Why Are Veterinarians Unhappy? Webinar Recording and Transcript

Absolutely. Thank you, Ivan. It’s an honor to be here. I’m excited to be hanging out with everyone today. So I’ve been in veterinary medicine since 2004, and I have my bachelor’s in Marine Biology and then transitioned over to this incredible field and got my credentials in 2012 officially.

I’ve worked all throughout the industry, lab animal to large animal, and throwing some good Marine creditors, just for fun. But my passions are truly emergency critical care and education. I found a true niche in training, coaching, and growth and development within the veterinary teams. So I absolutely love our veterinarians and I’m really excited to speak to that today, but also our veterinary technicians, nurses and assistants, those integral members of the team.

And that’s why we founded Empowering Veterinary Teams back in 2019 to really make sure that we work together to inspire, instruct and make a positive impact of the change.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you very much, really excited and honored as well to be here. I think it’s a really important topic for our profession, it’s probably as important as ever. It’s time to actually dive into it and have a discussion, I think, unless we talk about it and spend a lot of time listening, we can come out the other side. 

I’m a veterinarian. I have a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Washington State University. So over 26 years now in the profession, which it’s unbelievable that it happened that quickly. I have a master’s in business administration as well.

In my current role at BluePearl, we have over a hundred hospitals throughout the country, and over 7,000 associates. I spend most of my day on the business side, but really more focused on the most important asset, which is each and every associate within BluePearl. Some of the things I’m most excited about that we’re doing is our initiatives around health and wellbeing, equity, inclusion, and diversity.

I’m really excited about career pathing and really having the profession be a place where you can have a career and not just start your career, but start it, have a middle and finish your career in this great profession. And then finally, very excited about what we need to do in our profession to really make a better world for the planet through sustainability.

Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ve got to say, it’s very humbling to be here surrounded by these incredible people, really doing some meaningful, compelling, and impactful work in our profession. So my name’s Josh Vaisman, after over 20 years of experience in this wonderful profession, I have this crazy idea that all that veterinary professionals really do deserve to be sustainably fulfilled by their work.

And we at Flourish Veterinary Consulting, believe that positive leadership is really probably the top conduit to make that kind of thing happen. So what we do is we take the science of human thriving, using my background in applied positive psychology and some other things, and we combine it with evidence-based leadership approaches to empower veterinary leaders with the skills to cultivate workplaces in which everyone can really thrive. That’s kind of our spiel. That’s what gets us up in the morning. 

Sure. I think in particular, the past year, which felt like 10 years rolled into one for everyone, has definitely impacted our veterinary profession significantly. I know the curbside and transitioning to all of that, less contact, but people are at home and they’re looking after their babies a lot more than they used to.

And some may have waited or been okay to maybe not deal with this, now they’re coming in and the ERs are slammed just like human ERs. That’s not at the forefront in the news field. Right? So we don’t hear about what is all happening in the veterinary essential workers experience.

And the 10 hour days are 14. And the 14 hour days that usually happened when you did a 12 hour shift are 16. And the work-life balance is not there. And also a part of it is the isolation on different fronts. Because we don’t want to complain at work because everyone’s going through it.

And we can’t necessarily complain at home because we’re actually getting out of the house and some people aren’t, but you know, I don’t know about those of you that have significant others, but I think I totally burned my family out on hearing stories about what I had to deal with at the practice.

So it’s just flow and flow and flow. And there hasn’t been a real conversation that has evolved into action. For those wellbeing and mental health pieces, they’re only starting, you can feel momentum and the emphasis is growing, but that hasn’t really been at the forefront until the past two to three years.

And it has impacted everybody. What we do is an emotional experience. It’s not just a mental profession, it’s mental, physical, and emotional, and that takes its toll over time. 

Yes, I think that what Alyssa is saying is incredibly insightful and, and very accurate.

I feel like the people in this profession are some of the most resourceful, resilient, capable of evolving, talented, skilled, and passionate human beings that I’ve ever met. And I think we’ve done a really excellent job of taking those resources to bear and using them to find ways to meet the needs of the animals and the people that we serve.

