Epi 60:

[00:00:00 - 00:05:00] Why Changing Clinics Does Not Fix Burnout

What if some of the things you've been told will fix burnout in veterinary medicine are actually the exact things keeping you stuck? Like thinking the next clinic, different job, vacation, or a better schedule will finally make you feel okay, only to find up- end up carrying the same stress, overthinking, and emotional exhaustion with you anyway.

In this episode, we're getting into the biggest misconceptions that keep veterinary professionals trapped in these burnout cycles, and more importantly, how to actually start changing the way you process the stress and move through these difficult situations without spiraling and overthinking. So if you're ready to get into this juicy conversation, I'm going into the details on how to actually do this.

Come on in.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Stop the Burnout. It's another week, it's another day on the socials, the social media, and I was perusing, as I do, as one does, social media recently, and I just keep seeing stuff, and it infuriates, I guess, is a strong adjective, but it does infuriate me to see these common misconceptions about stress, about burnout, as well as the healing and recovery process for that.

And I thought it would be great to do an episode on the common ones that I hear and see, and why they're misconceptions, as well as what actually is the solution and what works. So we're gonna talk about kind of the top three that I see, and I'm sure you have, too, the most and really break down, like, why do these things, why do they have a misconception essentially?

So jumping right into it. All right. And we're gonna take all these together, and then I'm gonna go through to the end and tie this all together and give you the solutions for how to work through these. Okay. So number one is so many of you, g- goodness I've done this too, so you're in good company, but so many of us, I should say, feel like we just have to find the right clinic, the right workplace, the right management, the right w- insert whatever in vet med.

So we will, and I've... Okay, again, I've done this. So we'll go from GP to ER, 'cause maybe ER will be better. And then we're in ER and we're like, "Maybe we should go back to GP. Maybe it'll be not as chaotic and emotional." Or we go from a privately-owned practice to corporate. Maybe they'll have better benefits.

And then we're in corporate and we're like, "Oh, my gosh, maybe private is better and they're not all about the bottom line." Or we're like, "Nope we're gonna leave clinical practice. That's gonna be the solution. And if I just don't have to deal with clients then I'll be fine." And I understand where this is coming from, right?

It makes sense. We're trying to... Our human brains like to get away from the painful part and go towards something that might be actually pleasurable or at the very least neutral, right? Not painful. But the problem is a couple things. One is that, yes, toxic workplaces, they exist, absolutely. Which some would argue there's more toxic workplaces in veterinary hospitals specifically, is what we're talking about, than there are non-toxic ones.

So if th- if that logic is true, right, if you're using that logic, then why do you feel like going to another practice is gonna be the solution, right? If we're playing statistics here, um, I'm pretty sure I took that in undergrad. I actually did pretty good. I don't remember any of it, so I really couldn't tell you if what I'm about to say is g- is correct.

But statistically, if you, if most places are, if you feel like most places are, are toxic, if both, most workplaces are toxic, then most likely the next one you go to is going to be as well, right? So even with our rationalization, that actually doesn't make any sense. And I don't think, I don't think every place is toxic.

I think toxic is, I mean, obviously it means different things to different people. We won't get into that in this episode. But we wanna zoom out a little bit further, right? The environment that we're in as far as working matters, absolutely. So if you're short-staffed, you know, there's inexperienced, your team members are inexperienced, whether that's doctors or, you know, technicians or assistants, and there's not any training for any one of those people, like, that's gonna be challenging for sure.

But yes, part of that, you know, everything kinda trickles down. So what does management, what does ownership look like? Why are, is that, a potential for, like, a short-term problem, and there's a long-term solution? But the problem that we easily forget we're always trying to look external because the same thoughts keep rattling around in our brain.

And so we feel like, well, if we can find an environment, also known as an exterior environment, right, it's, like, not in our brain. If we find an exterior environment that is better, then our experience should be better, right? The problem is, and you have, if you listen to my other episodes, you may have heard me say this, but we tend to as humans in human nature recreate the same experience in the next workplace.

So in my relief career, I've worked at many practices. And so I would see I'm laughing because, like, I don't know if you've worked in more than a few places, you might have experienced this too. But I'll go into a place, and they're, like, stressed, and they're like, you know, everyone's super stressed. And oh my gosh, this is crazy.

