The Joyful DVM Podcast: Empowering Veterinary Professionals

Time for a gut check… Do you have the life you want? Are you totally satisfied with your life and career? If not… why not? List the reasons. Then, notice what you blamed… We are taught to believe our external circumstances create satisfaction… That it’s cause and effect…. Ideal circumstances cause the experience of satisfaction, peace, joy, etc (effect). So we keep chasing the circumstances… Bette...

What's standing in the way of you having the kind of life and vetmed career experience you want? If you're like most of us, you probably just made a list of external variables... things like work environment, schedule, finances, other people, clients, the job itself... And, if you're like most humans on the planet, you've probably been working really hard to change or control t...

Someone wants the job you have. They want those 3 letters behind their name. DVM, VMD, RVT, LVT, CVT, CPM... They hold close the dream of becoming exactly the veterinary professional you already are.  Their vision of life working in VetMed brings them joy. They can't wait to get there... to help people... to help animals. Do you remember what that was like? Do you remember when you held the v...

Trigger Warning... this week on the podcast I tackled some very sensitive topics.  There are some hard truths in veterinary medicine about what we are doing as veterinary professionals that keeps us creating terrible experiences for ourselves. When those terrible experiences compound, terrible things often happen.  I'm talking about end points like relentless anxiety, depression, burnout, sui...

I'm wondering... what's the story you tell about your life as a veterinary professional? What I mean is, what are the first things that come to mind when you think about the work day ahead, or life in general as part of the veterinary profession? It may seem like a strange question, but the answer is life-altering... literally! See, we all live our lives through the lens of stories... St...

Do you want to experience job satisfaction, wellbeing and a sustainable work load? No matter what role you hold in Vet Med, it's very difficult for you to create that type of experience all on your own. Veterinary Medicine has changed drastically over the last 50 years. Our knowledge base has expanded. The types of services we can provide has grown. The expectations from clients have elevated...

Our world is a whirlwind of busyness. In VetMed we race from appointment to appointment for hours each day. Other aspects of our lives often get pushed off as we run low on time and energy. This cycle continues as time continues to pass. From time to time we become aware of what we haven't accomplished, yet. Our goals and dreams seem so far away. And in the distraction of it all, we totally m...

The scope of veterinary practice is continuously expanding. We are always learning more about animals, their physiology, and their medical conditions. We are regularly developing new treatment modalities and skills.  The days of a veterinarian being all things to all patients and treating all ailments are long gone.  Embracing this reality, however, is taking a little longer.  The ability to refer...

When a client says, "I read online that..." many of us cringe. Dread and frustration often bubble up. We become defensive and impatient. But why? Today more than any time in history, information is easily available. Unfortunately, misinformation is easily available, too. However, it's not our job to police the internet. Our job is to help the client and patient in front of us... tha...

Internal conflict in veterinary hospitals is a very common occurrence. In addition to being super-uncomfortable to witness, it also has a very real and negative impact on client service and patient care. Everyone who is aware of the conflict plays a part in its perpetuation if they don't speak up. When we ignore the conflicts, or avoid them all together, we actually create space for them to c...

Money... It's an inevitable component of the practice of veterinary medicine, and a potential source of anxiety for everyone involved. As veterinary professionals, many of us get a little nervous talking about prices and going over estimates with our clients. We brace ourselves for the "you're only in it for the money" statement we've heard so many times before.  It hurts....

When it comes down to it, creating balance in your life is simply math. We all have the same number of hours in a week... so how do some people seem to get more done with the time they have? How do they have time for hobbies, travel, self-care, families, relationships...  It's all about focus. Two types of INTENTIONAL focus play key roles in creating balance in our lives. There is one area th...

Who are you fighting against? Where is the need to be "right" popping up in your world? In what ways do you sit in judgment over others' choices and actions? When we stop to consider these questions, many of us can find a list of examples of this type of behavior in our own lives. It's become an accepted way of being... a survival mechanism many of us deploy. It's also des...

"I just don't have time." When was the last time you said that? How often do you use it to justify a decision? Are you blaming it for the condition of your wellbeing? Many of us are, and we don't even realize it. A culture of busyness is common in the world. It keeps us in frenzied action. It has us believing that doing more, and being faster are both positive attributes of wor...

Most of us don't enjoy being around negative people... ... but we don't recognize we're one of them ourselves. We want to embrace a positive perspective... ... and then we argue against its existence. We want the future to be better than what we are experiencing right now... ... but we resist the very simple things that will make it so. The culturally accepted habit of negativity is...

When we are unhappy or discontent in veterinary medicine, or any area of our lives, we begin searching for the cause. We then draw conclusions about our circumstances and determine the way to be happier is to get away from the "bad" circumstances we've identified. In VetMed these "bad" circumstances are typically jobs, fellow veterinary professionals, clients, student loan...

Hopping from job to job is a common coping mechanism in Vet Med. When we hit the breaking point of discomfort in our current jobs, we start looking for a new position. We justify it with a list of all things that are "bad" or "wrong" in our current job, and set out to find an alternative.  When we find it, we feel excited, relieved, and even validated in our choice to leave. So...

Did you know that reacting and responding are actually two different things? Not only that, our emotional experience of any situation depends on which path we choose. When we react, we engage without deliberate choice. In doing so, it is easy to believe we are at the mercy of our circumstances and what is happening around us.  When we respond, we engage with intention. This allows us to decide pur...

Corporate veterinary practice is a common villain of choice for veterinary professionals... especially those who have had a bad experience working for a corporation. The commiseration around bad corporate experiences is wide-spread, often showing up as attacks on the organizations themselves, and the veterinary professionals who elect to work there. But why? Is corporate veterinary medicine a true...

In Veterinary Medicine, our client interactions often end up in "us against them"... especially when the interaction is emotionally charged or perceived as negative or aggressive.  Given the state of our world these days, it's not surprising. We are seeing this type of fear-based division everywhere. In our heightened states of emotional reaction, the consequences are often not inte...

"It's not about you." That phrase rings true and is very helpful to remember when we are interacting with people or experiencing circumstances that are uncomfortable.  It's a short reminder we can offer ourselves and others to fast-track calm and peace. However, what isn't talked about is the other side of the foundational concept. In this episode, I dig into the flip side...

When you take a bunch of smart people, enroll them in a professional program, and then tell them that their chosen career puts them at an increased risk for suicide... they believe you. It's a dangerous perspective to share, it offers no solutions, and it's not actually true. In this episode I share why the way we talk about historical data points and statistics actually perpetuates the...

The decisions we make exclusively from our emotional experience often do not create the results we ultimately want. We make decisions this way because we want to feel better. And when we make these decisions rashly. It’s simply evidenced that we want to feel better immediately . It works… for a while. When we change our circumstances we automatically experience different emotional feelings… … not...

Thinking about quitting Vet Med? You aren’t alone. Thoughts of leaving this sh*twshow behind are pretty common for a lot of us. Ya, Really! But, why? Here’s where it gets interesting… Why are you thinking about leaving your job? Why are you thinking about ditching the profession altogether? My guess: the VMVs… Blame directed at the Vet Med Villains is the most common response to “Why” we leave Vet...

The veterinary environment can be rough. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. We often blame the clients, and their behavior, for our experience. But, it doesn’t start there. It starts closer to home. Many of us experience work environments where gossiping and back-stabbing are the norm… … where “us against them” is common… … where nobody seems happy, and nobody feels safe. In these environments, we...