u/GunilaVetCoach

I remember so vividly mispronouncing something in class and everybody laughing at me.

I was 12, and my parents had just dragged me to Spain to live the adventure, starting a business and buying a house near the beach - the Dream!! My preteen self was less impressed; desperately trying to fit in as I was thrown into a Spanish school "you'll learn quickly, you're so young!" (I also had braces and thick glasses, AND curly hair, so I was doomed from the start).

Here's the fascinating part: 2 year old me had no qualms learning the Danish language, which is arguably one of the least appealing languages to start out with. I was happy as Larry getting everything wrong, until I just kind of got it.

But once I became self conscious (I can't remember exactly when that happened, it just happens to all of us at some point), getting things wrong became a big deal.

Looking back it seems crazy that I let those kids laughing get to me; I already spoke Danish and English fluently and adding a third, Latin language "on the go" surely would have been a challenge for anybody at any age, and these kids ONLY spoke Spanish - why did I care that they were making fun of me learning?

For the same reason that we're filled with feelings of shame and inadequacy when we become vets and we don't magically KNOW everything, and don't get everything right the FIRST time: somewhere in between 2 and now we internalised that it's wrong to not be perfect at stuff from the get go.

And I don't mean just being perfect at stuff we're learning, no, perfect at EVERYTHING we do:

- Get the diagnosis right, the first time, for as little money as possible
- Be fast at any surgery, no matter how few times you've done it
- Know exactly what to say to owners, always
- Be sure we decide on the RIGHT blood tests, first time
- Always know exactly what everyone else around us is talking about
- Placing a catheter the first time, no "bad vein days" allowed
- Never make an incorrect decision

Intellectually you surely understand that perfection in veterinary medicine is not possible, but when it comes to YOU, IN the situation, when something doesn't go to plan, that intellectual knowledge goes out of the window and you metaphorically become the 12 year old, red in the face, wishing to disappear, as your peers laugh and point fingers at you (insert your own embarrassing memory from school).

Instead of seeing yourself as a badass veterinarian who bravely tries to help as many as possible to the best of their abilities, willing to try new things (and unavoidably failing sometimes), you see yourself as one big failure who should just go and work in a bakery (if you can even be trusted with THAT!).

The challenge is not getting everything right. The challenge is to accept, from the get go, that you're not perfect, and that's ok.

Right now, see how you feel asking yourself these questions:

1. What do you see yourself as perfect at?
2. What might you be a bit mediocre at?
3. What are you, genuinely, bad at?

Look at that, and now accept it. Really see yourself as the human you are, learning and stumbling forward, trying and trying again, never getting it 100% right because you're not a robot. If you struggle accepting it, imagine you were your own best friend. How would YOU accept your best friend not being perfect?

A 7m dachshund came in subdued, hunched and vomiting in the waiting room. Owners brought the remains of a rubber ball he’d chewed, with pieces missing. He’d also chewed a foam ball, and pulled out the insides of a pillow. All this after playing with a labrador, they mention in passing.

Bloods; meh. Imaging; is that…? It’s gassy, but… what’s that in the cranial abdomen? Meanwhile, he’s not responding to pain relief and still subdued after bolus. In my mind, I’d rather regret going in and not finding anything, than NOT going in and suddenly standing there having to do an enteroctomy, possibly sprinkled with peritonitis.

So we go in. And a little while later, slightly confused and deflated, I’m leaving theatre in that awkward moment where you’re no longer sterile but still haven’t got your own gear back on (nor shoes!), thinking about how to tell the owner that I didn’t find anything.

Dog goes on to feeling great a couple of hours later, eating a bit and passing feces. Ok, maybe he just needed that famous “gut massage”? 🤷‍♀️

Then, one hour later we’re back to square one. Subdued, hunched, and now the damn thing is defensive over back and hind end. And suddenly my neurons fire: IS THIS SPINAL?!?! Did that Labrador do more than what I initially understood? Did I just spend HALF THE INSURANCE MONEY on abdominal investigations and now this little man needs to have advanced imaging on his spine?!?

So, right there. Brain rubs its chubby little hands together and gets ready to whip out the 9-tailed cat to beat me up with hindsight, should haves and what ifs.

The moment I said that out loud and my nurse and I looked at each other over the dog, she was already ahead of me as soon as our eyes met: “You did the right thing. Anyone would have suspected foreign body”.

And we went through it. Evaluated. Realised how much we HAD ruled out. And the dog was ok, and stable.

