Stop the Burnout Podcast

Epi 48:

Challenging Cases, Difficult Clients, & Team Tension: The Hidden Emotion Behind Veterinary Burnout

In this episode of Stop the Burnout, we’re talking about a rarely discussed contributor to burnout in veterinary medicine: anger.

For high-achieving veterinary professionals who deeply care about their patients and teams, anger often gets suppressed in the name of professionalism and empathy.

What’s worse is that unprocessed anger doesn’t disappear. It turns into resentment, exhaustion, and chronic survival mode.

We’ll explore the neuroscience, research, and real-life clinical scenarios that show why understanding and processing anger is essential to truly healing burnout, and how to start recognizing your anger as useful information and working through it in a healthy way so you can begin to heal chronic stress and burnout.

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

00:00 – Why anger is a common but overlooked emotion in veterinary burnout
01:30 – How anger signals unmet needs, boundary violations, or value conflicts
03:00 – The hidden way anger can block burnout recovery if left unexamined
06:30 – Why waiting for clients, coworkers, or management to change keeps you stuck
07:45 – Anger as a protective signal, not a professional flaw
10:00 – How irritability, sarcasm, and cynicism are subtle signs of suppressed anger
12:00 – The guilt cycle: feeling angry, then ashamed for feeling that way
13:00 – Why chronic anger suppression keeps you in fight-or-flight survival mode
15:00 – Research showing anger suppression increases physiological stress and burnout
17:00 – Neuroscience: amygdala activation, reduced logic, and cognitive fog
20:00 – How societal and professional conditioning taught us anger is “bad”
23:00 – Real clinical example: anger rooted in discomfort with asserting boundaries
24:00 – The first step to burnout recovery: identifying the true root of anger
25:00 – Why self-care alone doesn’t resolve burnout if anger remains unprocessed

Key Takeaways:

Anger is not a character flaw; it is a protective signal highlighting unmet needs or boundary violations.
Suppressing anger keeps veterinary professionals stuck in chronic survival mode and accelerates burnout.
Irritability, resentment, guilt, and overworking are often signs of unprocessed anger, not just “stress.”
The real shift happens when you stop waiting for others to change and instead examine your reactions, boundaries, and expectations.
Processing anger constructively—not suppressing or exploding—is essential for sustainable careers in veterinary medicine.

A Truth You Need to Hear:

"Anger isn’t the problem. Ignoring what your anger is trying to tell you is what keeps you burnt out."

Links mentioned:

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S2 Epi 49 Transcript: Challenging Cases, Difficult Clients, & Team Tension: The Hidden Emotion Behind Veterinary Burnout

[00:00]

Welcome to Stop the Burnout, a podcast for veterinary professionals who love medicine but are exhausted by the people, pressure, expectations, and the constant mental loads that comes with it. If you've ever thought I shouldn't feel this strain doing something I care about, you're not alone and you're definitely not. Broken. I'm Doctor Amber Parks, a veterinarian turned stress and burnout coach, and here we talk about the stuff that no one taught us, like how to actually break the stress and burnout patterns once and for all and how to stay in this profession without losing yourself. You won't find bubble baths, toxic positivity, or self-care fluff pretending to be the solution here. Let's get into it. Welcome back to another episode of Stop the Burnout Today. First of all, I have a different microphone, so I'm hoping this sounds so much better. Second, we're talking about something that I rarely ever see related to burnout, and that is anger. And if we're talking about it in the context. Of burnout because anger gets a bad rap, but it is something that we all experience and, and truthfully, I feel like we experience it potentially many times during the day if we're in veterinary medicine because, you know, it can be a really crazy case. Maybe you're not. Allowed to do certain tests and that can make us angry, right? We want to make the pet better. Or maybe a coworker is just being ridiculous, whatever, whatever that is, right? That can make us angry. So it's one of those emotions too, that because it gets a bad rap, it is. Always thought of as at least I felt this way of like, ohh, anger is bad. Like we just want to turn that off. And it's actually not bad because it's telling us a couple things. One, like if we're angry, there's some sort of situation there that we need some clarity on or we need to maybe set a boundary. Which we'll talk about. And the other thing is it also tells us that, you know, this is something that really means a lot to us. And whether it is that case that we can't, you know, the client can't pay. And so we like, Oh my God, your heart breaks for, you know, for the pet. That anger is really giving us that opportunity to do something different next time. So we're going to get into it. I'm going to talk about some studies that were done that are really interesting too, so you can nerd out on me with that.