We're slammed. And I'm looking around like, "Okay, I don't like to be slammed either, but this isn't that bad." You know, like, I've seen some shit. Not to say like, "Oh, it could be worse," or, "You need to get your shit together." It's more like, okay, what your bandwidth is and what you're used to, it doesn't matter what the exterior environment is, you will recreate like the same level of chaos because there's always those people that they'll have, one or two appointments waiting for them, whether that's a doctor, a technician, and they're stressed, right?

They're like gonna lose it. And then you have other people who have five appointments waiting for you and a walk-in, an emergency cat in respiratory distress, and they're like, "All right. Wow, we're getting busy." You know? Like it's...

 

[00:05:01 - 00:10:00] Recreating Chaos and Familiar Stress Patterns

So the environment, is it a factor? Yes. Is it as much of a factor as we think it is? No. Our brains love to recreate the stress and the chaos because that is what's familiar, not because it's helpful. So when we go into any environment, it could be in vet med. It doesn't have to be in vet med.

I'll give you an example. You probably have maybe known someone like this. But if you ever had a friend who is, dates this person and I'll just... I have someone in mind. But they date someone that's a... You know, they date a guy, and they're like, "Oh my God, he's so perfect. He's so great." And then, you know, after the honeymoon phase wears off, they're like, "Oh my God, he's crazy," and, you know, he's whatever, insert whatever adjective that they usually say.

And yes, there's part of this that like they may be seeking the same type of person over and over again, right? There's a lot of attachment styles. There's a lot based on our younger years and what we were exposed to and our experiences, et cetera, et cetera. But sometimes when those same people find themselves in a stable, amazing relationship, it's quote-unquote boring, and they might self-sabotage.

And they don't realize it, but they can create chaos because that is what they're used to, not because that is really what is going on, but because things that are unfamiliar can feel uncomfortable, even if they're boring. I know this like makes no sense, right? This isn't the logical part of our brain.

This is the survival part of our brain. So you will create that in another environment at work. It's the same thing. So you can have really supportive staff, coworkers, management, and yeah, maybe for a short term. This is the same thing. That's why there's like a honeymoon phase, right? Many people are at a job for the first month or two like, "Oh my gosh, it's so much better."

I'm so glad I'm working here. And then after that time, they're like, "Ugh, no." Like, this person is-- you know, they just start the same narrative all over again, and it's because we're used to that chaos. So the misconception that if we just find the right job or practice is a misconception because it doesn't really matter when we get down to the nuts and bolts of it.

If we are still the same person trying to process the stress in just a different environment, we'll recreate the same thing over and over again, and it's because our brain has learned these patterns and how to process situations to keep things the same even though they're familiar and they're unhelpful, right?

So that's the chaos part. The second misconception here is that our stress that we experience, the emotions that we have, the thoughts that we have, right? Think of, like, just a really busy day in clinical practice and you're like, "Oh my gosh, it was just so crazy today. That client was just so exhausting, and then we had that really sad case, and then we had... You know, we were short-staffed."

And so we start to look at this as though the events are what is causing our stress, our emotions, and our thoughts, right? Because many times, the same or similar stress situations will cause the same type of outcomes for the same people, right? I'm sure if you've got some great coworkers, you guys experience the same craziness.

You're like, "Oh my God," like obviously it's the events that cause it. Which yes, many times there are, right? But everyone's baseline is a little bit different. So the rationale is, well, let me get away from these events, these stressful, emotional events. But this is also why you can have two people that experience the same situation, maybe a crazy overscheduled day with being short-staffed, but some of them just have no problem.

It might be stressful, but then they work through it. They don't even think twice, and then the other person is completely spiraling for days after because it was just so chaotic. So what I want you to realize is that our stress, the emotions and the thoughts that come from those events, whatever those events are, whether they're happy, sad, stressful, whatever, it's where we make a determination and essentially we make a narrative, if you will, about what that means.

So really when we're having, like, any sort of emotional suffering, it's coming from our interpretation of the events, the meaning that we give it, the judgment that we have about it, or even, like, the assumptions of that as well.

So we're really looking at this two different ways. Number one is we can have a thought, and thoughts aren't necessarily bad, right? They're just things that come into our brain. The challenge comes in when we have a thought, and then we start thinking.

