Imposter Syndrome in Vet Med: You’re NOT alone

Transcript

0:00

Hi guys, and welcome back to Behind the Seth Scope. I am your host, Dr. Elizabeth Brand. I wanna thank you guys so much for such a great response on my first episode, I never expected that too much engagement, all the likes, all the comments, all the follows, all the shares. Thank you guys personally so much. A lot of hard work was put in behind the scenes to make this happen. So I wanna thank every single one of you guys.. on this episode that we're gonna talk about, I think is something that all new grads feel, and I think it's important to talk about it's a feeling of maybe I'm not good enough for this job. Maybe this profession's not for me. Why did someone hire me? How did I get a raise? But that's the feeling of something that we call imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is such a buzzword in veterinary medicine, but I think it's just the feeling of you don't deserve what comes to you or what comes your way, so let's talk about it. let's get into what imposter syndrome feels like. I'm sure most of you have experienced this in your life, but it's the feeling of maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe this profession isn't for me. But sometimes it can be this overwhelming. I don't know. Deteriorating feeling it just hinders you. But sometimes it is this quiet little voice in your head saying, maybe I'm not good enough. And I feel like more people feel that feeling than the big overwhelming feeling. It's so common in veterinary medicine. I think having the conversation of why it is so common in veterinary medicine, in emergency medicine in particular. Lives are at stake. There's high stakes most of the time, and I feel like you always second guessing yourself, or if you fail or make a mistake, you go, okay, maybe I'm not cut out for this. I feel like a lot of people feel that. In vet school, you are taking tests, you are doing a lot of things. We learned so much. Like seriously, we learned so much. You try to shove it all in your head. Dogs, cats, horses. You take this very big test at the end of your four years and they say you're good enough to practice. Good job. You do fourth years, you do a rotation. Someone is double checking every single move that you do. And honestly, it's really annoying and people who are in fourth year definitely know how annoying it is. But someone's double checking you. Then one day out the blue, you graduate, you get a degree and they say, here, you're good enough to practice veterinary medicine and. Then all of a sudden the transition from someone double checking you every step of the way to no one's double checking you, basically, it's a massive transition and you don't gain confidence when you get that degree Like that does not. Shift it enough or make up for how massive that transition is. So I think that's why it's so common in veterinary medicine. One day, again, I get a degree, the next day I can practice emergency medicine and take over a hit by car case. It is so like understandable why people feel this imposter syndrome of I'm not good enough to do this. I'm not good enough to treat this and. In my own life, I feel like I didn't have this oh, I feel like I don't belong here. It was like a slow voice in my head this whole time. I was a collegiate athlete, so I played softball for four years at the University of Texas at Dallas. I knew I belonged there, but I started my freshman year and it wasn't, I don't deserve to start, but it was. Am I good enough to start? Am I good enough to keep this momentum going? It definitely ate me alive. Definitely hindered my performance for sure. And it wasn't until like junior and senior year, years down the road where I started to gain confidence in my ability and how I was able to play and stuff like that. Transition into ves school. I got into vet school, was so grateful, was over the moon about it. I never thought I didn't belong because they accepted me. Obviously they felt like I belonged. But again, it was a slow voice over a period of time that was like, maybe you're not good enough. You fail a test. Like you fail your first test of vet school and you go, I can't do this. Or maybe I don't belong here. And I feel like a lot of people, especially in my vet school class, I started vet school in 2020. It was during COVID. You fail your first test and you go. Maybe I shouldn't do vet school, like maybe this is the wrong career path for me, but it was like the slow voice in my head of maybe I wasn't good enough and again, they give you a degree and then now you're a vet who put me in responsibility of their pets, like who gave me the title of doctor. So that was like such a big transition. And again. Such a small voice in my head over and over again. And it wasn't until I'd say about six months ago that one of the doctors, was asking me questions. And this girl is so smart. She's so smart, and she was asking me questions and I was. I literally out loud asked her, I was like, why are you asking me? You are so much smarter than I am. Like why are you asking me? And it wasn't until that moment, it hit me that like I have imposter syndrome too. It blew my mind. Not gonna lie, but I always was like, oh, that's not me. That's not me. They talk about it in that school and. That's not me. But it wasn't until she asked me that, it was like, oh my gosh. This whole time, this small voice in my head was telling me that maybe I'm not good enough, and I clearly am I am good at what I do. I help people, I help pets. I'm doing this good thing and I know what I'm doing. And this person who I idolize, she's asking me and so I think, again, this small voice in your head that saying maybe I'm not good enough to be here is wrong, but I also want to pose. Something in a different light of maybe imposter syndrome. Maybe just a little bit of it is a good thing. Hear me out. I know that a lot of people are like, no, it's not a good thing. And no, you deserve to be here. I know I deserve to be here. I know I'm a good doctor. I know all of these things. But I also think maybe just, maybe imposter syndrome helps you grow if you feel like you have everything figured out or you're gonna continue learning. Probably