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For those that saw Part 1, where I talked about a key reason for the loss of our valuable professionals being loneliness, you’ll know that I am not professing to have peer reviewed, big data statistical evidence backing up my assertions. I’m not arguing with the industry studies that already exist where, given a drop-down box of potential choices with zero nuance or time for genuine self-reflection, we have stats that show that people are leaving our profession for all sorts of good reasons; incivility, remuneration, further study etc.
What I’m talking about is the gap. The 50% of people who tick the boxes of “disillusionment with the profession” or “working in a non-veterinary role”, or “other”. These are the places where statistics don’t help us.
So what I instead bring to the table is the outcome of conversations with hundreds of veterinary professionals and veterinary leaders, many of whom are trying to plan their exit from the industry, where I can dig deeper, ask harder questions, challenge surface emotions, and get into the nitty gritty terrifying beauty of nuance.
And from these conversations, combined with data and evidence from other larger professions, I am proposing the five reasons that I believe we can’t keep good vets, or great nurses. And to be honest, I’m not even proposing the five big ticket ones; I’ve in fact filtered mostly based on the stuff that no one else is talking about. The conversations that aren’t being had, the reasons that aren’t being researched, of uncomfortable truths or contentious discussions that no one wants to be attacked for on social media.
So with that fairly overarching defense of my completely un-veterinary approach to having an opinion, and the hope that you might read the prelude to this article here, I’d like to pitch to you the next big contentious topic: the Big B.
And no, it’s not Burnout. We talk about that plenty, and there are people way smarter than me working in this space (ok, admittedly I also work in this space but that wouldn’t sound as catchy) so I’m not putting it on my list.
The Big B I want to talk about is Boredom.
When I talk to vets trying to get out, it takes a lot of pushing and poking to help them get to the crux of articulating this emotion. Many of them will use softer terms, the ones that feel more professional, like “unfulfilled” or “lack of career development”, or even “frustrated”. But when I really boil down what’s going on, and move past all the political baggage, what people are is BORED.
Just as many people who need my help for burnout, come to me to discover that they are just bored.
I personally didn’t spend long in full time clinical work. I moved quickly from my disaster of a first job into locuming part time to fund my global travels, then I worked in welfare, and quickly discovered that leadership was where I was headed. It wasn’t until 2019, when I had quit my safe CEO job to go full time in my global consultancy with a primary marketing model of speaking at conferences a month before the pandemic shut down the universe, that I actually found myself being a clinical vet for 40 hours a week. Obviously the first few weeks were a bit of a blur of re-learning dose rates, re-remembering drug interactions, and discovering things that hadn’t existed when I’d last practiced.
But a couple of months in, I started having what I could only describe as panic attacks. I had experienced two panic attacks in my life previously, and this felt physiologically like exactly what was happening. I would look at an afternoon list of consults booked in, and my heart would race and my ears would pound and I’d get a sort of red-faced tunnel vision. A sense of dread.
And I would wonder: what on earth is happening? I’m not panicking about back-to-back vaccines, diarrhoea and dermatology. I’m not anxious about another white staffie chewing their feet, or a cavoodle with mucousy poo. Why am I having a panic attack?
It took me another couple of months to work out that I wasn’t having anxiety about the consults. I was having anxiety that this might be my life for another 10 years, or 20, or 40. That the rest of my life might be broken down into 15-minute repeated conversations about worming, grass seeds, and kennel cough.
I coined this sensation my Boredom Anxiety.
As vets, and experienced paraprofessionals, we have so much knowledge. We work so hard and so long for this goal of the dream job. We imagine long exhausting days, but we imagine them saving lives, and making breakthroughs, and engaging in meaningful conversations with our extended village in the community of pet owners we live among.
And us incredibly smart, driven, Type A personalities work our butts off, constantly learning and growing and pushing ourselves, to get the degree. And the first job has an epic learning curve, and we’re killing it with milestones and new experiences and ticking boxes of growth and learning and developing as a person and professional.
And then…
Well, and then nothing.
We get 3 years, or maybe 5 years in, and the curve is gone. Maybe we do some additional study; memberships or conferences or workshops become our crutch for a while. Perhaps we even specialise, if you’ve got that sort of mind (or you don’t have that sort of mind, but it’s a logical next step so you do it anyway and then discover you’re just as bored a year after Boards). Maybe we take a Senior Vet or Head Nurse role, thinking that this is the sensible, logical progression of career. NOW I’ve made it and I’ll go back to developing as a professional.
But then leadership isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Or, more often, we actually aren’t well suited to leadership and should remain a technical expert, but there’s no progression in being a really great vet, so we buy a practice or manage someone else’s anyway even though it makes us miserable (and usually the people around us too).
A vet friend of mine expressed recently that he loves being a vet but he needs to take on a leadership role because he feels like he’s at the peak of what he knows, and he’s terrified that from here on in it’s a slippery slope into becoming one of those old vets who doesn’t keep up with the trends and just becomes mediocre holding onto the established skills he has and retiring in 20 years with the same amount of knowledge he had last year.
We do all know that vet, right? My friend is right for it to scare him.
And those feel like our choices.
Leadership which we’re not really suited to. Specialism if you have the privilege of being able to afford 4 years of minimum wage. Or stagnancy.
Or leave…
There’s a learning curve in working for industry.
There’s growth potential in government jobs.
There’s fulfilment and a sense of being needed in deciding not to return to work after kids are born.
There’s greener grass and more status in going back to study medicine or law.
Or there’s a new challenge and personal growth in starting my own tuppaware pyramid scheme.
But here in the veterinary profession, we are left with the potential for the next 15, 20 or 40 years of our lives in 15-minute incremental repeats of vaccines, diarrhoea, and dermatology.
And please don’t get me wrong; some people love this. Some people are wonderful at this, and enriched by this, who still adore meeting
new puppies. And can find growth and fulfilment in connections with pet owners, and micro-credentials or alphabet collecting, and hopefully mentoring younger generations. I suspect these people will live much happier, more fulfilled lives. But as a stereotype of the sort of people our profession is currently selecting for at the university level, unfortunately this sense of fulfilment is often satisfied only by change, and striving, and eyes on the next prize.
And so they’re setting their sights elsewhere. On prizes and pastures out yonder.
And so with no more nuanced way of articulating why we’re opting out of our crazy, boring, thrilling, repetitive, unpredictable, profession, we tick the box of “disillusioned with the veterinary industry”, and move on.
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