Stop the Burnout Podcast 

Episode 79:

When Vet Med Becomes Your Whole Identity, How Do You Know If It’s Time to Leave?

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You’ve spent years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a ridiculous amount of blood, sweat, and tears getting here, so of course vet med can start to feel like your entire identity. And when you don’t know who you are without it, leaving can feel less like changing jobs or careers and more like an existential crisis.

This episode gets into the juicy details of how to tell if you’re truly done with vet med or if other factors are make leaving seem like the only viable option.

We’re getting into the specific and thought provoking questions you need to ask yourself before you make any changes, because “I need to get the hell out” and “I’m genuinely ready for something new” are not always the same thing.


What You'll Learn In This Episode:

  • [03:00] Why leaving vet med without clarity can recreate the same chaos somewhere else.

  • [04:00] How tying your career to your identity can make leaving feel impossible.

  • [06:00] Why burnout and survival mode make big career decisions harder to evaluate objectively.

  • [10:00] How to recognize whether you still genuinely enjoy parts of veterinary medicine.

  • [14:00] Why fear of losing your title or identity can keep you stuck.

  • [20:00] The question that helps separate what you hate from what you still enjoy about vet med.

  • [25:00] Why being good at veterinary medicine does not mean you have to keep doing it.

  • [27:00] Why your career does not have to be your life purpose.

  • [29:00] The specific questions to ask yourself before deciding whether to stay or leave.


Key Takeaway:

  • [04:00] When vet med becomes part of your identity, leaving can feel like losing part of yourself.

  • [16:00] Burnout and chronic stress make major career decisions harder to evaluate clearly.

  • [25:00] Being good at veterinary medicine does not mean you are obligated to keep doing it.

  • [27:00] Your career does not have to be your purpose or define who you are.

  • [30:00] If you could redesign how you practice veterinary medicine, would you still want to leave?

  • [31:00] Ask what you are afraid of losing if you leave, and whether those fears are driving the decision.


A Truth You Need to Hear:

“You do not have to keep proving your commitment to a career that no longer feels aligned.”


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www.thestressandburnoutcoach.com

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S2 Episode 79 Transcript:

When Vet Med Becomes Your Whole Identity, How Do You Know If It’s Time to Leave?

 

[00:00:00–00:01:00] Burnout, Identity, and Leaving Vet Med

 

Burnout and chronic stress can make leaving vet med feel like the only option, especially when you've been a veterinarian or a veterinary professional, and that has become a huge part of your identity. So on today's episode, we're gonna dig into how to tell whether you're truly ready to move on from vet med, or whether it is your current environment, the patterns, or even just this version of vet med that needs to change.

And I'm gonna share some important questions to ask yourself before you do. Let's get into it. 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 load that comes with it. If you've ever thought, "I shouldn't feel this drained doing something I care about," you're not alone, and you're definitely not broken.

I'm Dr. 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 bath, toxic positivity, or self-care fluff pretending to be the solution here.

Let's get into it.


[00:01:00–00:03:00] Making Career Decisions From Burnout

 

All right. Welcome back to another episode of Stop the Burnout. I did a episode a couple weeks ago, oh, it's probably a month ago at this point, and, we were talking about how to consider moving out of vet med or is leaving vet med the right choice, all, all that good stuff. And you guys really liked that episode.

So I thought I would dig into a little more detail around that. So we could talk about this for weeks because there are so many different avenues of what this looks like and what it looks like for everyone, it- it's gonna look different essentially. There is no right or wrong answer to this.

I can't tell you what that answer is, but what I want to do is to give you the parameters to look at your situation in front of you and look at it as objectively as possible because when we are coming from a place of being burnt out and in chronic stress, we, as much as we maybe do or don't know this, we can't really make this decision as objectively as we should be because many times we're just trying to get away, right?

We're trying to, escape the misery. Nothing wrong with that, but the problem is if we're leaving a situation without identifying truly why we are or, and/or what we truly want, we're going to recreate the same chaos in another job or profession because we just think whatever we want is not what we're experiencing.