So. I don’t know IF I did the right thing. But there are two important things here in my favor:

I have zero ego to protect. I know I’m not infallible, and that I will mess up sometimes. I don’t have a need to prove otherwise.
I have learned to show myself the same compassion I show everyone else (with the help of my amazing nurses who always pull me back and snap me out of it when I start to spiral🌀). So when I’m not perfect, I don’t make it mean anything about ME. As a person. My value and right to exist in this world. My worth as a vet, or my competence.

My dedication, commitment and compassion will always be 100%. My results, hardly ever. Because they don’t just depend on me.

And that is exactly the same for any other vet out there. As much as you want to do your best, there will be times where red herrings and left curve balls are flying through the air and you’ll make decisions that in hindsight MIGHT not have been the “right” ones.

It means f*ck all about your competence and worth as a vet. I share this story because I want you to SEE IT. It happens, all the time, to all of us. And you can’t let it weigh you down and use it to despise yourself. Because when you do, you’ll end up despising the profession. And all the crazy cases out there will be missing out on brilliant vets JUST LIKE YOU AND ME to do their best, in the middle of the night, at weekends or Monday morning, to solve the mystery and help.

When people ask me why being in the veterinary profession is so hard, I always struggle with where even to begin.

In the last two nights I had:

A family out walking saw their beloved dog keel over and die from a heart attack right in front of them. The (young) mum’s sister had just died by suicide. When they arrived at the clinic with the dog in the boot, the parents were so out of it that they left their two children in their car seats in the car, all doors open. While my nurse took care of the passed dog and parents, I gently got the kids out of the car, closed the doors and settled them in the waiting room, doing my best to make them feel taken care off until their parents could.

A man's cat had been missing for two weeks and came back late last night skinny, limping and injured, showing clear signs of having been run over by a car. The night prior, this man’s wife and 3-year old daughter had been unwillingly caught up in a police car chase and their car was totaled. He was still so shook from that to an extent we struggled to have a normal conversation with him, never mind making important decisions around his cat and their finances there and then.

A young woman’s 6m old rabbit showed signs of gut stasis and diarrhea. She could not afford the emergency fee but we told her to come in anyway to treat on welfare grounds as we knew the rabbit wouldn’t last the night otherwise. Her other rabbit had recently been spayed and died the following night, and the owner was convinced she had done something wrong. She kept panicking (she was extremely emotional and my nurse and I agreed there was likely something else going on) and it was really hard to make her understand what needed to be done and why. 

So imagine, as a vet, treating the animals (or organizing cremation for the first one, which by the way turned out to be a 2,5h ordeal, this family needed time and space) has been the LEAST part of my job so far this week. Who prepares us for this? Where do we learn the people skills to deal with cases like these? I am so lucky I have the years behind me, plus intense training as a coach, so NOW I can cope and feel really fulfilled helping these people. 
 
But if you, as a vet, most of the time feel wildly underprepared for the craziness that hits you in the clinic, you’re not wrong! You’re NOT prepared! The emotions we go through in a shift, and the responsibilities we feel on our shoulders I really think are second to none.  Luckily there ARE tools out there so we can learn to cope better; podcasts, books, webinars, courses... You just have to actively search for it, and WANT it.

I just don't want anyone to feel alone in this, AND I also want to make you aware that you can do something about it. I gave up and left for a year, completely depleted, but missed the profession so much I found tools to deal better, and change my perspective. There IS hope!

Yesterday I woke up to some more run of the mill vet bashing on social media, and here’s how I went in all guns blazing and still managed to chill and have a great time in the afternoon:

One of the downsides of having a 3-country life is that I’m exposed to vet bashing in 3 different languages 😂 this time in the Danish media 🙄

And it’s only recently I’ve REALLY managed to be able to read the sh*t people write about vets and our Mr. Burns-like moneygreedy ways without getting triggered and let it affect me for days.

There’s two things to adress here:

1. We can’t just let people get away with being mean and bully people in our profession. They need to learn consequences of being mean to other people, and also we can take that moment to teach a bit about why we do what we do and why it costs what it does.

One thing I do is to introduce myself while I tag them, and ask questions as opposed to attack back. “One thing is wanting a good salary, another thing is just being greedy!!”, Frank types away with his chubby little fingers. “Hi Frank, vet here, that’s interesting, tell me where the difference is between a good salary and being greedy is for you?” Frank slinks back and mumbles something while he picks up the Daily Mail to soothe himself.

2. Also, this doesn’t have to be your battle. You don’t have to engage at all, if it makes you feel under appreciated and attacked. Block, avoid, and remember most of these people (I delight in checking out their profiles if I’m feeling extra spicy) are Daily Mail readers that voted for Brexit because they felt threatened about foreigners taking the jobs people like Frank wouldn’t dream of lowering himself to do in the first place.