not. If you feel like, of course I deserve to be here. That is when you become a bad doctor, that is when people talk about your medicine in a bad way. So I think there is some, I have not reached it yet. That's what some imposter syndrome can be. It can be motivating. It's like I'm not there yet. I am like, I don't feel like I belong here, so I'm gonna try harder. I don't feel like I know everything, so I'm gonna continue learning. And that is very healthy. I feel like the very big, overwhelming feeling of maybe I don't deserve to be in vet school, obviously is not, that is not a good thing. But I feel like some evidence of some imposter syndrome. Is how you grow is how you learn and how you continue growing When you feel like, oh yeah, I'm good. I got everything figured out. I feel like that's when you become a bad doctor, in my opinion, in my two, less than two years of experience, opinion. Yes, you deserve to be here. Yes, you deserve to be in vet school, and I think this translates. To a lot of different professions, and honestly, personally too, do I deserve to be with this person Some people don't feel like they deserve to be with their significant other. Why did they pick me? How did I get hired for this job? But you're gonna work harder because you don't feel like you deserve this job. You're gonna value your partner more because you're like, how did they pick me? Why do they still pick me? You're gonna work harder to keeping them. You're going to appreciate them more than the other way around where you're like. Oh yeah, I'm better than them. There is some growth in that. It can be debilitating. Don't let it be debilitating. Things that I feel have helped me quite a bit with coping with imposter syndrome. So my advice for new grads or people who feel this. Pretty heavily as a new grad is, one is saying like asking questions, but don't apologize. Don't start with a question with, I'm sorry, because it is okay to ask questions, so don't say, this happens a lot where you're like, Hey, I'm sorry. Can I ask a question? Or, Hey, I'm sorry. What's the dose of Snia? Or, Hey, I'm sorry. No. Hey, what is the dose of Senia? Hey, can I ask you a question? We are colleagues. We are all here to help each other and it should never start with an, I'm sorry. You deserve to ask that question. You deserve to be here. You deserve to get the answers that you need, and Starting with, I'm sorry, brings you down a peg. Like you don't, you're not equals with the person that you're asking that question to. So there's not one, two is to keep a wins list. When I started out emergency medicine, we lose a lot. We start down like 10 to zero in a baseball game. That's where we start in emergency medicine. So you lose a lot. You lose momentum a lot, and so keeping your wins list, let's say I have to euthanize six animals that day. It's hard. It is tough. But I feel like keeping your wins list, that you walk out, you make a mistake, or you euthanize a lot of animals, you lose a lot of patients. You don't feel like you did a great job today. You look back on all the hard stuff, but you keep a wins list and say, oh, I did say that patient. Oh, I did do that surgery and it turned out really well. Or I did really good with communication with that client, or I gave that client peace, or it doesn't have to be physical wins. Actual wins to keep the momentum going, especially when you're learning, especially when you're a new vet. That's what I have to say about that. And just remember, learning isn't failing. Just because you ask a question and you don't know the answer to everything does not mean you don't deserve to be there. I still ask questions and. Vets that I know that are five, 10 years out of school still ask me questions. We all have something to give to this profession. And just because you don't know or you ask does not mean you failed, does not mean you're a bad vet. Does not know, does not mean you don't deserve to be here. And I know a lot of people when you're like, oh, I failed the nli, which is our boards in veterinary medicine, they go, I don't deserve to be a vet. Just because you failed a test, you don't deserve to be a vet. I think that's, it's so rational at the time and it's so like it is your everything. And sister, I get it. But also let's realistically think about that for two seconds. You don't deserve to be a vet of four years of vet school, plus four years of undergrad, five years of undergrad, whatever you needed, plus all that experience that you've done. Just because you didn't pass one test one time means you don't deserve to be a vet. No, that's not the case at all. You had a bad day, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You had a migraine, you got the wrong questions, you got the wrong questions, wrong. Whatever the case is. No matter what it is, it does not mean you don't deserve to be a vet and that imposter syndrome can be hindering for the second time you take it. Saying, no, I have stuff to learn. I have stuff to grow. I have an area to grow in. I didn't do great on the equine section of the nav E, whatever the case is, like you can grow in that and that little bit of doubt helps you grow, but don't let it hinder you so that is what I have to say on imposter syndrome. It is real. Again, it is a buzzword in veterinary medicine. But I think it again, transitions into a lot of our lives. This case of the week that I'm gonna talk about is a case very early in my career that definitely had me questioning if I should even be a vet. So I did a six month training program in emergency, and then in January of 25, I became a full-time er veterinarian. One of my first cases, it was a 16-year-old female s spade, domestic short hair presenting for acute lethargy vomiting. Really a DR hasn't eaten and it is a diabetic, a known diabetic. It is on Bcat for y'all that dunno what bcat is. It releases glucose through the urine so they don't have to give insulin doses. If you have questions about bcat, if you have questions about diabetes, definitely talk to your primary care ve. About this. But I checked the ketones levels in the body and the ketones were high. So this cat had something called diabetic ketoacidosis. Again, if you have questions, we can talk more