And then when we go to try and experience something different and we end up being like, "Oh my God, this is all the same," like you hear, "Oh, all the clinics are toxic," et cetera,


[00:03:00–00:06:00] When Your Career Becomes Your Identity

it's because we are still trying to experience environments in the same way. Or in addition, a lot of times we haven't really rested our brains enough to approach- The task of maybe leaving vet med or finding a new job in a way that really suits us, and we're just trying to be like, "Okay, this looks halfway decent.

Let's go." So I wanna try and help you do that today. Before we get into that, the biggest piece that we have to recognize, and I see this, guys, I see you out there on social media saying this, and I have to say I was probably this person, not probably, I was this person at one point, but the problem is that when we associate our career or our job with our identity, it- there's a very fine line there because when we associate it with it is us, then we think if we're trying to leave, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place because this is our identity, this is who we are, but I can't do this anymore, so I wanna leave.

But if I leave, then who am I? And so we stay stuck, and we stay miserable. So the first thing is that, yes, I'm not gonna say that this doesn't res- resonate with many of us because whatever position you are in in veterinary medicine, we, especially just from personal experience as a veterinarian we took a large part of time of being a veterinarian and pursuing our education.

So it is, in essence, a certain aspect of us. It is who we are. We spent a lot of time, money, energy, tears, blood, sweat, and tears to do it. So the problem, though, is that we feel like if we consider leaving that- Then our, ego part of our brain comes in and says this is who we are. Is this really the right choice?"

And we second-guess, and then we're like, "Well, yeah, this, what else would we do," right? I don't wanna go back to school. I can't take out, hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans again, so I'll just stay here and be miserable, and this is who I am. So what I want you to ask yourself is, is that part of...

Truly ask yourself, is this part of what keeps you stuck? And some people might say, "Nope, I have no problem leaving. I'm just looking for what can still pay my bills and isn't that bad." And that's fine, too. But also recognize that we wanna, again, do it from a place that feels really aligned and isn't just a fight or flight survival mode or making a decision from survival mode, okay?


[00:06:00–00:10:00] My Transition Out of Clinical Practice

 

So to give you a little context, I'll share some of my story as well. So for those of you who don't know, I left clinical practice it'll be almost two years ago the end of this year. I was part-time when I started doing coaching in '23, and then about a year and a half later, I left. I don't share this a lot if I can't explain the nuances to it because, and this is right my, my hang-up, is because I don't want people to think that, "Oh, she burnt out, then she left practice." That's not how it happened. I burnt out, yes. There are some other episodes if you haven't heard it. I share some of my story. But I burnt out, stayed in practice, recovered, and then that meant for me didn't feel aligned, and I knew it wasn't aligned when I was making almost a quarter of a million dollars a year, made my own schedule.

I took, I don't know, eight to 10 weeks a year off. I usually worked three, maybe four days a week, if that. And, and then obviously I was working at the practices that I wanted to work at 'cause I was doing relief work. So I literally had, I would say as, as perfect of a schedule as I could have, and I still was , "This isn't lighting me up." So if I worked at a clinic I didn't like, I didn't go back.

If I said, "This is my rate," and they said, "We can't afford you," I said, "No worries. Let me know if you wanna use me in the future. Moving on." Now that I'm thinking of it, I don't think there was any place that I ever worked that when I gave them my fees, and I think, I don't think I was, definitely wasn't the most expensive, but I wasn't, I know I wasn't the cheapest.

I never worked at a place that was , "Oh, well, we can't afford you, but what about this?" And I would, "No,", moving on, right? So in theory, right, this sounds like that would be like a pretty sweet deal, and it was. For me, it was when it didn't matter where I worked, who I worked with.

I did enjoy working with many people. I'm still in touch with them today. Met some really great colleagues and technicians who I adore and really did make work enjoyable, but it wasn't that. It was to the point that, I got very bored. And I did ER, I did general practice, I did urgent care, small animal obviously, and I was really bored with it.

And I truly felt, I still feel this way, and it's no shade to anyone, but I always say if I ever went back into practice, I would do more integrative medicine, so I'm in Florida in the US, we have a lot of allergy dogs and cats here, and I felt like I could not solve any of these pets, right?