And remember that the people that lash out are not our daily, lovely clients that trust us and are so happy we’re there for their pets. The people that lash out make a lot of noise, because they don’t have much better things to do, can’t be bothered looking into what being a vet really means and just have a lot of sh*t going on they want to vent, and hey, who’s a better scapegoat than people “taking advantage of sick animals”.

WHATEVER debate there may be around corporates charging whatever, and market investigations and whatnots, this is NOT on you, dear peer doing the hard work on the ground. Brush it off. Clean your energy of Frank and his mates, don’t let it spoil your day.

If I feel spicy and grounded I will fight the battle on the platform. If I’m in a cycle of anxiety for whatever reason and I notice it’s winding me up, I scroll on and let someone else carry the blade that day. I deep breathly and remind myself that this is a very small percentage of people, they’re not my clients and they’re not actually in my living room. And it’s ok to let people be wrong about me, I don’t have to control the whole worlds opinion about vets.

And then I jump and shout at the concert in the evening, Frank far away firmly shut in a locked box with not key.

Saturday night we had (at the same time) a blocked bladder 2y old Dalmatian, a blocked bladder 1y old cat and a 10m old cat with high suspicion of intussusception.

On top of that we had several critical patients, some transfers from other busy clinics that hadn't even had time to send us the history so we were basically blind as towards what they were coming to us for.

With only me and one nurse on for the next 13 hours of the night, we had to make some tough decisions. And this is what I want to try to get across here: A lot in veterinary medicine consists of decisions that are hard to make.

But just like with euthanasias, just because a decision is HARD, it doesn't mean we're doing anything WRONG. And I think our brain and nervous system often confuse these two concepts.

Euthanising a 15y old labrador that is the emotional support dog for an neurodiverse young person who has just lost their parent is HARD. But it's still the RIGHT thing to do. The awful feeling that comes up when we see the owners suffer, doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong as vets, it's just our empathy and compassion showing up, pushing us to help this person feel better in some way.

So when I stand with 3 distressed animals that all are going to urgently need procedures under full sedation/GA, I have to make a decision that's going to be HARD, because I risk the other two animal's lives by prioritising one. It doesn't mean it's WRONG; I have no other choice than to choose(especially in this case where none of them were insured and there weren't funds to refer them to a speciality hospital, and the other OOH hospitals like ours were also overrun).

Spoiler alert: We managed to get them all done quick enough that the 3 of them made it (just so I don't add to your anxiety if you've already got enough of it 😂).

This is acceptance. Accepting that this is hard, and I might not make choices that will save everyone, but we'll do our best and that is good enough. If I had started spinning in "this is not fair" and "I don't know which one to start with, what if I choose wrong", and put that extra pressure on myself, I would have frozen and been unable to move quickly.

Imposter syndrome and perfectionism are not only detrimental to our mental and emotional welfare as vets, grinding away at our self worth, confidence, trust in ourselves and joy for the profession, they also stop us from doing our job in the best way possible for the animals in our care.

I want you to understand that it is not selfish and a sign of weakness, of "not being able to cope", or "being too sensitive" to look around for support to overcoming these patterns that come so naturally to us as high achieving vets.

Actively working on your metacognition (your ability to be aware of your thought processes and patterns) is EVERYTHING in order to be able to work to your full capacity and fulfilment in the veterinary profession. When you have poor metacognition, situations like the one described above will throw you out of your comfort zone into the zone of terror and you won't be able to find your way back because you'll be caught inside your own brain spin and what if's and how can you ever do this.

I got sick as a dog after my last rotation of night shifts and still haven't fully recovered after 3 weeks 🫠, so this is also a reminder to myself about how to NOT get sick and worn out working nights 😂

I'll tell you what didn't work for me, and then we'll get into what I normally do to function: I normally (for the last 4 years) work 1 week on, 3 off, Monday to Monday, 13 hours shifts in a small animal hospital. So, given I work in the UK, but live between Denmark and Spain, I fly in and out at start and end of shifts.

THIS time however, I was invited to a wedding by one of the day vets on the Saturday prior to my shift Monday, and I thought that was great; I could fly out Saturday morning, go to the wedding in the afternoon, and then chill all Sunday and Monday daytime. So I booked some coaching calls in for Monday, planned to record a podcast episode and so on, because I would be all nicely rested, right?

Then the night vet finishing the week before me fell sick, so I was asked to do the weekend nights as well. Saturday I said no, because, WEDDING! 👰, but Sunday I could do, no worries. And here is where my life started derailing: I had already made plans with one of the nurses for Sunday day, I was really looking forward to it and didn't want to cancel so ended up not resting at all before my first (extra) shift.