[03:00]

All right, so starting off here again, burnout. Is not a bad thing. Now personally this is something I experienced in whatever when I was really burnt out many times and truthfully it was a big roadblock into me healing and what I mean by that is I was so angry at. Clients that weren't nice, clients that, you know, didn't have the money to treat their pet. I wasn't like mad that they didn't have money. It was more like, you know, the situation. Ohh, you got a puppy, you don't have any financial resources for it and now you can't treat it, you know, that that sort of thing. So it was like anger there, that it was anger. Towards, you know, going to practices as a relief vet and not seeing or not being able to work with, you know, the drill colleagues and coworkers, more so support staff that weren't they weren't experienced. So now I'm angry, right? Because I have to do my job and I have to do their job, which is fine. Here and there, but it's when you go to, you know, every other clinic is like that. It can be exhausting. So really the anger because it was like that and it got in my way. It got in my way of healing because I felt that because I was angry at. That client at that port, technician that was just probably never trained. And I wasn't like outwardly rude to these people, which we'll talk about too, like suppressing the anger. But it made me think that those people, the client, the coworker, whomever. Maybe management that those people had to change in order for me to be happy and that couldn't be further from the truth. And I really, when I got down to it and kind of like peeled away the layers and obviously years later looking at it, I was like, ohh, well geez, this is very obvious. Right. I was on a podcast recently with another um. Veterinary tech shoes. She's a veterinary technician that is also doing coaching and her and I were both like, yeah, we were really mad until we realized like, ohh, like the change has to start with me and how I perceive and how I react in these situations. So it was. It was very validating to know like it was very much a common theme that we both experienced, but it can very much hinder your healing for the reasons that I mentioned.

[07:00]

I also, you know, perusing the socials, if you will, but being on social media and seeing people. In forums that are designed to help us, like for burnout and stress and all the challenges of veterinary medicine, I see people that are angry, OK, totally fine. But then it's kind of like, you know, it's not the best medium for resolution. Because someone's angry and upset about something, they post about it, people comment and then I always feel like there's no resolution. Like is this person just venting or is this person like really angry and they're hoping that the situation like the person that's upsetting them changes so then they're happy and I just. So like, you have to be at a certain place of healing to want to receive that help too. Because for a very long time I was feeling like, what the ***** I'm not changing. These people are are rude, they're disrespectful, they're mean, and so they're making me angry. But why should I change? And it's not that it's very nuanced. So we're going to go into that today. OK, Number one, anger is not a bad emotion. It really we have to understand it a little bit deeper, like on the on the surface level, especially if you're on the receiving end of anger, right? That doesn't feel great. But we have to dig in. We won't talk about other people's anger. We'll talk about our own. Because truthfully, you're not responsible for other people's emotions. But it isn't. Anger isn't a bad thing. It's really almost like a protective signal to show us where we need to bring our attention to. So that could look like setting up a boundary that could look like, ohh, the situation, I feel is very unfair, whether you're in the middle of the situation or you're just like a spectator. Seeing a situation and it's also anger can be a place where effort and energy aren't respected.

