Tag: Veterinary

How a VET Evolved from a Technologist to a Mental Health Consultant

Written by Veterinary Education Today on July 7, 2023. Posted in Blog.

The following is an interview with Coral Doherty as she speaks about mental health and the need for workplace improvements.

What is your name, job title, and name of your session at this year’s Veterinary Education Today?

Coral Doherty, COVID-19 Magnified Existing workplace mental health inadequacies…make way for the new normal. RVT, CPHSA, QM, Certified Psychological Health and Safety Improvement Specialist, Better Mental Health for the Future.

What made you gravitate from being a veterinary technologist to moving into the mental health space?

I loved working in practice. I spent half of my adult years working within various animal care settings across Canada. Originally a true introvert, as my tech skills improved, my people skills improved too! I really hit my stride about 6 years into my career, and I found that I began to value the people I work with and the clients I spoke to more than I had ever before. Working in the mental health space allows me to use my tech skills to provide excellent people care. I understand the emotional demands of working in a vet clinic. My experience from introvert to extrovert has changed my life. I want to help others develop a renewed sense of self worth and team spirit that helped me become who I am today.

How has that move evolved throughout your career?

My evolution into the mental health space first started as a freelance practice manager. I would help practices improve their businesses by offering services to help day-to-day needs, special projects, or present lunch & learns. Building practice culture is especially meaningful work to me. I was asked to present mental health at work to a rural Manitoba practice in October 2019. As I prepared the facts for the presentation, I was enlightened & energized to protect my teams from the detrimental effects of compassion fatigue, burnout, SVT, and stress. During the presentation, I could feel their pulse begin to beat as one. They felt more connected, understood, and the feeling of being alone was ERASED! I guess you could say, I found my calling that day… preventing harm to our mental health at work by sharing best practices to get ahead of the workplace mental health injuries, one practice at a time.

If you had to pick one mental health practice or “tactic” people can use when feeling overwhelmed, what would it be?

The moment you begin to feel overwhelmed: I have heard people say they notice they feel overwhelmed when they wake up in the morning and “dread” going to work or they “dread” working with a certain person. Once this word/feeling of dread occurs, speak to your manager and/or call a warm line for someone to listen to the situation. The feeling of “dread” means you’re feeling unsafe and need something to change. Unfortunately, I have experienced this feeling and felt it was my responsibility to overcome the situation alone, and I didn’t always have a great experience when I asked for help in facing a dreadful situation. Now, I know the workplace can do more to support and should do more to assist an employee who is feeling overwhelmed and unsafe at work. Now, the tools, resources, and awareness is growing, and more can be done when psychological safety is a priority.

It’s the year 2030, what is the workplace culture dialogue talking about in reference to mental health?

Great question! This keeps me awake at night….

The trend, going back many years, tells us that stigma has cost our profession its attrition. We MUST pivot today, to change the paradigm.

I believe that by 2025, veterinary medicine will value and prioritize psychological wellbeing more than EVER before. Because of this, the workplace culture dialogue in 2030 will center around how amazing the patient care is for animals. Humans will see veterinary medical care as a golden standard of care they value. The reason: because humans at work feel valued, receive job satisfaction, and have become healthy resilient workers that are able to do so!

Who would be best suited to attend your session at VET this fall?

Let’s be honest, we all need to learn more about PREVENTING workplace mental health injuries. Each person CAN create their own bubble of psychological safety when they see their work demands through the lens of psychological safety. HOWEVER, organizational leaders and decision makers CAN do MORE than ever before to PREVENT workplace injuries, they HAVE to attend and take away MICROCHANGES, they can take ACTION!

What are you most excited for at the VET conference this year?

MEETING IN PERSON!!! Feeling the vibe of togetherness with my colleagues!!! I graduated from Centralia College in 1993… WHO WILL I REUNITE WITH HERE!?

Tell us why your session is a MUST-ATTEND event at this year’s VET Conference?