Monday I now had coaching calls after not having rested for a good 36 hours, and only managed to get a few hours sleep. Then Monday night as I was trying to rest a bit between consults my daughter called me because she was sick, which then filled up the rest of the night and next day with worry. And so on with different stuff the whole week! At the weekend I had made plans, again, hoping the nights weren't going to be tooooo busy, which of course they were, because; Murphys law.

Then all sorts went wrong traveling back to Denmark on the Monday after my last and 8th shift, so by the time I reached my house I was so exhausted I couldn't even speak and had a headache the size of Trump's ego. This of course let a nasty virus bypass my defenses, and here we are, coughing lungs up on and off for a good three weeks.

So FIRST advice for night shifters: the days are for SLEEPING, not to do stuff or socialise. As much as it's tempting to make the most out of our time "off", days during night shifts are not time off, they are your nights, for sleeping and resting.

Even if you struggle to sleep, lying down and giving your neck, back and legs a break is crucial to not end up feeling like a 90-year old at the end of shifts. It's also important to rest your social battery; on busy nights there can be a LOT of communication with owners, and you might regret having that catch up with your friends (who then went on to have dinner and go to bed) in the afternoon.

Advise for sleeping: Ear plugs, because normal people don't get you need to sleep. Either they don't know, they don't care, or they simply can't get their heads around this being your "night". I use silicone ones you can shape into your ear and they don't hurt. This seems obvious, but I see people failing to do this and then get annoyed: Remember to put your phone on silent, no notifications.

Next, that damn sun. Our worst enemy during a string of nights. You can get black out curtains that will reflect the sun and stop your room from getting to hot in summer (keep your room cool at all cost), and also, my nurse in passing mentioned she had bought this eye mask on Amazon which is the best thing since sliced bread:

Gritin 100% Blackout Sleep Masks for Women & Men - Zero Pressure Sleeping Eye Mask- Ergonomic Design 3D Cutout Eye Movement Friendly, Ultra Soft & Comfortable for Nap/Travel (I am not an affiliate or anything, it is literally the best mask ever and I had to share it with you).

Next, in order to be able to relax as much as possible, prepare as much as you can for the week ahead. Clean the house, have clothes ready for the whole string of shifts, do the shopping and food prep if possible. Don't leave anything for "when I have a quiet night I can do this during the day" Don't do what I did, basically.

Regarding food, think as healthy as possible. You're already challenging your body with an incredibly unhealthy sleep pattern, so do as much as you can to make up for it. I live at the hospital when I'm on shifts, so I just make a Buddha bowl with everything in it so I'm sure I get everything I need. I am plant based and very conscious of my protein intake, and I up it as much as possible during nights in order to prevent cravings (when you're cold and tired in the middle of the dip at 4am, those donuts Bella's owner brought in as a thank you seem REALLY delicious, but the last thing your body needs is a sugar rush, even if it feels like it).

Drinks: coffee and green tea before shift really works for me, then after midnight I only drink water (out of a metal bottle that insulates really well so I have nice cold water all night), and I go crazy buying all sorts of herbal teas to keep me going. I rarely eat during the night, especially if we're busy, and I tend to stick with fruit and nuts (and the occasional take away if we have time to sit down 😁). This is different for everyone, so experiment and see what works for you.

If I can, I'll nap during the night. Even if it's only 20-30 mins, and even if I feel like death starting up again, it works for me in order to save as much energy as possible, over time during my shifts. It's different for everyone, some people can't do it as it makes them feel worse. Try out different things, and evaluate so you can hone in on what's your best way to get through the nights.

One last thing: Nights can be emotionally heavy. Pets come in dying and bleeding, and it can be a lot. Because things can move fast as well, you sometimes feel you haven't checked everything as much as you would like to, and you've had to make quick decisions. If I feel my brain is spinning, I'm feeling anxious and I can see it's going to interfere with my sleep, I make sure to journal a bit and meditate, processing feelings. I also love doing yoga, at a different activity level depending on how hard the night has been. Stretching out and loosening up is gold for my sleep.

Oh, and one more thing: Be super aware of your scrolling. Because we end up so tired and with a lot of decision fatigue, the act of getting your *ss in gear and go and take a shower can seem like a monumental task, and if I'm not careful I just sit down mindlessly scrolling because I'm too tired to do anything else. Try to be conscious about it, and take steps to protect yourself. You could convert your screen to black and white, or have a timer, or whatever works. It's not about being super strict with yourself, but about trying to get some proper rest with the time you've got available.

Nights are so much fun! The people you work with are all a bit on the crazy side, and the humour is as black as it gets, to carry us through all the tough cases. We just need to protect ourselves and our health in all the ways possible, because it does take its toll.