So these are two different things. When we start thinking, that's when we have some sort of judgment or interpretation of the story about what is happening.

So what I mean by that is you can have a client, let's just say for an example, that is, you know, maybe they're really challenging, and they're asking a lot of questions, right? But they're not rude. They're not being mean. They're not throwing a fit. They're just asking a lot of questions.

So your thought could be, "Okay, they're asking a lot of questions."

But when we start thinking, our thinking part of this is, "Oh my God, this person's high maintenance. They're so annoying. Why don't they get it, any of this? Why do they keep asking me the same questions just in different ways? Don't they know that I'm busy?"

All that, right? And most of the time it's negative 'cause the thought is really a neutral observation, but our thinking most of the time is, is not helpful stuff. But we're trying to make it make sense, and a lot of that is based on our previous experience too.

So this is how, though, situations affect us, and certain situations affect certain people in different ways.

So I'll give you an example. I worked, this was, like, four or five years ago. I did a couple shifts at an ER in South Florida, big practice. It was to put it lightly, fucking chaos. Like, I had been in practice for, I don't know, ca- fi- 12 years at that point. Like, I wasn't new. I'd worked ER. I worked general practice. I was, had been a medical direct- Like, I'd mentored all the things, right?

And I, um, was working this shift, and I just got to the point, it was an overnight, two overnights in a row, that I was like, "I don't, I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel."

 

[00:15:00 - 00:17:59] The ER Shift That Pushed Me Into Panic Mode

And I, um, was working this shift, and I just got to the point, it was an overnight, two overnights in a row, that I was like, "I don't, I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Like, I was in panic mode. Pets just keep, kept coming in. There was an entire ICU of 20-plus, um, post-surgical patients in ICU. The, that ICU ward had five-plus technicians just for that ward, and I was- You know, taking and receiving ER patients coming in, working them up, either sending them home or hospitalizing them.

It's just me, one doctor, and I have five certified technicians in the ICU. I have four to five technicians doing intake, right? And even on the overnight, their front desk, they had three or four receptionists. Why the fuck do you have one veterinarian?

And, it's like a newer computer system I'd used only a handful of times before, and everyone uses it a little bit different. And when I got there, it was already chaos. I should have known.

So I was, like, in straight panic, which by the way, I worked two overnights. I was supposed to go back in a couple of weeks, and I literally told them, "I cannot return because this is, like, a potential threat to my license," because I had minimal control over...

Like I, you know, you write records, you see shit quickly, whatever, but this was, like, literally pushing the brink of my sanity.

And, um, they were actually very understanding, which should have told you something because I'm sure I'm not the first one to do that.

Anyway, I also ended up in the hospital a day after I got home because I was so fucking stressed that I caused myself to have major GI issues.

Anyway, so but getting there, right? And then working the overnight, and then in the morning, you know, it's just so funny 'cause you have, like, surgery and ICU and then intake. Like all those people, all those different doctors come in and I'm rounding them. I'm like, "Do you guys see there, there's three of you and one of me?"

Like in theory, yes, overnight's supposed to be what? Slower? Sure, but you saw your whole fucking hospital.

Anyway, um, so my thinking at that point was like, "Holy fuck, this is insane. I can't believe I just did that and I have to come back tomorrow."

Like I, I canceled my shift three weeks after that, like three weeks from there, but it was the next day, right? I didn't want to leave them hanging.

And, um, my thinking was, "Oh my gosh, I'm like all the things," right? "I'm a bad doctor. I'm gonna get in trouble because I'm gonna miss something because it's inevitable at this point. I can't do this. I-- Who the hell thought that I would be able to do this?" You know, all the, the things and the judgment about that situation.

 

[00:18:00 - 00:19:59] How Your Thoughts Shape Stressful Situations

But then I look at the other doctors, and they were busy, but like they were rolling with it like no big deal, right?

So the situation didn't change. It was the thoughts that happened around it, right? 'Cause they're probably fucking used to it. And I thought I was used to a busy ER, but that was, um, that was like borderline not good patient care, to say the least. So it was also very, very weird.

I yeah that's for another episode.

So all this to say that- We try to get away from the events and the environment because we think that's how we'll be less stressed, we'll have sanity, we won't be stressed or feel emotional and angry w- and frustrated about things, right?