And that’s really awesome. We’ve done a really, really good job of doing that. And in doing that, we’ve sort of neglected as a profession, as a community, using those incredible skills and traits and characteristics to also find ways to meet our own needs. And I think that’s sort of the next step in our evolution.

I think part of the problem is that we’ve put so much of our resources into meeting the needs of others that we’ve lost out on finding ways to meet our own needs as well. And I feel like that’s sort of the next evolutionary step of the profession that we’re going to need to take to not just taper down, but really turn around this, these statistics that you saw there, all of the people that are leaving in droves, that makes sense.

There’s not a ton, but I’m going to break it down into three pillars, or three big rocks. The first rock: the current state we had is what we’ve been talking about. But let me take a step back. When I went to veterinary school, most of us on this call today, it was purpose-driven.

We went there to make a difference. We went there to be inspired by the human-animal bond, to do right by people and their pets as part of their families. And we then jumped into the profession as a profession that needs to grow as a business. I think we’ve lost our purpose, a little bit of why we come to work every day.

Yes, it’s about the number of cases you’ve seen, the number of surgeries you’ve done. Yes, we need to be fiscally sound to be able to rebuild the profession and to create the facility improvements, the quality improvements in innovation, to give back to our people so that we can have a sustainable profession.

But the purpose isn’t a fiscal purpose, it is much more deep than that. It’s about caring for people, for each of all of our associates that provide the care, caring for them first. And knowing through that, we can give ourselves to people and their pets, pet parents and pets. So I think that’s the first thing – we have to get back to the basics and make sure that what is our purpose in each one of our hospitals each and every day across the country, whether they’re part of a larger organization or privately owned, we better refine and not forget why do we come to work every day? And let’s make sure that’s personal because being personal is productive. 

Part two – let’s talk about 11+ million new pet households, already a very stressed system with not enough veterinary professionals to provide the care. And then you add on top of that, the pandemic and our clinicians, our teams, not just clinicians – technicians, customer service stars, by the way, hospital leaders, by the way, have been, I don’t know if we spend enough time talking about the pressure they’ve been under to try to keep their team alive through all this.

So I think that’s another area to look at is that they started off this pandemic with just being afraid. We kind of got through being safe. Part two then was this, I’m calling it not acute pain, but chronic pain, like a chronic headache that went on for a year with no relentless. It just kept coming, coming to come.

And I was, I was in Minnesota this week and we have an internal medicine team there. The next available appointment is June 8th. What do you think happens if their next available appointment is June 8th? They’re getting backdoored into the ER, which further stresses the system. 

And where I sit today is: we need to be okay with setting boundaries. We must set boundaries. It can’t just be about saying yes to every single patient that comes through the door. We have to be okay with pausing service. We have to be okay. And that’s where the leaders have to give you permission to do that because the oath we took starts to affect us. Am I doing the right thing? How could I say no? But if we don’t say no, we’re not taking care of ourselves and we’re going to wake up one day with a profession that is incredibly fractured and the time to solve this is now. So boundaries and permission to have boundaries. 

And part three is we must start talking about mental health. Talking about mental health doesn’t mean you’re crazy. No, everybody on this call today has mental health stuff. And I look at it in three areas. We must listen, we must then participate. And then we must demonstrate by our actions that we’re going to engage there. And I think by understanding purpose, making sure that coming to work has meaning to set the boundaries and being okay that we can’t be all things to all people. That’s how you’re nobody to no one.

So let’s talk about mental health. Let’s listen, let’s be a part of this because the third phase, as I said, phase one is fear. Phase two was chronic pain, phase three, where we sit today and we’re feeling it at BluePearl is what I call kind of the post-traumatic stress disorder.

We finally are sitting here and saying, well, what about me? What about my life? What about my family? What about my health? And if we’re going to really keep this industry from being fractured for years to come, that’s how I look at that question and how we start to get our ways out. 

And it’s going to be a collective effort. It’s not going to be BluePearl just doing it. It’s all of us. It’s a better world for ALL. And that’s where I see that’s, that’s the commitment that I want to make. And I want to partner with other leaders to get us there.

Sure. I am not a millennial, I’m 44, but my wife is 37 and she just discovered a new phrase, which I’ve never heard before. Apparently there’s this new terminology called geriatric millennial. 