The session I am speaking about pertains to ALL workplaces today. Psychological safety transcends to the core of all humans working together towards a common goal. Trust and feeling safe to be your authentic, honest self at work. To remove barriers that are essential to good two-way communication based on trusting the other person to be curious instead of judgmental. If you want to know how you can ACTIVELY impact workplace mental health, this session is THE one!

Is there anything else you want to share about your session at VET with attendees?

This session will not be a polite glossing over of workplace inadequacies that lead up to our professional burnout and a workforce shortage. It will be realistic. The essence of the presentation is rooted in continuous improvement. This session is a true-life example of failure to boldly bouncing forward to fabulous.

Coral is speaking at the VET conference Saturday, October 28^th – Her topic “COVID 19 Magnified Existing workplace mental health inadequacies…make way for the new normal.” Is part of the MERCK Animal Health sponsored track on Well-being and Mental Health.

The Power of Storytelling for Creating Awareness and Connection

Written by Leann Benedetti on May 30, 2023. Posted in Blog.

As Mental Health Awareness Month comes to a close, I find myself wondering …

How many people told their story? Were you aware the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) campaign for 2023 followed a theme that encouraged canadians to tell their stories and mental health journeys? #MyStory advocated for mental health support for all Canadians. A worthy cause, and a lofty goal without doubt.

It is not the goal of this blog to prove the importance of this conversation, emphasize the concerns around the mental health of veterinary professionals, or cite statistics to convince anyone of anything. I do however want to highlight the power of community and common humanity that is created when we share our stories. Storytelling can create connection, reduces stigma, and allows for the creation of powerful spaces for recovery and change.

Regardless of who we are or what we do, we all experience things in life that challenge us. Having a safe space to discuss those challenges, process appropriately, receive support, and ultimately heal, learn, grow and recover is key. The good news?? Available resources have grown over the last number of years, including those that are ‘veterinary specific’.

The ongoing challenge?? The ‘need’ for support in the areas of mental and emotional health for veterinary professionals has been acknowledged as growing area of concern and has been an ongoing conversation for well over a decade. Subjectively, the ‘uptake’ of resources is percieved to be quite low, despite the high level of concern and need. As a neutral observer, that makes me curious as to the possible reasons for this gap. As a 27 year veteran of the profession, and more recently as a provider of support to the profession, and someone that has shared #mystory, I understand the complexity of the space that represents that ‘gap’.

Exploration of the ’Gap’ is also not the purpose of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to remind you that you are not alone. There are a growing list of resources that are being created with specific focus in the veterinary community when it comes to mental health, and workplace well-being. This list includes just a few – and I encourage you to search for a format, resource, and information that works for you. When you don’t know where to start – wherever you are, is as good a place as any.

CVMA VETERINARY HEALTH & WELLNESS RESOURCES

24/7 PEER-TO-PEER ONLINE SUPPORT – TOGETHERALL WITH A SPECIFIC VETERINARY ‘WALL’

THE WORKING MIND – MENTAL HEALTH COMMISSION OF CANADA BEING OFFERED TO CANADIAN VETERINARY HOSPITALS THROUGH THE CVMA

OVMA I MATTER

MENTAL HEALTH COMMISSION OF CANADA

CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION

EASAV – PEER SUPPORT FOR CANADIAN VETERINARIANS IN A GROUP FORMAT

THE VIN FOUNDATION – VETS4VETS

Finding YOUR NOT Work/Life Balance

Written by Leann Benedetti on May 30, 2023. Posted in Blog.

Key Words: YOUR and NOT

For over a decade now there has been a lot of talk around Work/Life Balance. What does it look like and more importantly how to achieve it. As a veterinarian in practice for 27 years, a past practice owner, a mom, a daughter, a leader, a community member, contributor, a pet parent … and mostly as a human being I was fooled into believing that Balance was the goal.