But again, w- we're assigning a meaning to a situation.

So this is also where our nervous system is learning from past events.

So honestly, after that shift, two shifts, I had worked at other ERs around me years later, and it literally, like, still triggered that feeling of like, "Oh, I'm going to this ER. I've never worked here before. Like, is this gonna be the same fucking thing I dealt with before? Is it gonna be a shit show?"

Right? And I would be stressed, like fight or flight, sweating, you know, all the things.

And it's because my nervous system was learning or had learned from these past events essentially to be prepared for that, okay?

But then I see other people just waltzing in, it's no big deal.

 

[00:20:00 - 00:22:29] Why Self-Care Alone Doesn’t Solve Burnout

So when we do that, though, I want you to realize that because that, because... And this is human nature, right?

Because our experiences and the story that we assign to situations and events, then things like self-care, I know you've heard me say this a million times, but I... This is a hill I will- I'm willing to die on.

Self-care and kind of like regulating yourself is not gonna teach you how to look at those situations different, right?

Like, for me, I remember when I was working in that South Florida ER, I was like, "All right, Amber, like, just pull it together. Get it together."

It's like two hours into my 14-hour shift.

And so I went into the bathroom, and I'm like peeing literally trying to like take deep breaths and pull myself together.

And then I, you know, went out there and obviously just tried my best.

But doing some deep breathing in the bathroom for 30 seconds, like, that wasn't gonna help me.

What I needed to do was to know how to tell clients no. And even maybe, you know, tell the front desk, "I'm not seeing anymore."

'Cause it was one of those things that by the time I realized how fucked I was, I was fucked. You know, like things were here and coming in, and by the time, you know, I wanted to wave the white flag, it was like I was screwed.

So but I didn't know how to say those things, right? And I didn't know how to literally put my foot down and be like, "I don't fucking care if you m- make me leave right now. In fact, I would love that. But I'm not seeing anymore."

So that's where having that script, those- ideas and concepts of how to say things like that are way more helpful than self-care.

Like, let me go, you know, just take a a stroll around the block in my spare time and do some deep breathing.

Like, yes, I get in theory that is great, but that doesn't work when you are the person in charge and you have all this riding on you, your license, and you're trying to, you know, single-handedly hold up a hospital, if you will.

 

[00:22:30 - 00:24:29] Grounding Techniques vs Real-World Communication Skills

And, insert whatever role, you know, manager support staff member. It doesn't matter, right?

If, if you don't know how to actually handle those things and what to say and what to do and to be able to zoom out in those situations, then it doesn't matter.

I know I said last week I had saw a when I was doing some research for the episode, I came across an article that was saying, like, we should, have veterinary practices be like the, this bougie hotel and all these other customer service-based industries, including Lego, okay?

If you haven't listened to that, go back to listen to that episode. I was on another, on another level after that.

But anyway, I also came across this well-known corporate practice that I saw, I don't know when the date was. It was after 2022, so it's not that old.

But they were basically like 10 things to, like, prevent burnout.

Number one was remember your why, which enrages me anyway.

Remember your why. Why are you here? We all fucking love animals. We want to help them. That is not going to help prevent me from burnout.

In fact, I could argue it would do the opposite, right? Because we'll keep going because we want to help animals.

Anyway, but another thing on the list was, like, grounding techniques, you know.

And I know this is a common one that we use for people that have anxiety and in, you know, in therapy. It's the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You know, five things you can see, four things you can, smell or hear, whatever. Grounding techniques.

Are those good? Sure, absolutely.

But when you have Karen in room two losing her shit because it's taking so long, I don't think that Karen's gonna want you to go through the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding technique, right?

No. No, 100%.

 

[00:24:30 - 00:26:29] The Real Goal Is Returning to Baseline Faster

What would be more useful? Knowing what to say to Karen and also then knowing how to let go of whatever Karen's gonna say to you so that you don't take it home with you at night, I think I would go for option B.

So that's, that's what I mean about, like, the self-care stuff. It's a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. We need to go deeper.

All right, third one.

Third misconception is that we should, because of self-care, right? We made it look real simple. You have stress, you do the self-care, and then you're not stressed. Okay, it's not that cut and dry ever.

