A Call to Action

Prefer to listen to this blog? Follow me on Spotify or follow me on YouTube. 

Do you remember that moment, that glorious moment of acceptance into veterinary school? I was scrubbed in assisting in surgery when my favorite technician came in to tell me to quickly scrub out and go into the pharmacy. There, my mom and future husband were standing with flowers, balloons and a certified letter. That was back in the day of certified letters and longer wait times. Years of study, all nighters, serious dedication and unwavering motivation all culminated in a one page letter allowing me to further my dreams of becoming a veterinarian. In that moment, I felt pure joy and happiness. I felt validated and I felt relief. 

Vet school was a blast, however, I didn’t realize at the time the profound effect the intense competition would have on me. It was normalized, applauded and led to a hunger for success over my peers. I fought so hard to get there and I needed to prove that I should be there. We were grilled in front of our peers and sometimes in front of the clients. Ultimately, I congratulated myself on surviving with the least amount of sleep, missing the least days and being able to work through and push through almost anything. 

Four years of extreme schooling later, I was a doctor. I remember thinking on my first day of work, how I had been a student just twenty four hours earlier and suddenly something as significant as a doctor, the very next day. I was in charge of animals’ lives and clients were scrutinizing me over my youth and experience. So back to the game of proving myself to the new boss, the new staff and all the new clients. I built imaginary protection to keep myself safe and keep self doubt out. But self doubt is slippery and it finds its way in no matter how tight that protection is. Self doubt doesn’t acknowledge all the accolades or graduating at the top of the class. Self doubt hyper focuses on that one case that you stumbled over. But I pushed it aside and went on to open my own veterinary hospital that ultimately was one of the largest integrative hospitals in the US. The greater the success of the business, the harder I worked. 

And twenty years later I shattered. I jolted awake one afternoon with the realization that I had to get out from under the albatross to save myself. I walked away from it all, my clients, my staff and my doctors because I had no choice. I could not continue. And I have spent the last year and a half determined to understand what happened to me, why it happened and how I can dedicate the rest of my life to helping my colleagues. 

There is no one I admire more than a veterinarian. You are a work horse, a quiet noble hero. You are everything to everyone. You are the internist, the pharmacist, the radiologist, the surgeon, the dentist and often the therapist. Perhaps you are even the business owner as I was. And you are the only professional that intentionally ends a life. You do all of this balancing your own personal load working diligently to keep those two things separate. You give everything and expect nothing. 

We graduate armed with knowledge on how to treat disease. We spend four years talking about how to recognize, diagnose and how to treat. Some of the smartest people I know are veterinarians and yet we know nothing of helping ourselves. We have not been taught to openly talk about compassion fatigue because to talk about this is to show weakness. So here I am, talking about it and calling our community to action. We can do better. We must do better. 

After consuming book after book and reading blogs and websites on compassion fatigue, I found myself at a loss. The scientific research is amazing and now we have a name for what happens to us but the recommendations for healing compassion fatigue leave me chuckling. Take time for yourself, dance more, do yoga, exercise, seek therapy. While these are amazing thoughts of self care, the speakers and writers clearly have no idea how to deal with veterinarians. Research shows us to be one of the most intensely hard working communities in professional existence. We are consumed with guilt when we step away from our jobs because who else will help those precious animals? The nature of our job is to be tough. Only when we have reached our breaking point do we finally start paying attention to what is happening in our minds and our bodies. But by that time, maybe there are already dreams of other professions and we are close to another loss in our community. This is simply unacceptable. 

So how do we combat compassion fatigue? How do we keep amazing veterinarians sane and continuing to practice medicine? First we talk about it. We acknowledge that 1 in 6 veterinarians contemplate suicide and burnout and compassion fatigue are at crisis levels. We start talking about it way earlier in veterinary school and we spend enough time learning tools that each veterinarian can come back to when needed. Or better, we create a new lifestyle that incorporates daily practices to prevent compassion fatigue. 

Join me on this journey as I begin to unfold my ideas in The Veterinary Compassion Fatigue Project so named because it will be a lifelong project of helping my beloved community and of us helping each other. 

You are not alone in your exhaustion, your anger, your sadness and your love. Follow The Veterinary Compassion Fatigue Project and if you like what you see, share it with a colleague. If you have a story you wish to share, reach out. If you have a question or thought, I would love to hear from you.     

With love and hope,

Dr. Erin Holder