Does that make me foolish?? (well…😉) No – it makes me human, and … what I believe to be a fairly typical veterinary professional that is used to following rules and protocols, a diligent student, and high achieving professional that tends to be a perfectionist. While I won’t go into details here, for the first 17ish years (to my credit) that was doable – and then, as challenges mounted, it wasn’t doable anymore. Upon reflection, I’m not sure why I thought it would ever be in the first place. Wait, that’s the point. I did not stop to think about it. I was not consciously choosing anything. I had a goal disguised as a belief that this was the way we do things at all costs. AND – I am 100% aware that seems like what we are told to do, and how we are trained to do it. Push Through. Keep Your Balance. That mindset is part of the problem in our profession, and it’s only now that I’ve been able to put some pieces together that I think might be helpful. This is what I know so far (cue: Pink-What I know so far!)

In 2017, I started the business The Veterinary Coach – and this topic of Balance was actually ‘my Why’ and was the reason for my logo (left below), and original tagline – Coaching Veterinary Professionals for Balance. Shortly after that, I found this image (right below), which spoke loudly to me about what Balance felt like in Veterinary Medicine-which is incredibly hard, if not impossible. One might say Magic actually … (oh wait that’s another blog).

Regardless – you will notice that the goal was still perfect balance.

I have been talking about this, and coaching people around this for 5 years now, and it is a very recent awareness to me that neither my words, my intentions nor my expectations do not actually match what we see in these images. I have come to understand that my balance is often ‘off kilter’, and if it is, chances are that is intentional. I have come to understand that Balance to me is not a goal to be achieved, it is a process that allows me to actually be flexible and ultimately agile.

Language Matters: What is Balance Anyway?

Balance in the context of finding Work/Life Balance has been positioned in my head (and I don’t think only my head) as a goal. A destination. Namely – a noun.

What might happen if we think of Balance as a verb …? As an active process that involved adjusting, and adapting, and ‘tinkering’ with intention. That sounds like a conscious process, that opens up space for directing weight purposely in one direction or another, that does not imply equality.

If this were allowed, even temporarily, then we might be better able to be intentional with our choices. We might be able to move from a place of rigid control and inflexibility to ‘keep the balance’ no matter what, into a place of perfect imperfection, depending on the challenge of the day, hour, or season of life. You might be able to find YOUR NOT work/life balance that serves you, and is effective in your life. What does that require?

It requires us to be curious about our actions, our behaviours and our intentions and understand what serves us in any given moment in that day, hour or season of life. When we can understand that, we might know better what we need to do to achieve it effectively.

One thing I can assure you, this process is far from perfect or linear, and requires us to embrace ‘messy’. I can also assure you, in my experience…messy is worth it. Especially true if you are looking for and ready to invite change into your life. I am not inviting you to do anything that I have not done myself, as a fellow veterinarian. And if I can do it – so can you!

These are excerpts from the virtual presentation given on April 14, for the full presentation please click here!

Veterinary Life Mindset Challenges, Obstacles or Circumstances?

Written by Leann Benedetti on May 30, 2023. Posted in Blog.

This blog was originally written in December 2020, AND, the importance of the question remains the same! How we see the world is informed by so many things – including but not limited to: what we are taught as young people, what we learn over time, our nervous system state, our mood, our state of being, and our strengths.

It is easy to fall into a pattern of behaviour that sets us up for repeated challenges and opportunities. Our Mindset is something that we need to be continuously aware of and check in on. Here is the story as if it were yesterday…

My family and I were playing a game of cards at the dinner table last night, having a lovely, fun-filled discussion. My ‘children’ are now 19 and 20 years old, so I tend to cherish every moment we get to spend together, as they usually have something better to do than to ‘hang out’ with their parents! We were laughing and talking, and one of my sons was animatedly describing a situation he had encountered.

I made what I thought was a non-judgemental comment: ‘That’s an interesting challenge isn’t it?’.

My story teller carried on with his story…

My other son looked at me and said – ‘Why do you always think everything is a challenge?? Why can’t anything simply be a circumstance’?

What a great question! And as with most great questions-I am still formulating a great response!

What I’ve come up with so far is that he might be right! My natural tendency (also known as mindset) IS to see things as a challenge, an opportunity to improve, learn, or change. That’s not a bad thing though right? Well…as with almost everything (as I have come to understand) it becomes about intention, balance and agility. Not every ‘circumstance’ requires improvement or change. Similarly, we are not stuck in every situation blocked by obstacles and with no options for change. All or nothing thinking, regardless of the topic is never a good thing and sets us up for … well … a myriad of bad things.