So if we approach things thinking we should never be stressed, we ne- should never feel emotional or anxious or overwhelmed, we will always be disappointed, right?

I think the problem comes in, not I think, I know 'cause I live this. The problem is we want to not feel this way so bad, like we want to not feel stressed or anxious or overwhelmed so bad because we have felt stressed, anxious, overwhelmed for so long.

So the opposite isn't no stress, no anxiousness, no overwhelm, and I say that because it's, if that was feasible, then go for it. It's not.

The opposite is to be able to, like, return to baseline so you're not stressed, you're not anxious, you're not overwhelmed a lot faster, okay?

So it's not that these negative emotions are the enemy. It's just how long do we let those emotions affect us?

So think of, like, kids or toddlers, right? They fall or they, a kid takes a toy away from them. They lose their shit, right? They're crying like their world has ended, and then 15 minutes later, they probably didn't even remember it, right?

 

[00:26:30 - 00:28:29] Stop Sitting in Your Emotional Spiral

So it's not that we... and it's a, I am not the one to speak on childhood development, but they are not, it's not something where we want them to never experience that, right?

'Cause they have to learn like, "Oh, okay, I can share my toys," or, "The world doesn't end when someone takes my to-" you know? Like, we, there's a learning process there.

So it's not that the negative emotions are wrong. Just how, how long are we gonna sit in our shit and feel those emotions, or can we feel the emotions, learn from it, but move through it faster?

And that should be the goal because I, and I'm sure some of you out there listening, and if you are, please listen to me, this came from personal experience.

I know that I hear a lot of times from people like the client shouldn't be rude, and management should get their shit together, and the doctor that I'm working with doesn't know their ass from their elbow."

Okay, yep, that can very well be the case, but the longer that you sit in your shit and are miserable, you're literally only hurting yourself.

Does it make it okay that the doctor doesn't know anything, that management is clueless, you know, that the client was rude? Yeah, that sucks, right?

But that doesn't make or break their day. They're just gonna keep on going with what they're doing.

So wouldn't it feel better to like, "Oh, this is the, re..."

Sorry, that was my dog.

"The reality in front of me. How can I move through this? Not only how can I move through this so I don't sit in my shit," as I say, "but how do I also now prevent, potentially prevent," right?

Nothing like this. We can't hold on and speak for other people and hope other people do all the things we want them to, but next time I'm in a similar situation, how can I prevent that from happening again or potentially reduce the severity or the length of time that that happened, right?

 

[00:28:30 - 00:30:00] Your Freedom Comes From How You Handle Stress

So maybe I can talk to a client differently so then they're not fucking rude, or we fire them, or I say something to management, right?

So it's, again, not the negative emotions that we wanna run from, just how long do we want it to let it affect us?

So that's why, though, things like the toxic positivity and avoidance, we're not processing any of that negative emotion. We're literally avoiding it, and sometimes we do avoidance by trying to change jobs, so going back to the first misconception, or, and/or changing careers, right?

And a side note on that, too, I don't know. Say you go and you work in a bakery, right? Whew, gotta be a little less stressful, right?

Maybe. Maybe until Stacy comes to pick up her wedding cake and it's not done right, and she's losing her shit, right?

Are you gonna then say I can't be in vet med, and I can't be a baker. Moving on," right?

It's how we deal with the shit that we get put in front of us. That's where your freedom is, and I, I always tell people, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be free?"

Sometimes you can be both, but it is much more valuable to be free because you can do that for yourself.

No one else can do that for you. I can't even do that for you. I can give you the tools to do it. But again, self-care isn't gonna show you where you are viewing these situations and how you're viewing these s- potentially negative situations, and it's not gonna give you the roadmap for how to move through these.

 

[00:30:00 - 00:31:30] Why Burnout Solutions Fall Short

So all of these things, right, are the-- I think, VetMed approached burnout and chronic stress with the intention of getting awareness and ideas and concepts out there, which is great, right? But it fell short when we came to the solution problem, because a solution is for things that we're not teaching people, like tangible ways to really kind of process the stress and overwhelm and negative thoughts ourselves, as well as then how to, actually do things like talk to certain people and the things to say to get your needs met and hopefully not have it happen again or make it much less likely or much less intense.