We'd put them on meds, they get better, they come back, and I'm "Oh, I just don't feel like I'm getting to the root of this." And I have a, Canine and feline board certification specialty in the species, so diplomate American Board of Veterinary Practitioners, canine/feline practice.

So in that, going down that road, I learned a lot. I enjoyed learning and studying for those tests. Took me about three years from start to finish, but I still felt like, "Okay, but like what else?" And many of you might be able to resonate with this. Also, after the fact, learning that I was neurodivergent, I was like yeah, this tracks."

We ask "Well, why this? Why this?" It got very boring to me, I guess, is how I'll put it. And I had some health issues. My pets had some health issues all at the same time related to where we were living. I'll share that story hopefully in the next month or two. Organize that podcast.

That's a fun one. So I really found I was getting disillusioned by the way that I was treating pets, and it didn't align with who I was, and I am not only not lit up by this, I'm ... It's re- It's like a, it's a pull, and it's a... And I had already started my coaching business, so you know, I kind of took the leap.

Anyway, I say that because I know many of


[00:10:00–00:11:00] What Still Lights You Up in Vet Med

 

you listening truly enjoy vet med, and you like the surgery, the cases. Some of you really like client education or training and all that stuff, and I don't want you to let that go away. That's telling us a lot. It's telling us what things still, light you up. So I share that because I think that there is many of you out there that do really enjoy vet med still, and I want you to really lean into that, and I commend you i'm not judging anyone by any means. In fact, please keep practicing veterinary medicine, especially if you love it.

We need you. But I do think we have to look at, what I would not want is for you to really love vet med and still wanna leave, because we're leaving for maybe the wrong reasons, and then we end up going into something that doesn't light us up, and then we feel regret because we still really like vet med.

So that's why I share that little piece, but again, it's kind of hard to deliver that information on social media, the nuances of my story. So that's why it's like you don't hear me say that a lot because there's no context around it.


[00:11:00–00:14:00] What Happens to Your Identity When You Leave Clinical Practice

 

So going back, a little bit, when I was going through this transition out of veterinary practice. This is funny. I was at my mailbox, and Someone was driving down the street. I live in a cul-de-sac. And someone's driving down the street, and the speed limit is slow, right? And this person's driving slow, and I just had that feeling like this person's gonna stop and ask me a question.

Never has that really happened. I wave to neighbors, move on type of thing. And so I turned around, had my mail, walking back to my house, halfway up my driveway, and this person stopped, naturally, and they said, "Hey, are you... Does a vet live here?" Or something like that. I'm like, "Oh, boy." Which purposely I did not tell people who I was when I moved in seven years ago.

The person that I bought it from, though, told some people, so unbeknownst to me until I moved in. I said, "Yeah," "That's me." "But I don't practice anymore." They're like, "Oh, you're not a vet." And I said, "No, I'm a vet. I'm not in clinical practice." And they're like, "Okay, so you're not a vet."

Oh, for the love of God. and so part of me was like, "Amber, let it fucking go, right? You're making it your identity, and you're getting pissed because they don't understand." But the other part of me was like, "Do you not understand all of that veterinarians do?" The ones that aren't in clinical practice, they protect your food sources, they prot- right?

Like we know all those things because we're in the profession. And so that was the part that kinda angered me 'cause I'm like, "No, we're all vets." It doesn't mean you have to just be in clinical practice to be, quote-unquote, a vet. So anyway, it was just, they were like, "Oh, okay." I could tell they didn't understand, and I was like, "But please don't come ask me questions."

But that's the other thing is that's been my out of like, "Oh, I'm not in clinical practice anymore," and they're like, "Oh, okay" if they wanna ask you a clinical question, so you could always use that. If you get asked pet questions, and you'd rather not have that conversation Because, and I just have to laugh because I'm like, oh yeah, because the second I left clinical practice I forgot everything I've ever learned, right, in my education and in, a decade and a half of clinical practice.