[10:00]

So we either maybe have to pull back because there was a podcast episode I did. Geez. I don't know off the top of my head which one it was. But reward, effort and balance and when there is that. Balance. That's a perfect recipe for burnout. Same thing if we aren't getting that, you know, if we're giving too much energy and effort and it's not being either rewarded or respected, you know, consistently or I should say in conjunction with like how much?Energy we're giving then there's going to be anger and there's going to be resentment. So it's it's very much like a a warning like, hey, there's an issue here. We need to look into this a little bit further because that is what's going to give us that real change over time. Now the problem I have with this. With anger is that it has been labeled as just this very unprofessional. You're too emotional. You shouldn't feel this way. You should act professional and the biggest way this actually kind of kisses me off is with clients because. Sure, act professional, but and don't you know, act angry in the way like you're screaming and yelling type of thing. But that doesn't mean as someone that's on the receiving end that you should sit there and just take it and smile, right? Like you can still stand up for yourself. Set a boundary, walk away from a conversation that. People are being disrespectful or you know, they're swearing, they're yelling, they're God forbid they're, you know, making threats like don't sit around and be professional, right? Just that's done. That's over.

[13:00]

So that isn't OK. But I do think for us to show up and even if you're angry at a client. There is a way to express that in a beneficial way that you can share like what you're uncomfortable with or what is made you angry without like physically yelling at people. So it anger isn't a bad thing. It does get labeled as other too emotional and I don't think it's a bad thing. Right, like I've I've worked with people or know people that are just so. Like they're just so. Empathetic and care so much that that is great. But sometimes the opposite of that can be that that anger gets triggered and it goes from zero to 100 very, very quickly. So then, you know, there's there's that balance. So how, how does anger show up? Well, we would think that. We know what anger is, right? But when we have anger, it smolders in burnout and it does cause different things of how we feel and act that we don't always correlate specifically with anger.

[16:00]

So things like irritability, and that can be with clients. Coworkers, loved ones at home and even sometimes pets, right? Like we're not, I hope outwardly, you know, abusive to pets. But if you have like a short fuse or you've had the worst day of your life and you know your pets barking at you like that, that could be. Very triggering. And sometimes we're just like, you know, shut the hell up and you feel awful. So and so it, it definitely seeps into, you know, every other aspect. Another way that we kind of see it as maybe cynicism or sarcasm. Now listen, big fan of sarcasm. A healthy amount of sarcasm at work like that has kept me laughing through many shifts. So I don't think sarcasm by itself is anger. But you know, like, if it's this sarcasm that just has like a really negative, toxic undertone, that's the stuff we're talking about. Also, anger can show up as just like explosive reactions over small things. And then what I think is interesting for a lot of us being very hype, excuse me, very empathetic and highly sensitive people, is that when we feel anger. Sometimes like the second that like we calm down a little bit, we feel resentful and then we feel guilty for even feeling bad and having anger because we may be lashed out, which is normal because then you're, you feel bad. But it also tells you like, well, why did I lash out to begin with? Where is that anger? Coming from now.

[20:00]

Notice that burnout isn't the absence of anger, right? Like we can have burnout is very multifaceted and I think it's a little different for literally everyone, but it's really burnout happens when we have chronic suppression of anger. And again, I don't see. A lot of things talking about this and there's, listen, there's plenty of things in veterinary medicine that will make us angry on a, on a relatively common basis, right? Like daily basis even. It's not that, it's just the nature of, of what we are doing, right? Like we're dealing with pets. Their creatures, they can't talk and clients that maybe don't fully understand and don't have the financial means to do that and owners that are very stressed and that gets taken out on maybe clinic staff or coworkers who are overburdened, you know, like all these things. So anger is a is a real thing now there was some. Research that was done and. We know anger, but it also can turn into, like I mentioned, resentment. It can also, especially if you are very maybe self aware. And I tend to find this with my people pleasers because we don't think that it's safe or comfortable to like speak outward that we're. Angry and so we look inward and they're self blame. There's shame, which was my last week's episode.

