Making a mistake as a veterinary surgeon 🫣

By Gunila Pedersen • • 2 min read

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I made a mistake. I failed to see something on an x-ray, which was later spotted by another vet from another practice. As far as I know the patient is ok, I stabilised it, but the referring vet was NOT happy, and raised a lot of questions about my competence in general. 🙄
I noticed I felt really uncomfortable, and sat down to sit with and identify the emotions (although I felt more like running away).

I was surprised at how defensive I felt, and the amount of SHAME washing over me, and I felt seriously threatened. 🤯

Then I started free-writing what was coming up for me, and realised the shame and defensiveness were due to me being really attached to the identity of being an excellent vet. I felt like this issue was threatening that identity, and it would change how others see me.

I’m really glad this happened. Because I have been trying to escape from my self worth being attached to any achievements and accomplishments, and through this experience, I can see I have fallen into my old habits.

It also made me realise I want to be more confident and trust my own intuition, as I HAD spotted something on the X-rays, but dismissed it as I wasn’t sure, and talked myself out of it.

I also questioned whether I’ve become sloppy or uncaring in any way or form. The answer is no, but it was important to me to take stock and be honest with myself so I could course-correct if necessary.

Working around the clock trying to be perfect and never fail is really HARD WORK. Of course in our line of work we don’t want to make big mistakes as it could be a matter of life or death. But we are humans. And humans make mistakes (as my clinical director also kindly pointed out).

Knowing we WILL fail once in a while, I want to take the pressure off and say we SHOULD fail.

That’s why it’s super important to not attach our self worth to achievements, because then we will struggle handling these fails.

Use your fails as opportunities to feel the feels and check in instead of beating yourself over the head. 🔨

In your corner,

P.S.: If you know someone who’s struggling with something like this, please share this post with them. And if you’d like to have a chat about something going on right now for you, let’s have a conversation. I’m available on this link: https://calendly.com/gunila-lifecoach/free-consult

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