Vetnews | Mei 2024 48 « BACK TO CONTENTS This letter to me from Katja is more than worth a serious read and then due consideration. Please read it very carefully and see if there is any contribution you could offer the profession or perhaps even more significantly, yourself!!! We need to look after ourselves first and I am sure that Tod could add to this discussion. He and I have been counselling colleagues for the past 15 years with a good degree of success but there are still colleagues who, in times of need, try to look after themselves believing that it is a weakness not to manage times of crisis. Thank you Katja for your time and consideration – we need caring people like you. Dear Mike. During the recent SAVA suicide debrief webinar, I felt heartbroken at reading the comments by some of our colleagues. Their pain and hopelessness were evident. How can we help colleagues going through challenges? We listen and perhaps provide perspective but is it enough? I believe that the nature of who becomes a vet is part of our Achilles heel: veterinarians are generally caring, self-sacrificing, compassionate, and often feel guilty when they aren’t able to save every patient, nor convince every client to do the right thing. We are competitive by nature - only the most determined student gets into OP and then out of OP. That's not a person who will easily ask for help, nor make themselves vulnerable to another colleague. We aren't always good bosses to our fellow colleagues either; if we haven't even figured this stuff out for ourselves, we won’t have the perspective to support someone else through their challenges. Everyone brings themselves to the profession: with individual frailties, a paradigm through which we view the world and sometimes physical or mental health issues. The process of becoming a clinician is tasking, but most of our young colleagues are excited and positive at this point, without the knowledge of what the day-to-day and year-toyear experience of being a vet might hold for them. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that some students don’t embrace the Veterinary Professional Life modules, when older veterinarians, with hindsight, would have loved to have had this information as part of their training. Hopefully, something sticks, though. I had burned out twice by my early thirties, with compassion fatigue just 3 years into my dream career. Without a concept of self-care, burnout, compassion fatigue and clinical depression, I felt invincible and laughed these off in my twenties. I had no understanding of the real emotional costs associated with being in a caring profession, without the ability to set personal boundaries, nor how to deal with difficult people and situations. The realization that I had to urgently change where I was headed led to a decade-plus of personal growth programs, voracious reading of self-development materials, and receiving appropriate health therapy. I positively changed my life's trajectory and gained perspective on what my vocation is about and how to live a happy life, while being the best vet that I can be. We spend so little time learning to understand ourselves and other human beings and seldom identify what is truly important to us and makes our lives fulfilling. By not setting clear goals for the many aspects of our lives, we end up reacting to what life throws at us. In any person, the latter is a recipe for loss of joy and hopelessness. Personal development goes beyond a presentation at a congress, however excellent the content. It is a process and an individual one. In the digital age, it can be pursued in private, online, at one’s own pace and at a time when one is ready to make some changes. In-person courses are also powerful if one will make the time available. Mindvalley is a massive online platform for personal growth programs. Not all of them appeal to me but one program, called Lifebook, has many principles that I know from personal experience to be sound and effective. The founders of this program ask the question: “If we don't know what we want our life to look like, how are we going to create it?” I will take the course and maybe it could be of value to colleagues who are finding themselves in emotional pain, financial difficulties, depression and hopelessness, to find a way forward for themselves. It can also be seen as a preventative approach to the dangers of burnout and compassion fatigue. There needs to be a variety of resources available for veterinarians at different stages of their careers, linked to the areas of development that they have identified for themselves. Perhaps SAVA could set up an online platform, with lists of details of tried and tested programs, as well as professional resources around the country, based on positive referrals from colleagues. Without SAVA endorsing these resources, colleagues could at least investigate the options with some confidence. Perhaps it’s time to become as excellent at our lives as we are at being vets. Katja Bier v Life plus 25 without parole Mike Lowry Mike Lowry has been in veterinary practice for "life plus 25" years. In this column, he shares his experiences and opinions. Regulars I Life plus 24 +25 Mike Lowry: mikelowry@heritagevet.co.za Pieter Grimbeek: pigvet@agrifarmacysa.co.za Asking all members of the class of 1974 to contact me or Pieter Grimbeek about a class reunion (potentially scheduled for OP in September 2024).
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