[24:00]

And it we end up like almost sometimes overworking to compensate. Like if you had a interaction with someone and you kind of lashed out and then you felt guilty and bad then sometimes we almost think. Have to overcompensate for that. So we overwork and over produce and maybe kiss ***** just to like make up for it because we feel bad. So what that whole dynamic is, is really we stay stuck in the survival mode and it's that fight or flight mode. There was a research study done in 2024, this is by Alexandra Tyra, Tyra Tyra and what they found was that in This shouldn't be really a surprise, but this was a pretty recent study so pressing anger kept us staying in survival mode longer and. So it really exacerbated the physiological stress. And then from physiological stress we know. The effects on the body like cardiovascular system, you know, just your mental capacity, all those things get affected when we're. Remember in that heightened survival mode, it's that fight or flight. So with that keeping that in mind, now there was a study done in 2021 by Lee. Last name is Lee. I could not get the first name because I would probably not pronounce it right. But this was done and this is actually an interesting one. It was done on nurses, so human nurses. And it was to examine the effects of anger suppression in relation between work stress and burnout among nurses. And it's done that with nurses that were three years or more out into their career or they've only been in their career for three years or less. And it was, it wasn't a huge, huge study. It was like 454 nurses. But what they found was that anger was directly related to an increase in burnout. And they did find that when it was not suppressed and it was more in a constructive environment where you could express your anger. Not not like a smash room where you go and like break glass and and and hit things with like a hammer. It was in a in a protective and. Very much like what's the word I'm looking for like a controlled environment. So they had things within these nurses wherever they worked that, you know, groups kind of maybe like therapy or at least talking to someone like there was an outlet for it that was a healthy outlet. And so obviously they found. That there was less chance of burnout when they had that healthy outlet, especially in the newer nurses. So that was interesting. Um, hold on, let me grab a drink water real quick.

OK, sorry. So I thought that was quite interesting. And then in 2024 there was another study that was done. Yeah, Simi was the researcher. This was like a narrative review, but they found that stress dysregulates our hypothalamic and pituitary. Adrenal access, so the HPA and this just prolongs A cortisol release and it definitely was chronic cortisol. We know chronic stress, our cognitive and physical health are affected. Now I will also add in that we know when our emotions are high, which I would say. Anger is a higher high emotion. Typically it tends to like spike up really quickly. When our motion is high, our logic is low because our prefrontal cortex of our brain is that area of the brain for logic and reasoning. But what happens is when that emotion goes up our amygdala. The part of the brain responsible for really that survival mode, the fight or flight, the amygdala takes over prefrontal cortex goes offline. So we're just going by like emotion and survival. So you can imagine if you are staying in that state, you're not going to be making great decisions. You're going to have major brain fog. And cognitive dysfunction and we know, and we'll talk about this a little bit later in this podcast, but in this episode, I mean, we're going to talk about what it means to suppress and what it means to actually have an outlet. And it wasn't that they that in these studies, especially the one in the nurses, it's not that. They had anger, it's what they did with it. So that is huge. That confirms that anger isn't a bad thing. It's just what do we do with that information and that emotion, which I have to think like, I don't know. I mean, I definitely feel like there's a lot of. Societal programming and I know for myself, like childhood, growing up, like anger wasn't a good thing. Like they wanted you to be a good kid and you should behave when really it's the idea of like, ohh, we're angry. Let's like figure out why. And for some kids. Especially if you're younger, like they don't really know why. They're just like losing their mind, having a meltdown and being able to process that. Well, *****. That would have been really helpful to learn at a young age because that tool doesn't go away because we don't ever just not be angry. It's part of like the human experience, right? So that is probably a little bit different hopefully than a lot of what is, you know, the parenting nowadays. OK, So keeping in mind those studies, so we we know there's like the neuroscience behind this. This isn't just be nice and you should not be mean. And no, anger is a real thing. We know that. It's not going to go away, but it's what we do with it that is hugely important so. I think that we are, you know, when we're feeling angry, a lot of times, like I said at the beginning, it's an area where maybe boundaries need to be set. We need to assert ourselves or speak up for ourselves in some way. But. Either we don't do it in a very constructive way or we never do it because we don't feel comfortable doing it. So we just suppress that anger. So things like, you know, having maybe had a client that wanted you to prescribe a medicine. Or do something that you weren't comfortable with, but maybe it wasn't, it wasn't going to cause like any harm necessarily, but you just didn't. You were like, no, this, I'm not comfortable doing this. Like when we're in that situation, we can get angry at the client because we're like Buck, no, like we're not doing that. And either we lash out or, or like, no, we're not doing that. And there's the clients are like what? Like they don't understand or, or this is what I used to do, or we're so ******* nice that we're like, no, you know, no, that's not a great idea. And this and that and or. Shift maybe you say yes and then you like kick yourself because you don't want to do it. But for those that are like no it's fine. Like you are kind of still suppressing that anger because then I used to walk out of an exam room, clients think everything was hunky Dory and great. And now I'm pisssed and I'm angry and annoyed that a client would even. Asked me to do you know XY and Z?