But it's just funny 'cause people don't get it. Anyway, I share that because it was really hard for me to say, "Okay, this is my identity," and then not be in clinical practice and feel kind of like you were the kid that didn't get picked for kickball at gym in school, in like middle school. I'm still part of the class. Can you just pick me? , Which honestly, side note, I'm curious if you have left clinical practice, I would love... Send me a DM,, or email. I'm really curious to know your experience because Overall it's been fine, but I definitely have felt from some veterinarians oh, you're not in clinical practice?

Like, you can't be part of this group. And I'm thinking to myself like, all right, guys. Or literally


[00:14:00–00:15:00] Is Your Vet Med Identity Keeping You Stuck?

 

is this gym class in middle school? Really? And especially when it comes to like social media and groups and stuff like that, and I'm like, wow, okay. So anyway that's what I want you to look at.

Speaking of social media, I have seen many times people are posting like, "I can't leave vet med. It's my identity. It's who I am. I don't know anything else and... But I'm burnt out, I'm exhausted, I'm..." Et cetera. And I'm like, guys, we don't have to have a death grip on this, okay? It can be your identity in the sense that- You enjoy it, it's part of your li- It doesn't have to be all of it, though.

And I think what happens is when we have this fear of losing the certainty of who we are, that's when we are like, "Ugh, I can't do this," and we kinda pull back because it's all we've known. Our ego jumps into our brain and is "Yeah, but if you left, what are you gonna do? Then you wouldn't be seen as a doctor.

You wouldn't be seen as a vet." And we've spent decades and


[00:15:00–00:18:00] Fear, Uncertainty, and the Sunk Cost of Vet Med

 

hundreds of thousands of dollars and sleepless nights and all the things to get to where we are. So vet med is what we know, and the unknown is something outside of vet med, and that can really produce that uncertainty, and then that's where fear comes from.

So that's when our brain comes in, "Ugh, are you sure you wanna do that?" So we get in stuck in the in between, and we always wonder, well, we wanna leave, but we feel like that identity piece is really challenging for us. And if you haven't, go back to, I think it was, episode 74 where I talked about this, but this idea that we've put so much time and energy and effort into something that we have to keep doing this thing because we put so much time and energy into it, and it's called, I think it's the, cost sunk fallacy, and essentially that is not true.

But again, I think a lot of our societal conditioning has told us that, oh get good grades, get into a good school, you get a career, you live your life, you get to, at least in the US we've been told this, right? Get to whatever age you retire, then you can enjoy your life. Like, what? So it feels very out of character, out of the norm to put all this time, money, and energy and then not go, not continue to go through with the profession But there is that neuroscience piece because the things that are uncertain for us feel uncomfortable, and that's where fear comes in.

Just because, not that it's a bad thing, it's just something we don't know. And when we don't know something, our brain is, "Well, you sure you wanna do that?" It really starts to second-guess ourselves. So you can imagine if we're burnt out and we're chronically stressed and exhausted, our ability to be like, "Yeah, we're gonna go for this thing.

We have no fucking clue what we're doing. Yeah, we're just trying to get through the day." And that's the problem, is we're trying to make, this big career decision with our brain that is in fight or flight survival mode, just trying to make it till 7:00 PM tonight, or, the end of your shift. It's not gonna go well because we don't have that capacity to truly make a decision that is aligned with what we want next and not just, "I don't care what the fuck is next, it just can't be this."

So there is the neuroscience piece behind it. It takes a lot more energy and capacity to look at unknown things and go after it, especially when we don't have the capability and capacity to do that. So know that it does feel hard, especially when we're in that really rough place and we are very burnt out.

There was a study done in actually February of this year where they looked at healthcare workers, so I think it was mostly human healthcare workers. But essentially they found that- Healthcare professionals, their identity isn't fixed. It's not like you become a doctor and


[00:18:00–00:20:00] Why Burnout Creates Black-and-White Thinking

 

then it is this thing.

It's something that we build and we reinforce and we actually do revise over time, and that's dependent on, our roles, our experience, our circumstances. So I say that because it's something that you can change. It's not, "This is my identity, I can't do anything else." It's always a fluid thing based on what we're doing, our experiences, like I said, circumstances.