So to answer your question, about generations and different modalities of motivation. I don’t think that there is a generational norm for motivation. I think that human needs are human needs regardless of the generation that we come from. And when those needs are met, you know, Nick touched actually on some of them – the need for connection, the need for relationship, the need to be heard and understood, the need for safety, the need for experiencing meaningfulness, seeing the value of our contribution feeling as if what we do and who we are actually matters in the world.

These are all basic human needs that fit everybody, whether you’re 15 years old or 85 years old. And so, you know, actually playing off a little bit of what Nick was talking about. I was listening to those three pillars, Nick and I was nodding my head through the whole thing with what it sounded to me like, was that you were talking about relationships, you were talking about taking the time to actually talk to each other, to understand each other, to hear each other, to listen to each other.

And that is what I really think about when I think about business. I think that all business endeavors, whether it’s in our profession or manufacturing – all business is relational, it’s all human there. There’s no such thing as a business outcome without a human being driving it.

I think the best way that we motivate people is try and look past the stereotypes that we may have, you know, preconceived based on their age and actually sit down and talk to them. You know, tell me about a time when, when you felt like what you did here matters. How can we help you do more of that? Tell me about a boundary that you have, if you could just increase it by 10%, and its efficacy or veracity, it would have a really big impact in your life. How can we help support you in identifying that boundary, sharing it with the world and then really honoring it. 

Those are all relational things. And I think that it really comes down to more on that individual level, and finding ways to embed that in our practice, whether it’s an independent, small practice and you’re the one doctor owner. And you’re just having these conversations with everybody who works with you. Or you’re BluePearl, and you’re training the trainers, you’re coaching the coaches – the people who are on the ground, developing those relationships, you’re empowering them with the skills to do just that. 

I have one thing to add to this is that I thought it was funny as well. I’m 51 so I’m definitely not a millennial and I’m not a geriatric millennial. I bring that up because I think the other piece to this: 61% of BluePearl clinicians are millennials. I believe that millennials actually are helping us. They’re not more prone to burnout, they’re just more vocal about what their needs are. They’re just more vocal about what is work-life balance and more vocal about my benefits and more vocal about my teammates and more vocal about how far can I go? And I actually would say that the millennials come in at an incredibly important time because we need to listen to what they want – that is the answer.

And then part two is me being in the X generation in the room, we also have to break down the past from the present. We have to find ways to find a common brand, the genius at the end, not the tyranny of the “or”. It’s not about what generation is better, who stands for what. If you really get into a collaborative conversation, each generation has something very special to give and each generation has challenges. But if we can collectively come together as leaders and build those bridges, find ways to come together to find that common ground. I believe that’s in part lies work-life balance, and then in part lies the challenges we face with not being happy, usually not being happy means “I’m not feeling heard.”

And it’s hard for me to practice gratitude each and every day, because ultimately in my life, happiness comes down to the daily practice of gratitude, and I think we have to have gratitude for each other and gratitude for differences. Discourse and differences is incredibly important to drive innovation and change.

Well, it’s definitely a more in-depth answer than a simple yes, that’s for sure. It comes down to the numbers. 10.9% of the entire veterinary profession is women. And then if you’re looking at more numbers and specifically to the United States, 57.2% are female, or identify as female. It’s a lot, right? The pay gap is still prevalent. There’s $5,000-10,000 in salary differences per year.

And you also have to look at the support teams too: 90% of veterinary technicians, nurses, and assistants identify as female. So with those numbers, the response to burnout and things is going to be higher. It comes at a very poignant time to ask that question, too. Definitely you’re seeing that shift, that more women are leaving the workforce universally, not just in our profession, but everywhere. So are they more impacted by it? Those of us that are mothers, I have two small humans and, you know, fur babies as well, and that adds a strain to it.

It’s definitely something different in how women interact and how we have conversations. It’s different. Yes, we should all be universally the same, but we’re not, men and women do not communicate the same way and we don’t emote the same way. It’s about that educational process too, for each other and on our teams.

So do I think someone who identifies as female is more prone to burnout? Yes. I can feel that very, very deeply and keenly, but I’ve also had dear friends that are not, they identify as male and it hits them hard too. So I think it’s very “practice to practice” and “individual to individual” conversations.