What comes to mind, I know everyone probably has their own version of this, but we had a client in the practice that I worked at out of that school I was in for. I was there for a decade and we had a client who was ended up really as time went on, we found that they were like hoarders of cats. And they would always. They never wanted to spare neuter. So you can imagine. Their cast just kept replicating, but they brought in like this little kitten and they would always be like, well, we did some research and like, they were nice people, but they were very well educated, not in veterinary medicine, but so they could like they could do all this research and be like, I found this thing that we could start this. I'm like, dude, there was a study, you know, 20 years ago on a person on that, like that doesn't justify us using it in a cat. Anyway. Those are the things that I think of because I remember being annoyed. I'm like, I'm annoyed because these people keep asking me to do these things when really it was. I'm annoyed because now I have to stand up for myself or I have to tell them no and This is why. And that was uncomfortable. So I wanted the client to stop asking me so I wasn't put in those situations. So you see how, like, that perspective is different. And if we're never aware of it, we could just go on and be like. You know that clients an ******* sometimes they aren't right. Sometimes humans are in general or that person, you know, just kisses me off. And so it just goes so much deeper than that. But the cool part is we can do something about it. OK, so how do we do something about it? OK, two ways. One, we're going to talk about each of these. One, is that what I just mentioned? We have to get to the root of why the flock are we angry? Because in that example that I gave, if I, which I didn't at the time, this was years later. If I never like, dug into why that made me angry, then I would never know that it is in my power that I can choose differently and choose something that won't necessarily make me angry. Now this isn't like 100% right? We're never. Not going to get angry, but I'm talking about in the sense of burnout, especially at work when we are, I think, just overloaded with situations that can really make us angry. When we can do this and get to the root of it, this is where like a lot of this change will happen. It's also, if you've ever listened to any of my episodes, it's also why self-care is not the cure all for burnout. Because if you're angry and you just take a bubble bath, we're not we're we're definitely not processing that anger right, like. Maybe we feel better, but that's because we ignored it. We ignored the anger. We just went and took a nice relaxing bubble bath. Maybe it wasn't even relaxing because we were still amped up. But we also aren't digging deeper. Why the ***** did this trigger me? Why did this make me angry? So number one is to get to the root of why that is so why is why is that?

[25:00]

Do I feel like I’m being disrespected? Do I feel like my effort isn’t being valued? Do I feel like I’m being put in a position where I’m uncomfortable and I don’t know how to handle it? Like what actually is the reason behind that anger? Because anger is not random. It is not just like, oh I’m just an angry person. That is not actually the truth. There is always something underneath it that is trying to protect you, trying to tell you something, trying to get your attention that something doesn’t feel safe, something doesn’t feel fair, something doesn’t feel aligned. And if we ignore that over and over and over again, that is where that chronic stress starts to build and that is where that chronic stress then becomes burnout.

