Understanding Mental Health & Wellness

Am I burnt out?

Feeling emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted and caring less about your clients and patients could indicate that you are burnt out.

Feeling like an imposter?

Imposter syndrome is the feeling of self-doubt. It relates to you feeling like you don’t belong, that you don’t know what you are doing, or that you only got this far by “faking it”.

Am I experiencing compassion fatigue/empathic stress?

Stress we feel as caregivers when we see our clients and patients experience pain, distress, and grief leads to compassion fatigue, or empathic distress. Those experiencing this form of stress often exhibit:

• Dissociation
• Numbness
• Social isolation
• Hypervigilance
• Sleep problems
• Fearfulness
• Avoidance of, or obsession with, the traumatic incident

Mental Health & Wellness

What Do We Mean When We Refer to Mental Health?

Mental health describes our thoughts, emotions, and reactions to the world around us, both physical and behavioural. We call these characteristics the four dimensions of mental health and well-being.

Mental health has come to be associated with mental disorders and illness, but it is not just the absence of serious mental illness. The term itself actually describes the state of psychological well-being.

Similar to physical health, mental illness can be managed and treated to reduce impact on an individual’s quality of life. On the other hand, someone with poor mental health may not always have a specific disorder or illness; mental health is impacted by the stress of balancing work, life, and relationships. Fortunately, you can build up your mental health and well-being to buffer against stress and poor mental health.

Hover over each segment to reveal the 8 different dimensions of wellness.

Mental Illness

Stigma refers to:

• Negative stereotypes of those with mental illness
• Media portrayals of individuals with mental illness as unstable, dangerous, and unpredictable

This stigma leads us to:

• Avoid discussion about mental health and illness
• Discriminate against those with mental illness
• Trivialize, belittle, or patronize those with mental illness

Are There Challenges Unique to Veterinarians?

The most common mental illnesses veterinarians experience are mood disorders and substance abuse. 

These illnesses can be triggered by:

• Occupational stressors
• Traumatic experiences
• Burnout
• Compassion fatigue/empathic distress

What Are the Most Common Stressors?

Veterinarian Stories

• Dark Shadows: Drug Use and Addiction in the Veterinary Workplace
• Stressed, Depressed Veterinarians Fall Prey to Addiction
• Drug Diversion and Veterinarians

Do I Have a Mood Disorder? Depression & Anxiety

Feelings of sadness and anxiety can be a normal part of the ups and downs of day-to-day life. They can also be a normal response to stress. However, prolonged feelings, extreme feelings, or those which impact your ability to function normally might indicate a disorder that requires treatment.

What Can You Do About It?

For more information:

• Your doctor can be an excellent resource for diagnosis and referral to counsellors or therapists in your area
• Canadian Mental Health Association
• Mood Disorders Association of Ontario

What Does it Mean to Be Resilient?

Resilience describes an individual’s ability to cope with, or recover from, stress and stressful events. It’s the capacity to positively adjust to adversity. Most importantly, resilience is a pattern of thoughts and actions that can be learned by anyone¹. 

What Does the Research Say?

Resilience can buffer you against occupational stressors such as burnout and compassion fatigue/empathic distress². An individual’s resilience is influenced by both their physical and mental health³.

Four Strategies to Build Resilience

1. Physical resilience = mental resilience! Physical activity is associated with resilience to occupational stress in healthcare professionals⁶. This could include spending some time in nature — go for a hike or just take your lunch break outdoors⁸.
2. You are what you eat. Focus on nutrition⁷ and check in with your general practitioner if you have a history of, or suspect you may have, any nutritional deficiencies. Make time to eat during the workday.
3. Sleep your way to wellness. Get enough quality sleep, and seek professional help if you aren’t able to sleep well. Sleep disturbances have been associated with depression, anxiety, and burnout^9,10.
4. Make social connections. This could be socializing at or outside work, or talking with someone (coworker, boss, friend, family member) directly about what you’re feeling. Supportive relationships and personal resources provide a wealth of mental health benefits⁵.

What Does It Mean to Be Burnt Out?

