Brought to you by PrideVMC Gold Partner, Merck Animal Health
Written by Joseph Hahn, DVM
Exec Director, US Companion Animal & Equine Professional Services
Merck Animal Health
Mental health and wellbeing in veterinary medicine is an important and sensitive topic that requires our attention and diligence in order to find solutions that make an impact now and into the future. In fact, this is such an important topic that we at Merck Animal Health just released the data from our Third Veterinary Wellbeing Study with the AVMA, and this is also the second post I have written about this topic. Why a second article only a year after the first, you might ask? The reason is to help us cultivate a healthy profession that we love, and because this topic must remain at the forefront of our discourse. Fortunately, the results of our latest study are giving us a good direction on where to focus our resources.
To set the stage, we can all understand that the pandemic has been a significant factor in the increase in psychological distress, not just among veterinarians, but the entire population. Our recent Veterinary Wellbeing Study did show us that serious psychological distress was worse in 2021 than it was in 2019; however, there is some good news. When defined by job satisfaction, wellbeing among veterinarians is no different than the general population and it has been stable through all three of our studies. And while we often find burnout to be a challenge in veterinary medicine, especially in younger veterinarians, we are learning it is no different than the general population, as the entire United States workforce is facing similar burnout issues.
Student debt, stress and suicide continue to be among the top concerns for veterinarians since our 2019 wellbeing study. This year we also identified the shortage of staff, both veterinarians and hospital staff, as another major concern impacting our profession.
For the first time this year, we also surveyed veterinary technicians and staff members to see where their wellbeing, burnout and psychological distress issues fall within the profession. We found that in all categories, veterinary staff are experiencing the same concerns of stress, suicide, and staff shortages at a significantly higher rate when compared to the veterinarians they work with.
While this third study has allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the issues that are impacting wellness across the profession, it is also leading us towards solutions that the individual veterinarian can do, as well as what employers can do to help make things better and even more rewarding in the future.
For the individual veterinarian: It is important to have a good mechanism to cope with stress. We have chosen a stressful profession and our general personality type makes us more vulnerable to this stress, especially if we are working excessive hours. You can find some ideas on techniques to reduce stress on vetwellbeing.com and the important thing to remember is to find one or two things that resonate with you and make them a daily habit.
The second is to have a healthy work-life balance, whatever that means to you. The definition of work-life balance is very personal and individual so find the definition that works for you. Finally, engaging a financial planner can have a profound impact on wellness and burnout levels. Our study demonstrated that those that engage a financial planner will have lower debt loads and are less likely to have credit card debt. It is not about having more resources, as salaries increased more in this study than any in the past, it is about managing resources well and a financial planner is critical in making this happen.
For employers of veterinarians: You also play a key part in this, as all of our analysis showed that a calm and positive clinic culture is the most protective action that employers can take to increase wellness and decrease burnout in the hospital or clinic.
The four factors that came up again and again in this analysis for a healthy culture include:
- A sense of belonging to a team
- A high degree of trust in the organization
- Candid and open communications between team members
- Sufficient time to provide high quality patient care
To that end, in addition to our ongoing wellbeing partnerships with AVMA, Merck Animal Health is working with Not One More Vet to help create a blueprint for a wellness certified practice to help give a foundation for techniques they can use to improve wellness in their own practice. As part of the wellbeing study, we discovered that having an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or Insurance that includes mental health benefits is another extremely important step that employers can take to enhance wellbeing across the profession.
Interestingly, almost 40% of employees didn’t know if their employer offered these critical wellbeing benefits. So, as an instant action item, employees should feel encouraged to ask about it, and employers should aim to provide programs that support mental health and discuss them in an appropriate venue with their staff. This is a great way to start the conversation and make discussing wellbeing in the clinic a positive experience for the entire veterinary team.
It is clear the topic of mental health and wellbeing in veterinary medicine is not going away. With the shortage of veterinarians and staff, continuing to navigate the pandemic landscape, and an inherently stressful profession, we must continue to support the profession and work together to make our work environment safe and supportive.
At Merck Animal Health, veterinary professionals will remain our number one commitment. And while there is still a great deal of work ahead of us to preserve and reinforce this rewarding profession, it is energizing to have programs in place, such as Train-the-Trainer with AVMA, MentorVet, Not One More Vet, and our company’s Unconditional campaign, that provide the tools and resources we need to enrich and enhance our profession, the colleagues we work with, and the animals we care for.
Be well, be unconditional, and remember to take care of yourselves.