So the first step is awareness. It is noticing when you feel that irritation, when you feel that short fuse, when you feel yourself getting snappy or cynical or sarcastic in a way that feels heavier than just your normal personality. That is your cue to pause and ask yourself, OK, what about this situation is actually making me angry? Not just the surface level of, oh this client is annoying or this coworker is frustrating, but what is it about this interaction that is actually triggering something deeper? Because usually it is tied to a boundary that isn’t being honored, an expectation that isn’t being met, or a value that feels like it is being violated.

And when you start to look at anger that way, it becomes less scary. It becomes less something that you have to shut down immediately and more of a signal, more of a piece of information that you can use to advocate for yourself, to set boundaries, to make different decisions, or to process the situation in a way that doesn’t keep you stuck in that fight or flight response all day long.

The second piece is expression, but in a constructive way. And this is where people get a little bit nervous because they think expressing anger means yelling or being rude or being unprofessional. And that is not what I am talking about at all. Constructive expression is being able to say, hey, I’m not comfortable with this plan and here’s why. Or, I need a moment before we continue this conversation because I’m feeling frustrated. Or, this schedule is not sustainable for me and we need to figure out a different approach. That is expression. That is using your anger as information and then communicating in a way that is calm, clear, and respectful, but still honors what you are feeling.

And the reality is, if we don’t do that, the anger doesn’t go away. It just gets buried. And when it gets buried, it turns into resentment. And resentment is one of the biggest drivers of burnout that I see in veterinary professionals. Because you can keep showing up, you can keep doing the work, you can keep being helpful and caring and compassionate, but internally you start to feel more and more drained, more and more irritable, more and more detached. And that is when people start to say things like, I don’t even recognize myself anymore or I used to love this job and now everything just annoys me.

That is not because you suddenly became a negative person. That is because your anger has been ignored for so long that it has now turned into chronic resentment and emotional exhaustion.

So the goal is not to eliminate anger. The goal is to understand it, to respect it, and to use it as a guide. Because if you think about it, the times that you feel the most angry are usually the times that you care the most. You care about the patient, you care about doing good medicine, you care about your team, you care about being respected as a professional. And when those things feel threatened, anger shows up to say, hey, this matters to you. Pay attention.

And when you can start to see it that way, you stop judging yourself for feeling angry and you start getting curious instead. OK, what is this trying to show me? What boundary might need to be set? What conversation might need to happen? What expectation might need to be adjusted? That shift from judgment to curiosity alone can start to reduce the intensity of the anger because now you’re not fighting the emotion, you’re actually working with it.

And this is especially important in veterinary medicine because we are in emotionally charged environments all day long. Sick patients, worried clients, time pressure, financial constraints, team dynamics, ethical dilemmas. Of course anger is going to show up in that environment. That doesn’t make you unprofessional. It makes you human. What determines whether it contributes to burnout or contributes to growth is what you do with it next.

So as you go through your week, I want you to just start noticing. Not judging, not trying to fix immediately, just noticing. When do I feel irritated? When do I feel that internal tension? When do I feel like my patience is thinner than usual? And instead of pushing that away, just take a moment and ask, what is this trying to tell me right now? Because that simple pause can be the beginning of breaking that automatic stress response that keeps you stuck in burnout mode.

And over time, the more you listen to that signal and respond to it in a healthy, constructive way, the less it has to scream to get your attention. Because emotions get louder when they feel ignored and they soften when they feel heard. And anger is no different. When you acknowledge it, understand it, and use it appropriately, it can actually become one of the most powerful tools you have to protect your energy, protect your boundaries, and ultimately protect your ability to stay in this profession in a sustainable way.

All right, that is what I have for you today. If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to reflect on where anger might be showing up for you lately and what it might be trying to protect. And if you want support working through this, that is exactly the kind of work we do inside my coaching, helping you understand these emotional patterns so they stop running the show behind the scenes.

Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you in the next episode of Stop the Burnout.