So what I do think is challenging is when we are in that all or nothing feeling, we tend to see it as black and white. It's either I'm in vet med or I'm not, right? And so no wonder it feels really hard to make this jump, because it's either X or it's Y. Like, that's how we look at it. And again, when we're in fight or flight, that's how our brain is working, right?

We don't have a lot of... We can't see the gray in between. We can't see all these potential opportunities, because we don't have the capacity. You've heard me say it before in many of my episodes, but I'll remind you again if you haven't heard it. Our prefrontal cortex, it's the part of our brain that is responsible for emotional regulation, decision-making, critical thinking, problem-solving.

That goes offline or is very less likely to be playing a huge role when we're in fight or flight. Our amygdala, our fight or flight part of our brain, is activated. That's great if a bear is chasing you but if it just means pulling into the parking lot at work, that's hard, because you can't really look at situations very objectively and critical thinking, because that part of your brain is like, "Dude, we're just trying to get through the day."

So I wanna, want you to remember that, and that's why things can seem very much it's this or it's this, and you're like, "But I don't like either of these options. I don't like vet med," and then leaving feels uncomfortable, so we stay stuck.


[00:20:00–00:22:00] What Is Actually Making Vet Med Hard?

 

Okay. Now, I want you to think too, if you're thinking about, "Okay, I gotta get out of vet med."

I see a lot of your posts on social media. You're like, I don't know. I gotta get out. I can't do the clients. I can't do management," or, "I can't do," "the colleagues," or whatever. What is it, truly ask yourself, and maybe sit with this for a little bit, but what is it about vet med that makes it hard for you?

And before you say, "Oh, it's the clients, the colleagues, it's the leadership, corporate," whatever, truly ask yourself though, if you took that away if whatever you just named that was really, really hard for you, if you took that away, would you still enjoy your job? And I'm not saying, like- Yeah, but I've tried that.

No, that's... Don't even bring that into the picture. Name the things that are hard for you that you're like, "If this could not be there, then I think it might be more feasible." And then ask yourself, "If I didn't have those things, would I still enjoy my job?" Because I do think there's a lot of us that truly love vet med.

We love every aspect of it, but there are certain aspects that, again, if we can't see... I can't do-- I can't talk to clients, they're exhausting, And that's part of the job, so I just need to, leave this clinical practice or I need to leave the profession altogether. And I see you out there, okay?

I see you posting stuff on social media. "Hey, I can't deal with clients anymore. This is ridiculous. I can't deal with my manager from a corporate practice. I wanna get into industry. Where are the jobs?" Okay, hold on. That escalated quickly. It may not feel that way because you've probably been feeling like that for a while.

But again, let's try and if we're gonna leave clinical practice or we're gonna leave vet med altogether, let's go to something that lights us up, not something that looks slightly less painful than what we're currently experiencing. Because


[00:22:00–00:24:00] Why Changing Jobs May Not Change the Pattern

 

if you said, "Well, it's clients it's my leadership team, it's coworkers," guess what?

You go into industry, you're still gonna have the same fucking thing. Your clients now, though, are practice owners, right? They're other veterinarians. So yes, it's gonna feel like, "Oh yeah, but I don't have to do this." Hold on. Again, it's gonna be really hard to look at this objectively, so that's what I want you to really ask yourself.

Now, people that also say, "Oh, go into relief, it's, it'll make you feel better if you're burnt out." Okay, first of all, I thought that. I did it, and I'd say the first year I was like, "Oh my God, this is so good." And then it really felt like the same feelings come up like, "Oh my God, does that practice manager think I'm an idiot?

Are they gonna ask me to come back? Are they gonna tell me that they need to cancel my shifts 'cause I fucked up a case?" All that shit still comes up, and it doesn't matter where you work. And even though technically I'm not their employee, right? We're like, "Well, they write us a check, and this is... You know, what if I mess that up?"

So all that shit still comes up. Sure, do you have more control over your schedule and, where you wanna work? Yes. But I also know you guys out there are gonna be like, "Well, what if that clinic cancels? What if they tell the other one? What if I have no practices to work at, right?" Yes, that is the fight or flight energy, so when you're gonna approach it from that, you're gonna be fucking panicking, so it's not helping you.