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. It can lead to caring less about your clients and patients than you used to, having negative feelings toward them, or distancing yourselves from them (depersonalization)¹. 

Common in Medical Professions

Burnout can happen in any job, but it is especially common in medical professions. Over ⅓ of surveyed Canadian veterinarians were experiencing burnout in 2017².

Burnout occurs when job demands exceed job rewards & resources:

Demands include:

• Working long hours without rest³
• Excessive patient load³
• Janitorial work³, such as mopping floors and cleaning up bodily fluids
• Dealing with difficult clients and patients
• Dealing with toxic team members⁴ and/or team culture

Rewards and resources include:

• Support from coworkers and supervisors³
• Breaks and time off
• Satisfaction for doing your job well, helping patients and clients, and building your skills
• Getting paid commensurate to experience levels
• Feeling appreciated for the work you do

What Can You Do About It?

Am I Experiencing Compassion Fatigue/Empathic Distress?

Compassion fatigue is caused by:

• Burnout
• Empathy
• Witnessing the pain, trauma, or grief of others
• Attachment to your pets⁴
• Ethical conflict^5,6
• Feeling alone in your concern

Some of the key symptoms include⁷:

• Dissociation, which is similar to depersonalization in burnout
• Numbness
• Social isolation
• Hypervigilance
• Sleep problems
• Fearfulness
• Avoidance of, or obsession with, the traumatic incident

What Can You Do About It?

How Does Imposter Syndrome Affect You?

Imposter syndrome is self-doubt that relates to feeling like you don’t belong, that you don’t know what you are doing, you aren’t good enough, or that you only got this far by “faking it”. 

Veterinarians Are At Risk

Veterinarians possess certain characteristics that predispose them to question their abilities. For example, many of us have a “perfectionist personality”, which drives us to feel we could always do better. Also consider the fact that years of schooling may have provided concrete evaluation of our skills and comparison with our peers. Yet, when in practice, this type of evaluation is rarely provided.

The veterinary profession also presents a number of situations that cause you to rethink your abilities:

• Veterinarians often work alone or with few peers, which makes it difficult to ascertain how you “compare”.
• Medicine provides ample opportunities for failure, even when we do everything “right”.
• Clients who are grieving or distressed may provide negative feedback via social media.

What Can You Do About It?

Am I Setting Unrealistic or Unattainable Goals for Myself?

Setting elevated personal standards and expectations is often motivational for high-achieving individuals. These individuals strive for success, but not everyone accepts that disappointment, mistakes, and failures are par for the course. Without proper expectations, this high-achieving mindset can become toxic where anything less than perfection is acceptable.

Oftentimes, the expectations of perfection can cause anxiety, frustration, and depression¹. Perfectionism can cause individuals to be critical of themselves as well as others, and they often have an overwhelming fear of failure, disapproval, or disappointment. 

A perfectionist mindset often includes:

• Black and white thinking, where unless something is perfect, it is not good enough.
• Catastrophic thinking, where the thought of making an error will cause your employer/coworker/client to disapprove of you.
• Probability overestimation, or the idea that you can predict your own failure, and expect people to judge or criticize you.
• “I should” statements, where you can agonize over things that have gone wrong, instead of the things that have gone right.

What Can You Do About It?

Impacts On Veterinarians

Veterinarians are a high risk group for occupational stress and poor mental health. In a 2018 study, 62% of OVMA members reported they are experiencing stress and anxiety. What’s more, surveyed Canadian veterinarians in 2017 had similar levels of burnout to other medical professions, but much higher levels of secondary traumatic stress¹; among the highest in all medical and caregiving professions².

Medical professionals are notorious for being reluctant to recognize and treat their own mental health disorders, and veterinarians are no exception⁴. Poor mental health is a contributing factor to the relatively high level of death by suicide that has been well-recognized in the profession⁵.

Moral and ethical stress can be caused by the nature of the veterinarian-client-patient relationship; for example, when there is a discrepancy between the client’s desires and the patient’s needs³. This presents a challenge for the empathetic veterinarian.