I recently took a little hiatus from blogging to give myself a break. There has been a lot of talk about work/life balance lately especially in veterinary medicine. I returned from my vacation to see posts about yet another veterinarian taking their life due to the demands this career puts on us. I recently shared a video from Dr Andy Roark on my facebook page regarding this topic. And I knew I wanted to comment on what is happening in our field but I needed time to think about what I wanted to say.
It makes me incredibly sad that this career that I dreamt of having since I was 5 years old is not quite what I had envisioned. There have been many, many times in my life that I thought I should have made a different career choice. I know that sounds terrible so please forgive me and let me explain. It isn't because I don't love my clients or my patients. It's because the part about loving animals and being a doctor is the easy part of this career. Sure there are days when the medicine doesn't go my way, or a patient doesn't survive despite my best efforts, or a patient presents to me and I just don't know what is wrong with it. Those days are tough and challenging. As Dr Roark said in his video, veterinarians are type A individuals and often perfectionists. We like to be right. When things don't go our way it is easy for us to blame ourselves and often we are our own worst enemies. We can often beat ourselves up for something that truly was not our fault.
What most people don't take into account is all the other stresses and pressures and challenges we face. We are often not very good at separating home life and work life. Take myself for example, it is not uncommon for my husband and daughter to find me at the kitchen table doing work on my days off or in the evenings. It may be simple things like returning an email question from a client, or updating the monthly schedule for our 11 doctors, or following up on some lab work I did on a patient. There are a lot of people who are able to leave their work at work......unfortunately I have never been very good at that. And even more unfortunate, I think many of our clients have come to expect us to be available at all times. There is a connotation that if we create boundaries from clients or limit our interactions with them when we are not in the office, that it means we don't care. It is a common belief that what you do for a living is who you are.
The problem lies in that I am more than just a vet - I am a wife and a mother, a daughter and a sister, a friend and a colleague. And unfortunately as we all find out at some point, I feel like I am sucking at all those roles. When I am at work I feel guilty for not being home with my family and when I am home I feel guilty for not keeping in touch with my clients. My workdays expand well beyond the 10 hours I am scheduled on the calendar (which is much longer than I would like as it is). I spend 2 hours a day commuting to/from work and then once I am home I am busy cleaning, cooking, doing laundry and spending time with my family. Beyond that I am also available to my clients if they need me - whether it be via text, phone or email.
I'm not saying all this to make anyone feel bad for asking my advice, or contacting me after hours. I want everyone to be able to understand that often veterinarians are stretched so thin and we feel that no matter how good of a job we did that day, that it is never enough. We want to be the best doctor, wife/husband, mother/father, brother/sister, friend, etc that we can be. And yes....often our expectations are too high. Our goals are unattainable. We know that - it's that drive and determination that got us to where we are in our careers. But that drive can damage us more than we realize.
It's necessary to take a break every so often. Turn off our laptops and our phones. Ignore the facebook messages for advice. Sit in silence with a glass of wine or cup of coffee and just remember to breathe. Maybe lie on the floor and have a tickle-fest with your 2 year old daughter. Force ourselves to remember what is really important and realize that our clients will be there when we return to our 'regular lives'. If we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anyone's furry friends. We owe this to ourselves.....
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