That's why we need to get clear on what we truly want before we go make changes, not let me get to something that feels less five percent not as painful and then it'll be fine, right? This is why we keep recreating the same situation just in a different environment. Now, the other thing too is if we don't do this inner work on, truly how we see ourselves and our self-worth, if we're always allowing others to dictate how or what we are as far as, our


[00:24:00–00:27:00] Self-Worth, Being Good at Something, and Your Purpose

 

self-worth, then it doesn't matter where you work.

'Cause you could be a fucking, I don't know, doing blown glass, okay? But if your manager was like, "Pfft, that's as good as you can do?" Or someone comes into your shop and is , "I don't like these," and you're like, "Maybe I'm not good at this," it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're doing a fucking cat spay or you're doing blown glass, okay?

It is, we're always looking externally. I shouldn't say always. Many of us look externally for that validation. Does it feel good when you get it? Yeah, absolutely. But where we wanna change is when we don't get it, does that cause us to unravel? Does that cause us to not feel like we can do the things that we want?

And that's where we have to get clear. Now- The other couple things here, so I wanna just remind you though, on the flip side of that, going back to that cost sunk fallacy, being good at something doesn't necessarily mean that you have to keep doing it. Because you can be very good at your job. You can have your zone of excellence, meaning you're very good at something, but you don't enjoy doing it.

And I experience this a lot from family members that are like, "Yeah, but you're good at this." And I'm, "First of all, how do you know that I'm good at this?" You are not in the profession. You're not in healthcare. I tell you stuff, but that, that's like coming from me, and I share tough stories, but also you have a very one-sided view of this.

So I'm thinking to myself like, "How do you really know that I'm good? You don't really know that." Have I been told that from people that I work... Yes, but still. The other thing, though, is to that point, even if you are good at something, that doesn't mean you need to keep doing it. So that's where I want you to remember.

The other piece of that is that many times we think if we... what's our purpose in life? I wanna be a vet and save animals. Okay, great I wanna remind you too that sometimes our purpose in life is so simple as helping others be seen or helping others recognize something, right? And sometimes our purpose is not our fucking job.

In other words, you could be an amazing vet, but maybe you go and volunteer at a rest home and you read to the elderly patients there or whatever. Maybe that is your purpose, right? Someone could be... Maybe they work at a grocery store. Nothing fucking wrong with working a grocery store, and that's what they do their entire life.

And sometimes we would look at people like that and be like, "They need more motivation. They needed to do this," right? I used to think that. But maybe they are that person that goes and volunteers and does all that stuff outside of work, and that is their purpose. So your job and your career is not always your purpose.

So that's why when we can, rip those apart, sometimes then we can, let go of that identity piece that,


[00:27:00–00:29:00] What Are You Afraid to Lose?

 

"Oh, I have to do this. I have to help the..." It's like, A, what are you... What lights you up? What do you enjoy? And your job doesn't always have to be your purpose on earth, okay? And you can have more than one thing outside of that.

So just, remember that because, again, we've been sold a story that your career is your life and it's... You'll never work a day in your life if you enjoy it, which is absolute fucking bullshit. Everyone, regardless of what you do, even people that truly enjoy their job, myself, I would put myself in that category, we still have ups and downs.

We still have good days and bad days. It's not "Oh, I'll never work a day." No, there's still stress. This is life. We encounter certain situations. So don't let some sort of, far-fetched fantasy be what pulls you from something that you actually really do enjoy too And one thing to consider too is if you were to leave vet med, let me ask you this, what feels uncomfortable to lose?

So is it your title, maybe as a doctor, as a technician? Maybe it's the respect from your family because I'm the only one in my family that is a doctor that's something like, okay, what if they didn't re- they respect me? So I guess that's not really my particular challenge in my situation.

But maybe you come from a whole family of doctors, and they're like, "We're all doctors. You're not in clinical practice anymore, then we're not gonna respect you." Or is it, are you afraid to look or lose, how others see you? So that's another piece to really ask yourself, 'cause you gotta get really clear on like what is truly motivating you.

