How to handle your inner critic after a case goes wrong in vet med

Let me begin with this: No matter how good you are and how much you strive to do your best, something WILL go wrong at some point when you work in vet med. Either:

1) You make a mistake, because you're human, and you can't avoid it 100%

2) You or your patient just get unlucky, and a chain of events combine against you

So you've got to be willing to accept that at SOME point you'll have to deal with some negative consequences from an action you took, whether you made a mistake or not.

For example:

- Sutures opened up after an op. You used the wrong sutures, didn't tie them properly, the animal has a reaction to them or the owners let them jump all over the place.

- An animal dies under GA. No obvious reason, you gave too much premed, an unexperienced vet nurse didn't notice something was wrong in time, the circuit wasn't set up right, the animal has a weird reaction (such as malignant hyperthermia).

- The animal gets an infection after a procedure. Maybe you did everything correctly but somehow bacterias still made their way in, or you were in fact a bit too quick prepping and may have missed something.

Notice that the outcome is the same, whether it was your fault or not. The only reason it's important to look into WHY it happened is to try to prevent it from happening again, to try to improve and help pets even better in the future, right?

However, we use every braincell we have to beat ourselves up with this information instead! The one big thing we all tend to do that absolutely wears us down, is to not accept fully this has happened, and instead we swim around in a miserable sea of should haves and could haves and why didn't I.

So the steps to help you get over cases that didn't end well are:

1) You've got to accept it happened. Look at what happened, and as much as you wish you could go back in time and change things, say to yourself: This happened, and it really sucks, and I can't change it. Now I'm going to deal with the consequences in the best way I can, because THAT is in my control. The past isn't.

2) Take full accountability and responsibility for your part of it. Don't try to push it away or blame someone else for the parts that are down to you. The only way to do this is if you already accepted beforehand that you're not perfect, and that making mistakes or even just be a part of something that goes wrong doesn't mean you're a horrible, useless vet (or person).

We all know that perfectionism is not ideal, but when it comes down to it we suddenly DON'T accept anything but, in ourselves. Be careful linking your own identity to being this perfect, amazing vet, because then it's going to hit even harder when (not IF) things go sideways.

3) When something goes wrong and an animal suffer or dies because of something you did, you are going to feel bad. And that's a good thing!! If you could brush it off in a heart beat it means you're not very caring, and you might not learn from it. BUT - we can't feel bad over it for days and weeks, and let if affect our whole life. So first step is to acknowledge what you're feeling. Sit down, breathe deeply and feel into your stomach, chest, throat, head, shoulders, neck. Where do you feel tension? A knot in your stomach?

For me, one of the strongest feelings when I mess up is shame. It feels like someone throws a bucket of cold water over me, I get a knot in my stomach and my chest and throat tightens. It's this wave of dread washing over me. And I know not to push it away, or try to distract myself by working harder or buffer with the phone, drinking or something else. The earlier you feel and process the emotions, the quicker you'll come out on the other side. This is not a one time exercise, as you'll likely dip again when you suddenly remember what happened. Then you do it all again, each time a bit easier, and a bit faster.

4) Since your brain will insist on showing you all the ways you failed at everything, over and over (because that's what it does in order to protect you from doing it again, it's just not HELPFUL), you've got to challenge that chain of thoughts. Once the confirmation bias of "I suck" kicks in, it's like having a filter on that will only let you see that. Like the filter pregnant women have on, that points out all the other pregnant women, prams and nappy adverts. So you ACTIVELY have to gain perspective and rise above that filter. Here's where it's so important to evaluate neutrally:

a) Write down everything you/the team did well

b) Write down what didn't go so well

c) Write down what you'll do differently next time.

This way you have a good, neutral perspective, and can challenge your brain when it starts shouting at you at 2am that everything you did was wrong and you should go and work in a bakery instead.

Journaling is your best friend here. When you write these things down; what happened, what did the others/the owners say, what did you do, what are you thinking? , it helps SO much to show you that you are, in fact, NOT so bad and that a lot of your thoughts are not even true.