When is an incision small enough in vet med?🩹🪚

​

When I started at my first job as a small animal vet, my boss had neutered hundreds of dogs and cats as she worked with a trap-and-neuter charity. She was incredibly fast, and made impossibly small incisions. That obviously became my goal, and I felt like a failure if I had to open up an incision “too much” in a bitch spay. This made it harder for me to get good at localising ovaries and accessing ligaments, cervix etc. Now I find it a fun challenge to operate as fast and small as possible, but I wonder how much time and effort I could have saved had I just started “bigger” and then worked towards a smaller incision with time.

It’s not uncommon that a senior vet or nurse will walk into a newer vet operating, and say, half-jokingly, to them: “Wow, is your incision big enough, lol”. And when someone says something like that to you, when you’re not that confident yet, we tend to make it mean something about ourselves and our capability.

When in fact: Yes, that incision is big enough, thank you very much, actually perfect for my level of experience, perfect in order for me to be able to operate safely and confidently, nice of you to notice! (Also, as someone once pointed out to me, the wound heals side to side like a zip, not top to bottom - so healing time doesn’t increase in a longer incision!)

So here is my point: We often just take at face value these comments other people throw at us. We accept them as facts, make them mean something about us and beat ourselves up with them:

“I should be faster operating”
“I shouldn’t take so long in consults”

“I should be able to operate with a smaller incision”

“I should know what’s wrong with this animal”

How do you feel when you think these thoughts?

I feel pressure, shame, anxiety, guilt and inadequacy.

And I want you all to know that these feelings ARE NOT CREATED by the other person saying something to us, but what WE think about what they said. You don’t have to accept as facts what other people throw out there about you, and you are in complete control over WHAT YOU MAKE IT MEAN.

If the thoughts coming up for you create these icky feelings that then actually in turn make you work slower and less confidently, make sure you examine those thoughts, and don’t take them as the holy grail.

Senior veterinarians are not exempt from this. We now doubt our abilities and knowledge compared to the bright and shiny new grads that just learned all the latest stuff and now tell us we can’t just use steroids and amoxicillin for EVERYTHING!! What’s a vet TO DO then!? Joke aside, we all have a sense of pressure from the expectations of those surrounding us, but make sure you realise the pressure comes from what you THINK about their expectations - and you don’t have to agree with them!

In your corner,

P.S: Confidence comes from our thoughts about ourselves. If you struggle to find it, reach out for a free consult with me, and I’ll show you how you can create it by yourself, no matter what others say about your work. Coaching with me on this is almost like changing a chip in your head: Insert confidence, keep forever (that’s how it felt to me!). Let’s talk about what’s going on for you, and see if we’re a fit.