And you might say, "Amber, it's uncomfortable, but I don't give a fuck." All right, cool. You will experience certain things that will challenge that, but that's what I want you to know. I don't want you to stay either because you want that respect and you want that title, but it's fucking


[00:29:00–00:30:00] The Questions to Ask Before You Stay or Leave

 

killing you inside too, right?

Okay. So wrapping up here's some questions to ask yourself. Number one, if no one knew I was a vet or a veterinary professional or a technician, insert whatever, would you still choose to do this job? Would you still choose to be a vet? Would you still choose to be a technician? So I think that's an important one.

Next question is if you could, this is an interesting one, if you could get the time, the money, the blood, sweat, and tears back, right? For example, maybe you're a veterinarian. You went through school all those years, all that debt. If you could get that back and it didn't cost you anything to be where you are now, would you still keep doing this?

So that's important because we're trying to look at this as an ideal situation and not, "Oh, no, no, no, I


[00:30:00–00:31:00] If You Could Redesign Vet Med, Would You Stay?
 

definitely wouldn't." Okay, so are you staying in a situation because you feel again, it's that cost sunk fallacy, I put all this time and money and effort in, I need to keep doing it? So that's an important one.

Now, another question. If you could redesign veterinary medicine or redesign, like, how you practice, would you stay? So maybe you love the clients, you love the, everything about it, it's just maybe you're understaffed, or leadership is riding your ass, right? If you could change those things, would you stay?

Because I don't think that if you said, "Yeah, I would stay," great, then I think we just have to find either the right environment or And or I should say, how to handle those challenging situations because you've heard me say many times, a lot of times we're trying to run away from challenging situations.

They just show up again someplace else in our life,


[00:31:00–00:32:00] What Are You Afraid of Losing If You Leave?
 

maybe not even a work situation, but in our maybe relationships, personal life. So that's where we wanna get really clear on. Now, another question is, imagine yourself leaving either clinical practice or vet med altogether. What scares you the most, and what are you scared of losing?

So that could be anything, but really ask yourself that because your answer to that, sometimes when we actually identify what that is, we realize it's not as scary as we think that it is, and knowing okay, here's the other aspect of that, is if you knew you could leave vet med and still be respected, you're still useful, you're still intelligent, you're financially okay, would you still go And I would add to that too, if your work environment was fine, and it was


[00:32:00–00:33:00] Are You Truly Ready to Leave?
 

good, and you enjoyed it, but then you could also get these other things, and it was still fine if you left, would you still go?

Because then that'll tell you, which way you're kinda getting pulled to there. So I wanted to share this. I wanted to give that perspective. I wanted to share a little more on that identity because you might listen to this and be like, "That's cute, Parks, but I'm ready to go" And that's okay too.

What I don't want is, or reduce the likelihood that this happens, is that you are getting stuck in a place that in, eight months, a year from now, you're like, "This is... It was great" And then eight to 12 months from now you're like, "I don't know what I did. I'm reliving the same chaos and nightmare that I was at before" And you might not even be in vet med altogether, so that is a rough place to be because maybe you actually still really enjoyed vet med, and you're gonna go back into it, because I've worked with people like that before too.

And that's okay, but isn't it a lot easier to figure that out


[00:33:00–End] Make the Decision From Clarity, Not Pain
 

before you leave and are just trying to get away from the misery? So that is what I wanted to share for you. Take some time, mull that over. Maybe after listening to this, s- set your phone timer for five minutes, just word vomit on a piece of paper and pen, and give it a day or two, come back to it.

Maybe listen to this episode again, and see what comes up for you. Because I think that will give you some direction, some deeper thinking so that you are truly making your decisions from an aligned place, and not from a place of wanting to just get away from the pain. So I hope this helped you guys. I will see you on the next episode.

And again, if you like this episode, please share it with your vet med bestie. It does help other veterinary professionals to find this podcast, so please follow, subscribe, share, and give me a five-star rating for this podcast. I truly appreciate it, and I will see you on the next episode.