Also important to remember is when we are stressed we tend to default to our natural tendencies, and are at higher risk for that ‘all or nothing thinking’ (also known as closed mindset). Said another way-if your natural tendency is to see things as a challenge, you are at risk for taking on WAY too many challenges the more stressed you get. IF your natural tendency is to see the obstacles, then you will become more and more stuck by obstacle after obstacle, after obstacle. Being content with the ‘circumstances’ all the time holds it’s own issues as well.

In the end-being Agile, and looking without judgement at a ‘circumstance or situation’, can then let you decide with intention whether it is a ‘circumstance’ that requires no action, or whether you are going to start removing obstacles, or rise to the challenge. It is ALWAYS your choice. Remembering that is the tricky part – for me anyway!

Welcome 2023 – Where to Start?

Written by Leann Benedetti on May 30, 2023. Posted in Blog.

Have you ever felt like you just don’t know where to start? Maybe you feel like there are no options, maybe you have a few and you are just not sure which way to go? At this stage in the ongoing recovery from COVID-19, a lot of people feel like it is time for a ‘reset’. They are just not sure what exactly that means. I was pondering the same thing earlier this year, which is why I wrote the following blog where I work through my own experience.

Welcome 2023 – Where to Start?

Start where you are, Use what you have, Do what you can – Arthur Ashe

The question for me this year, at this particular point in time, and in my career has been … Where to start? ‘Cause I’m just not sure…

This quote reminds us to “Start Where We Are” – and when I think about that, I am aware of a dissonance that is created in me. Logically, it makes sense!! But my immediate emotional reaction ?? Wait What? Start where I am ??? No, No, No I can’t do that …

Does the past not matter? How can I start if I can’t see the future?

Oh I see … so this is about time?

The mere fact that the past and the future comes up quickly reminds me of something I am familiar with, and have learned to remember to embrace often. The concept of our time here on this earth being a journey. A journey that I think of as a spiral, a spiral of learning, a spiral of healing. A spiral that can be applied in a lot of different ways, to a lot of different things.

Moving Upward on the Spiral …

The ultimate goal is to continue on an upward journey on this spiral of Life, which is not always easy. Sometimes we take a few steps backwards, and sometimes we get stuck … and sometimes we revisit the same situations over and over again, until we learn all we need to from multiple perspectives. Sometimes, different parts of us learn at different speeds, and learn different things.

Wisdom of Our Three Brains

In the coaching world we are aware of the fact that we actually have three ‘brains’. Three sources of information that we rely on to make sense of the world, and our place in it. What the culmination of my lived experience allows me to see in this moment, as I contemplate Where to Start – is that my Brain, Gut, and Heart are all involved in this internal conversation. AND my Brain, Gut and Heart all have different signals informing their opinion. AND if I try to listen to all of those messages at once, I quickly get confused and overwhelmed. What I can do is recognize all three brains have important messages for me, and if I want to be effective, dare I say ‘productive’ then all three brains need to be seen, heard, and understood.

When I am aware of this conversation, I realize something else – I have the choice to keep the banter going … or … I can choose to Stop and Listen.

Be Curious and Ask Each beautiful brain – Brain, Heart, AND Gut

What is important about the past and it maybe not mattering?

What is important about not knowing your exact next step?

When I stop, and I listen … very carefully

I learn how I can lower the dissonance, increase the alignment and what I need to do to take the next step. Once I know what is important, I have insight into what I have to offer:

To my brain – I believe you, it makes 100% sense to start here AND there is a timeline … the past matters, and the future is unknown.
To my Gut – the blood, sweat and tears you have put in matter, they have made a difference. I see you, I honour you and I offer you Gratitude, Forgiveness and Compassion
To my Heart – I know not being sure what the future looks like is scary. I honour you and I offer you Courage to believe that you can Trust yourself, Trust your all of your strengths, lean into your curiosity, passion, openness, and hope for the future.