Your value as a vet

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Is your value as a veterinarian attached to being able to diagnose quickly or give the owners good news? Let me ask it this way:

When you see cases that you think are not straight forward, do you feel anxious?

If owners come in with expectations you think are above what you can offer right now, do you feel inadequate?

As a breed, veterinarians tend to be slaves of perfectionism. Let’s face it, in order to get here, we had to be pretty perfect during our studies.

But once we’re let into the real world, this perfectionism can be a heavy weight around our necks.

And when we think we have to do perfect in order to be a good veterinarian, then we’re making it very hard for ourselves.

We all LOVE the cases that follow the text books, right? So we can follow a clear flowchart: Get history, do tests, diagnose, treat, voila!

HOWEVER, most cases are not like that. They are messy, clients can’t afford the tests, the history is contradictory, the clinical signs don’t make sense.

If you attach your value as a veterinarian to being able to manage these cases perfectly, then you’ve set yourself up for feeling inadequate most of the time.

When you feel inadequate and insecure, your brain will happily go looking for all the evidence you have of NOT being good enough. And if you don’t catch this tendency, you can spiral downwards, feeling more and more anxious and inadequate.

Your brain will tell you that you need more experience, take more courses, read more articles, and specialise more in order to be good enough and a valuable veterinarian.

Here’s something that will serve more:

You can choose to cultivate belief in yourself.

Realise that your value is not attached to being able to diagnose on the spot, and save cases that are unsolvable.

You passed your exam. You are already immensely valuable to the pets, their owners, your colleagues and the practice you work at.

You can choose to focus on everything you already know, and how much you learn every day just by showing up.

Someone with more experience than you might assume things, and overlook symptoms.

Someone more specialised than you might not have your valuable overall perspective.

Believe in your value. And then go and prove it.

In your corner,

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