So, like I said, it’s not a simple yes or no. It’s definitely something that you can see being more prevalent due to the numbers, but again, because it’s a more commonly had conversation within that gender group.

I’ll keep going if you guys don’t mind. Look at this incredible group of people, look at us. We all look the same. That’s our profession, the numbers again: 85% is white. I think you have to start with ourselves by being self-aware and recognizing that we need to educate ourselves and what we show up for and that we do so authentically knowing when to speak up and when to listen. This includes knowing the differences of like token hiring versus true diversity. Equity and equality are not the same thing.

There’s this amazing visual where there’s three people trying to look over a fence and they’re all different heights given the same size box. It doesn’t work. That’s equality, everyone’s given the same thing, but the shortest person needs three boxes to see, then it levels the playing field.

And then inclusion is not simply an invitation, like yeah, come to the dance. That’s great. Who’s asking them to dance? We need to break the stigmas, we have to start truly celebrating all of our differences and being a true ally, not just for the optics. You know, are you doing the work? Are you reading the materials? Are you understanding how this all started and how we are a part of the problem, but then can be a part of this solution? Making sure that we start there. Because really, we can’t do the external work if we haven’t done it internally first.

And then it’s time to ensure that all of these principles are integral to each practice’s culture. And if we’re talking in our profession, work with the Multicultural VMA, the Black DVM Network, Native American Veterinary Association, you know, Latinx Veterinary Medical Association, all of those.

And there’s still more, and I’m not trying to miss anybody, but you have to get the language. You have to be there authentically and honestly, and recognize that you have to do the work. And it’s not going to happen if you don’t put the effort in, and then you have to maintain this. First, as people are joining the team, and then ongoing team growth and development. I’m a part of a bunch of organizations that are working towards this. Self awareness is the key, first recognizing that there is a problem. And having those conversations and not stopping there, putting them into action and owning what our role in this process is and then recognizing when it’s time for us to step back and shut up and let the people have the conversation that needed to have their voices heard. 

I’d love to respond to that. But first I want to ask you a question. Why did you want to become a veterinarian? 

I really liked that sort of aspect of it. That’s awesome. Thank you. Thank you for taking that impromptu question. Yeah, I think what you’re touching on is for so many people, we set these big, bold, audacious goals, like becoming a veterinarian and there’s, it’s not just about becoming a veterinarian. It’s so that I can contribute, so I can accomplish this, so I can live out my strengths. Goal setting can be a really, really powerful tool to both motivation – the kind of motivation that results in what we call subjective, vitality, that feeling of a liveliness, that feeling of energetic newness and fulfillment.

We can do a much better job in our profession of helping all veterinary professionals really set and work towards and achieve impactful goals. However, we need to do a better job of making sure that those goals are meaningful to them so that they can see and experience that contribution so that they can see the impact they’re having, they can see why working towards this and accomplishing this actually matters in a meaningful way.

One add. I said it previously – it has got to be personal. And I would also add one other aspect to that: we’ve spent our whole life being veterinarians, but it’s not just about goals around veterinary medicine, what about personal development?

It has to go to personal development and that can be part of the veterinary profession, by the way. There’s a lot of things around my communication style or how nervous I’m around others. Like there’s a lot of things that can really better our lives that we can use at work and also in our personal lives.

I like to look at development as 70% doing, 20% mentorship and 10% formal. And when you really look at the 70% “doing”, then it really puts the onus on the individual. And then as leaders, how do we get intentional and deliberate to really lean into our people? Because all of a sudden now, you don’t leave an organization and leave your immediate boss, and now we can make it easier to be a boss.

And I don’t like the word “boss”, I just say that in quotes, but how can we be that right mentor, that right support? That 70/20/10, making it personal and making sure that doesn’t just have to be about goal setting around the next certificate I’m going to achieve, or then it can be much more than that. It’s really about building out a more well-rounded culture of veterinarians, that isn’t just about the profession itself. 

