We know there are many reasons for mental health challenges and burnout in the veterinary community – a high caseload, a lack of mentorship, difficult clients, compassion fatigue, employee turnover – the list goes on.

But when it comes down to it, the little day-to-day problems are often our breaking points. The last phone call of the day ends up being 45 minutes long. Being severely short-staffed on an overbooked day. The dental patient with multiple unexpected extractions and that last tooth that just won’t budge.

It’s leaving at 7 when you should have been off two hours ago. We all have these days, but we quickly get burned out when the bad days outnumber the good ones.

Preventing burnout

What do we mean by burnout? The World Health Organization defines burnout as a syndrome “resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Those two words at the end of the definition may be one of the most important factors in improving mental health in the clinic.

Successfully combating or preventing burnout means managing the aspects of everyday veterinary care we can control. Is your receptionist spending most of her time on the phone confirming appointments? Can we automate the confirmation process? What about those prescription refill requests that keep stacking up? Is there a way to streamline the approval process? Once we find ways to manage these little problems successfully, we uncover more time for what matters – taking care of pets.

Burnout in veterinary medicine can happen to someone who has been in practice for one year or 20. While many veterinary professionals are extremely happy in their careers, many of us feel burned out too. According to a survey published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 87% of veterinarians surveyed indicated a moderate to high score on the ProQOL (Professional Quality of Life Scale) assessment, a tool that helps quantify burnout. (You can find the ProQOL assessment tool on AVMA’s website).

Managing stress

This chronic stress affects the individual but has severe knock-on effects for the whole clinic. This may manifest in the quality of care, clinic morale, and lost profit. Day-to-day workflow is interrupted when team members are burned out – they are often too physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

Managing stress and burnout is both a personal and a clinic issue. As individuals, we find what works for us – exercising, meditation, relaxing hobbies, or reducing our working hours if possible. The AVMA has a list of ideas for self-care here. It’s critical to successfully manage stressors in the clinic setting too in order to prevent stress and burnout. If the clinic isn’t operating efficiently, no amount of personal self-care will completely stop workplace stress.

We cannot prevent every stressful event that will occur in our clinics. Emergencies happen. Sick pets fill the schedule. Surgeries run long. That comes with the job, and we can’t control it all. But when we find the weak points in our clinic that are running down the team – and manage those stressors successfully – we find success. We find more time. Our staff is happy and doing meaningful work, pets are cared for, and owners are happy.