about it. I'm gonna keep it, try to keep it layman's terms for the people that are not in vet med, but basically the body switches from. Sugar and carbs to fat as a primary energy source. I admitted it. I had seen these kind of cases before in my training program, but it was my first one that I've seen as on my own. And of course it was on Bcat. Bcat keeps the glucose not high. It keeps it low'cause it releases it through the urine, and I did not know how to do that. I did not know how to treat an animal with normal glucose, with ketones. I had to ask so many questions to my colleague. I was like, oh my gosh, maybe I'm not supposed to do this. Maybe I'm not supposed to be an ER vet. This is too much. Again, one of my first cases, it was very rational for me to think that this one case means I shouldn't be an ER vet, but I was legit spiraling. Cat did great, admitted it, did all the things. But of course it was like the one case that I didn't see in my six month training program, but it was, it's just like a reminder. And I think about that case very often because it was a reminder of I am supposed to be here. Like I did, that cat did really well, like it did go home to its parents. It did live, and I don't know how long it lived and I don't know any of the follow up in it, but. Feeling like maybe I'm not good enough for this case, or maybe I'm not good enough for this animal, I think is so debilitating sometimes. And again, I think there's some growth in that. I learned a lot from that case. And again, I think about it quite often, there's so much growth in that area and so such a short clip. But if you have any questions about DKS or be cat or imposter syndrome or whatever the case is like. Feel free to ask, comment. DM me. Ask any questions that you may have. I'm happy to answer'em. I wanna hear y'all's opinions on what you think imposter syndrome looks like in your life, what it doesn't look like in your life. If you agree with me, if you don't agree with me, that's totally fair. I want this to be a space to have. Conversations and start having open conversations and vulnerable conversations being about things that we experience every day. So another segment I am going to add to this podcast. I'm gonna respond to y'all's comments or common questions that I get as an emergency veterinarian. Let's start, let's get started here. So one of the questions I got this past week was what made you, basically, what happened in your life that made you like so brave enough to like. Get in front of hundreds, millions of people and putting yourself out there like that. One great question. Two, I don't really know, but three, I think a lot of things have happened in my life in 2025, and I know I talked about it or touched about it last episode, but. So much stuff has happened in my life in 2025. Good, bad, and really ugly. I've made some mistakes. I have some regrets. I did some really good things. I did some really bad things. And I learned, I grew so in short, that's not one thing led me to this moment. I think it was a lot of little things and a lot of growth that got me to this. So that's one question I got this past week, but one question I get. Very commonly as an ER vet was, how am I emotionally able to put down animals? Humane euthanasia is something very common in emergency medicine, unfortunately. But these dogs are coming in for a reason. These dogs have an emergency for a reason. They are sick. We lose patients or we euthanize patients. It happens. But there is some peace in it when you see a dog suffering, and I've seen it in my own pet where they're suffering and and they pass and that sigh of relief. F That makes it worth it. Every time be It is so hard. And we do it so often that sometimes we forget about it, but it takes an emotional toll on us. It does like straight up, but to. See them go and be at peace and knowing that I can help in their suffering that is my piece in it. That is how I get through it. It is so hard for some people and totally understandable. And I think it's when you're not in it and you're outside of vet Med or new grads or vet students or pre-vet students, that's their thing. They're really worried about fair, like totally fair and it's hard to get it until you're in that moment and you see them suffering and then you see them pass I'm telling you that sigh of relief. Makes everything okay. You just know that you're doing the right thing in it all. So those are some common questions that I get. We'll go through more or common questions I get as an er vet just so you get a little glimpse into my life or my opinions on different situations. So that is episode two. I wanna thank you guys so much for showing up again. It has been such a fun time, recording, experiencing, communicating, connecting with people, especially people who I haven't really talked to in a really long time. So I wanna thank you guys for showing up. My closing message is if you do feel like you don't belong, I want you to know that you do belong. You deserve to be here. You deserve to get into vet school. You deserve to graduate from vet school, and you deserve to be a vet if you're feeling it with your personal life. You are an amazing person. You are an amazing person. You have people in your life that think you're amazing. You need to believe it too. And it's not until you believe it that people are gonna see it or feel it. You deserve to have your own voice in it all. Next episode, we are gonna talk about mistakes, and I feel like as a new grad, you are a veterinarian. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, so we're gonna get into that. But thank you guys so much. It has been a, again, it's been a blast. And I will see you guys next week on Behind the Stethoscope. a little disclaimer this content shared on behind the stethoscope is for educational and informational purposes only. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Or establish a veterinarian patient relationship. Any cases discussed are very generalized anonymous, and pet owners should always consult their own veterinarian for any medical decisions regarding their animals. And opinions expressed on this podcast does not represent my employer or any organization their my own opinions.