I also want to add one other thing to what Alyssa said about diversity, equity and inclusion, which I think is really important: we have to recognize and be comfortable with unconscious bias because we all have unconscious bias. Now you can take tests at Harvard right now, and it’s actually depressing some of the stuff that you get, but unless you’re willing to go there and recognize that we’re not all the same. And we really support each other on the journey to say, “Hey, you know, you need to really be my accountability partner. I’m not seeing this, help me through it, let me get through this pain.” Then I think we are going to normalize. And that’s how I think you look at equity, inclusion, diversity. 

And ultimately to me, the final piece is belonging. And I want to get to a place where you feel like we belong. And the order to belong is we have to all be recognized for who we are.

We also have to recognize who we’re not and be given grace to go through the journey together because the unconscious bias is real. And that grace that we have to give each other to get through is why it takes a village and why community is so critical. 

I think it makes a lot of sense. What you’re talking about is exactly what we’ve been building up to through this conversation. It’s about personalizing it.

It’s not about tying any sort of goal to some sort of compensation, it’s above and beyond that. It’s about having a conversation, “Ivan, what’s important to you right now? What’s your next step of growth? Where’s the direction you want to go? Where do you want to be in three months? What do you want to be doing? And then how can I partner with you to help you get there?” 

This is that culture, purpose, connection and belonging – making you feel like you do actually matter, your goals matter to me, I’m not just here to be your boss. I’m also here to help support you in achieving what you’re trying to achieve in career and life. 

And I love what Nick was talking about, about making it truly personal. At Google, they have this wonderful thing, it’s a document called the One Simple Thing document and a lot of their managers are trained on doing this. They have routine one-on-one conversations with their reports and the One Simple Thing is often used on a weekly basis: Hey, what’s just one simple thing you’re trying to do this week? And it’s intentionally built around nothing to do with work. So you might say, well, you know, I’m really trying to get to the gym three times this week. Great. Now I, as your manager know that you’ve set that as a goal for yourself, and now I can check in with you throughout the week.

Hey, it’s Wednesday. I know you wanted to get to the gym three times this week. How many times did you get there? Well, actually I only went once on Monday and I don’t really think I’m going to have time to do it again. And now as the manager, I know this about you and I can go talk to others on the team and try and make arrangements so that actually today you do have a 90 minute lunch and you can go to the gym over lunch and help achieve that goal. 

And yes, I totally agree with you. I think if we’re having those conversations, if we’re discovering what matters to people and how we can be there to support them in achieving those things, absolutely can make a massively compelling contribution to their overall sense of happiness and fulfillment.

Perfect. One interesting thing about the goal setting and the KPIs, because when people hear KPIs, they just go, “Whoa, you’re gonna measure me again?” And your article in DVM360 was very interesting about different types of KPIs.

I love the way you put it into the balanced scorecard because we’ve been using a balanced scorecard in business for over 40 years now. And the whole definition was: let’s stop measuring the business based on the financial metrics. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing in veterinary medicine. There’s almost zero, and I work with multiple consolidators, there’s almost zero that are measuring as a part of their productivity how well they interact with their people. Everybody says that they’re taking care of our people. How do you measure that? So what are your KPIs on people growth? What are your KPIs on feedback from your people? And you know, you can’t put KPIs on that. Running the NPS score or the feedback from the technicians that work with a particular veterinarian. There could be a surgeon that drives a couple million dollars of revenue – get the feedback from the nurses that surgeon works with. You might not get such positive feedback.

So it has to be the balance from your clients, your employees that work with each other, and then the financial metrics – that will create a balanced scorecard for the organization. 

I think that’s extremely valuable, which leads to a question about the safety and psychological safety at work. The one thing that we’re not very good at in any environment and one of the huge triggers of burnout, according to Maslach, is the breakdown of the community in businesses and when there’s no candor feedback loop or training.

So Josh, that’s probably a huge part of positive psychology, the psychological safety. Can you add to that? 

We have a question. Are there any practical steps to implement this positive psychology and psychological safety at the workplace?

That’s amazing. If you want to learn more about these things, you can contact our wonderful guests. This will be a shameless plug for Josh: contact him and find out what he’s doing at Flourish Veterinary Consulting, or Alyssa at Empowering Veterinary Teams. Or you can go and work for BluePearl.

That’s amazing. With that, thank you guys. That was very empowering and interesting and insightful. So thank you for finding the time. You’re very busy people and hopefully our audience liked the webinar.