So if this is like, you're like, "Yeah, no shit, this makes a lot of sense," right? "This is clicking, Amber." Great. These are the things that those tools like, how am I gonna talk to Stacy? Even if you're a fucking baker, right? You need to know how to talk to Stacy so you don't go home that night and you're trying to, you know, have dinner with your family, and that's all you can think about.

Or, Karen that's upset because the appointment's taking too long or she waited too long. How are you gonna talk to her, and how are you gonna try to get to the root of the problem so that next time it's less likely that that happens again? And whatever that looks like, right? Maybe that's firing Karen.

Maybe that's telling management, "Listen, this is what I can do, but I can't do these things." Or maybe it's something else, right?

 

[00:31:30 - 00:33:15] Introducing Vet Your Thoughts Mentorship

So all these tactical, tangible strategies that no one really teaches us is exactly what I'm gonna be teaching. My new group mentorship called Vet Your Thoughts is launching at the end of the month, and I'm so, so super excited.

Just give me thirty seconds to chat about it because honestly, if you're not listening and part of this, you're crazy. And I would even argue that you're going to repeat your burnout cycle if you don't get into this program.

So real quick, this is gonna be a six-month group mentorship, okay? So this is for anyone in veterinary medicine that You are ready to break this burnout cycle. You're done just trying to have good days, take a vacation. You feel better for a day or two, and you come back and repeat the same cycle and wonder why you're in this profession, and you're in six figures of debt, right? Okay, yes, we're gonna go through that.

So things like, you know, how to really, like literally, as cut and dry as it is, but how to deal with people and have conversations like this, whether it's clients, coworkers, colleagues, management, whomever, and also how to have less self-doubt so you can trust your decisions. You're not overthinking them when you go home at night, and how you can start to move through those negative emotions a lot quicker so that you can have that resiliency and potentially, you know, regardless of what is happening in your environment, in your workplace, it's almost like putting up this little energetic guard around you of like, "Nah, I'm, I'm not subscribing to this shit," and how to do that, right?

 

[00:33:15 - 00:34:45] Building Confidence and Emotional Resilience

'Cause that's all the stuff that we learned so much in school and in training, but yet the stuff that like dealing with people and the emotional gymnastics and mental gymnastics that we have to do to get through just a typical shift in vet med, that's exactly what I'm teaching.

And, you know, clients that I've worked with, we have helped them. Like some of them have not-- actually, most of them have not left their jobs or their roles, but they are in a place where they feel more confident. They don't have that self-doubt. They're not dreading work. Like how would that feel, right? 'Cause most of the time we're spending more time at work, more waking hours at work than we are at home or with our families.

So this podcast episode is launching today, right? So this is Thursday, May 14th. The VIP wait list, which is what you wanna get on, um, the program isn't open yet. To get on the VIP wait list, it's free to get on the list, right? So get on the list.

 

[00:34:45 - 00:36:00] VIP Wait List and Final Thoughts

It is only-- The VIP wait list is only available until Sunday the 17th, and you can get the link in the show notes here. If you're on Instagram, you can follow me at dr.amberparks, and you can DM me the word wait list, or you can go to my website, thestressandburnoutcoach.com/waitlist to get on that wait list.

And for those who are on the VIP wait list, you'll get early access to look at the program and decide if it's the right thing for you to sign up. And if you do sign up, you get a free one-on-one coaching session with me as part of that VIP bonus. So it's a win-win. Why wouldn't you, right?

So if you have any questions too, you guys can hit me up on social media at-- on Instagram and send me a DM or, You know, you can, if you're on my email list, you can hit reply to any of those emails and I can answer any of the questions you have.

But this is exactly what we're gonna be going over. And the, this is an intimate group coaching, so it's not gonna be a huge number of us. So there, it is capped, so I can't let everyone in. So make sure you're on the VIP wait list. That way you get the first in and first access to view the program and sign up if you'd like.

All right, guys, I hope this was helpful. I hope to see you in this Vet Your Thoughts group coaching mentorship. Like, it's gonna be amazing. I'm so, so super excited. And it's a live mentorship and live coaching. This isn't a course that you buy that you do in your spare time, right? This is like real tangible things, things that are going on in your career and your job, and those are the things we're gonna flesh out and get the solutions to in our group coaching.

So I hope to see you there, and I will see you on the next episode.