Your Best is Enough
Today’s blog post is not on the topic I’d originally planned. In general, the InspireDVM blog will be a place to find practical tips aimed at making your job as a veterinarian a little easier. I want to share ways to increase your efficiency so you can leave work on time, techniques for having difficult conversations more effectively, hacks to ease decision fatigue… you know, solutions to the kind of stuff we’re up against every single day that, when it piles-up, just makes everything harder. In fact, I’d already drafted a blog post for today on taking control of what you can (don’t worry, you’ll get that content sometime, and it’ll be good, and practical, and implementable, I promise).
But today, given what’s going on in the world, and how it’s impacting veterinary medicine, this just felt more important. If you’re reading this after the fact, it’s August 20th, 2020, we’re in month 6 of COVID-19 restrictions where I am here in Canada and I know in other countries it’s the same, give-or-take a few weeks. It’s been a long haul, and there’s no end in sight.
You’ve adapted remarkably well to the changes, you went from practicing veterinary medicine the way it’s always been done, in-person with your client and patient, to having little-to-no direct contact with your patient’s owner, advocate and voice. You’re wearing a mask much of the time, which blocks many of the necessary visual communication cues we normally read in facial expressions. Suddenly there are no ‘easy’ appointments anymore. Routine vaccine appointments and elective surgeries have been delayed for now, in order to conserve personal protective equipment and make room for urgent and emergent cases. And they just keep coming. For reasons nobody can pin down, our patients are sicker and our cases are more complex. There are lots of theories about this—owners are home more with their animals so they’re observing more subtle signs of illness, people and pets are stressed by the lifestyle changes we’ve all had to adapt and that stress is unmasking underlying disease… Whatever the causes, across the board, the practice of veterinary medicine has become a whole lot harder. The systems we had in place to make our days manageable and our schedules reasonable have been abruptly removed and replaced with what feels like complete chaos in order to try and meet the needs of our patients.
You adapted, literally, overnight to this new way of practice, and now you’re waiting patiently for things to settle down. You have no expectation of returning to what you were used to, but you know the current pace is unsustainable. You are being asked to run a marathon, of unknown length, but you must do it at a sprinter’s speed. You are understandably burnt out and yet, you get up and you keep going, because you are committed to taking care of your patients.
The veterinary community is working hard on this issue. From the national and international organizations that represent our profession, to the support groups on social media, to colleagues chatting ever-so-briefly between cases, we are brainstorming solutions. We are trying to figure out how to work this new system. And, I have no doubt whatsoever that we will. I am hard-pressed to think of a profession that is as adaptable and resourceful and resilient as veterinary medicine. Both individually and collectively, we are problem-solvers, and we will figure this out. But in the meantime, how do you, the individual practitioner who’s been giving more than you’ve got, whose reserves are depleted, and who can’t see when this is going to end, how do you keep getting up and doing this every day? How do you keep from feeling that if you can’t do more than is humanly possible, you’re letting someone down?
I would like to offer you this: you are doing your best, and that is enough. Your best is all you can do, and it’s exactly what your patients and your clients and the world need from you right now. Your best will include mistakes, long wait times for patients, referral of cases to colleagues you know are also overwhelmed. You may be short and impatient in your interactions with team members—you don’t want to be this way, but it’s all you’ve got left. And I know this: you did not wake up this morning thinking, “I’m going to just put-in a semi-okay effort today,” That is not what veterinarians do. Since you realized you wanted to be a vet, you knew it was because you wanted to give your best to your patients. Through vet school and working in clinics, you realized that giving your best to your patents involves a lot of work with people too. And so, you committed to giving your best to your clients and your colleagues as well. You are as patient, understanding and collaborative as you can be at all times. Take responsibility for the mistakes, the long wait-times, the moments your communication is not as polished as you want it to be. Apologize when it’s warranted, but then let it go and move on. Please, please, please stop beating yourself up for not being able to do more, help more, be more. You are enough, you are doing enough.
So, go forth, and do your best. Trust that the veterinary profession will rise to this challenge and figure out how to continue practicing in a way that is sustainable. Talk to your friends about your struggles and your solutions. Talk to me if you want—I’d love to hear from you! I welcome stories of your tough moments and your wins at jessica@inspireDVM.ca. But don’t spend your time wondering what you could have done differently today, or yesterday. As we all navigate these changing circumstances, there’s not a thing you could have done differently, because you showed-up and did your best.
With kindness and understanding,
Jessica