of people say oh I'm so OCD or that person is manic you know people live with the obsessive compulsive disorders that are debilitating people live with bipolar disorder that causes episodes of mania but we would never refer to a person as OCD or as manic when we use language like that it's very derogatory and it's very you know it's very hurtful and potentially harmful to the people that are struggling so those would be the the key recommendations I would have thank you in your

Host: experience what kind of support systems or resources are most effective in helping veterinary professionals cope with stress anxiety and burnout yeah so you know I think definitely I go back to my previous suggestion which was to seek help to seek professional help I think there's there's a reason why more and more practices and organizations in the veterinary space are investing in mental health resources you know whether it is having a social worker on the team whether it is having benefits that have comprehensive mental health coverage or offering mental health benefits you know within the practice or within the programming I think it's really really important to take advantage of those resources there is a lot of evidence to demonstrate that people with mental health problems most of the time get better and they go on to live totally normal lives so to not feel that treatment is not going to be effective or that talking to someone won't be helpful

Host: but to really engage in those resources and utilize them I think that is first and foremost I think additionally you know I mentioned some of the other tools that I use there's a lot of evidence to demonstrate the benefits of regular exercise for mental health with good night's sleep for mental health so prioritizing some of those things in addition to other ancillary strategies or tools such as mindfulness and you know conflict resolution other things that we can do to mitigate some of the things that can wreak havoc on our mental health this is a really really awesome conversation as we wrap up my last question to you is what changes are improvements do you hope to see in the veterinary profession concerning mental health awareness support and overall well-being you know I would love for us to shift into a world where stigma does not exist in our profession anymore that we can really speak openly about it I would really like every veterinary professional to have access to a mental

Host: health resource or a mental health professional that is supplemented that is you know part of their part of their salary or or part of you know part of their benefits package and I would like our culture to change a little bit I think we do have a culture that is really promoting working very very hard and oftentimes sacrificing ourselves you know for the good of others and while I'm all for helping my patients and you know connecting with my clients and looking after my team I think we have to remember that if we are not looking after ourselves we can't do any of those other things so really giving ourselves permission if we need to take time to step away from work to go to a mental health appointment or take a mental health data look after ourselves that we will do that and when we are in a management or ownership role that we will give permission to our team members to do the same so that nobody will feel ashamed or shunned because they are demonstrating that

Host: they need help and that they need to look after their mental health even if it's not a physical problem that prevents them from doing the work there's enough of the mental health challenge there that they need to take steps to tend to it and that we want to be supportive of that as a whole. Thank you so much I really enjoyed our conversation today and if you like this podcast as much as I did please you know write a review for us on iTunes share it on social media and of course go to the website and you know look at the show notes and pick up a bunch of all the resources still be me again have a wonderful amazing week ahead