Mentorship: The People Who Shape Your Career

In this episode of Behind the Stethoscope, Dr. Elizabeth Brann dives into the importance of mentorship—both in veterinary medicine and beyond.

From her experience as a kennel tech and ER technician to now practicing as an emergency veterinarian, she shares how mentorship has shaped her confidence, clinical skills, and career growth.

This episode covers:

• What mentorship really looks like
• How to find the right mentor
• How to be a great mentee
• Why mentorship is essential in high-stress careers
• And how YOU are already a mentor to someone else

Whether you're a pre-vet student, vet student, new grad, or navigating your own career path—this episode is for you.

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📱 Follow along: @dr.elizabeth.brann

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi friends and welcome back to Pine the Stethscope. My name is Dr. Elizabeth Brand. I am just a new ER grad veterinarian, just trying to figure everything out like the rest of us. I just want to thank you guys for showing up for this episode. For everyone that is new here, welcome. And for everyone that has been here since the beginning, I want to thank you guys again so much. This episode, we are going to talk about mentorship. Another really big buzzword in the veterinary community. I kind of want to talk about what it means for me, my journey, and going through it all. So on this episode, we're going to break it down. I was really struggling in the sense of what I wanted to talk about and how I wanted to format this. I feel like this is such a big topic. A lot of people have questions on it. But one, we're going to talk about my journey and the mentors that I've had along the way and kind of that route. Then we're going to talk about what I think mentorship is and what mentorship is not. Yeah, but we'll get into that. But let's kick this episode off. So first I'm going to start with my journey in particular. I think it's going to explain my perspective on a lot of things, and then we'll talk about everything else. So my journey in particular, the ones that have been here throughout has heard a little bit of my story, but this is gonna be one long story. Okay. I want to be a veterinarian since I was eight. I have a cousin who is a second cousin. She is a general practice veterinarian. She was always so nice and so sweet to like let me just come in whenever I wanted to. My mom was like, Hey, you should go shadow her. You should go shadow her. See if this is something you really want to do before running down that path. So any chance I could get in the clinic, I was like all in. I was like, let's go. So I was like shadowing kennel technician. I did a little bit of kennel technician with her. I'm also did it at another GP. And then I did actually a lot of like pet smart work. So I worked at like the pet hotel, handling dogs, walking dogs, and then wanted to branch out into other branches of vetmed. And then I ended up being a technician at an emergency clinic in the middle of COVID, which was insane. And I learned so much there. Found out really loved ER pretty fast. General practice was just a little bit too slow for my pace. Then at Cannes State University, where I went to vet school, I ended up doing ICU work for the four years I was there. So had a lot of experience and then did a training program out of school for six months, and then now a full-time ER doctor. So now I get to mentor people going through that training program, which is really fun and very rewarding for the people who did it for me, and now I get to return the favor. So let's talk about like my mentors along the way. I think there's a lot of like misconception of what a mentor actually is, in the sense of a lot of people feel like, oh, it's my one. I got my one and done. Like one mentor that you would call like in the middle of the night, or that you're gonna talk to for 20 years to come, and you say that person made my bed career career. And I think that is true for some people, but I think for me in particular, I had so many great mentors throughout like my vet med career, even though it's so young. So starting with like my cousin, she has been nothing but a north star for me. She has helped me through any questions that I had. Again, she helped me jump in when I was super young, and then again, all the way through. She's definitely been there since the beginning for me. So she has been nothing but super awesome as a mentor for me. Then my technicians that I was working with when I was a technician, those people taught me so much about emergency medicine. I know everyone always says your technician knows probably more than the doctor does. And that was nothing short of true. Um, the technicians that I worked with at that particular ER, I just learned so much. And mostly obviously the technician side of things, but a lot of the doctor side of things too. What I learned in those four years of working at that ER has helped me tremendously through the start of my career. I would not be the doctor I was today without being a technician back then, and I will say that till the day I die. So those technicians in particular just helped me a lot with like understanding what vetmed is, what the journey looks like. Yeah, just a lot of things. But then those doctors, too, they took me under their wing. There's three of them in particular, but they took me under their wing and was like, hey, do you want to help with this? Or hey, do you want to assist with this? Or hey, do you want to do those? And it was really the first time that I had true hands-on needle drivers in hand, suturing, like true work. And it really, again, kicked off my confidence. Hey, I've already done that before. Yeah, I can do that. There's nothing that beats hands-on experience. And so their mentorship, and again, it was such a small portion, and it was so small, it wasn't like, hey, here's my number, call me anytime, or hey, I've worked with you for 10 years now. Here, let me mentor you. It was just the small little mentors, and it was the people that you meet along the way that shows you or teaches you those little lessons, still mentors. And then transitioning into case state, my boss at the ICU, he was amazing and he was so smart, just teaching me about how to manage critical cases and in the sense of like how to manage those cases, how on the technician side of things, like how we need to treat them, what we need to do. And as a doctor now managing those cases, again, eternally grateful for that. I want to shout out a couple of doctors in particular. I have a special interest in surgery and K-State in particular, I feel like does such a great job with getting us surgery hands-on experience. There was a couple people who really took me under their wing and was like, hey, you should be a surgeon. Hey, you should consider this and literally call me anytime if you have a question. And all of those things that you would see in like a typical like mentorship, they gave to me even when I was in vet school. Honestly, even though I didn't even ask for it. I think a lot of it when I reflect on, I think it's just so funny. When I reflect on like mentorship and what how to get it, I think that's a question a lot of people, like new grads, have of like, how to get it? How do I get mentorship? Honestly, I've just been like so freaking lucky just meeting people and networking with people and going after what you want. The mentor will like fall in your lap. Oh, I don't know if that's the right thing to say, but that's definitely what happened to me is like I knew I was super interested in surgery and I was let me get in the OR any chance that I can. And it honestly just came my way of all of these like really great people to help me like in surgery. Not great advice, just something happened in my life. And then post-grad during the training program, the doctors that I had during that training program, truly some of the best people that I've ever met in my life. I would not be here today. I would not be the doctor I am today without those people. So, shout out that team. You guys know who you are. You guys are absolutely amazing, and thank you seriously for everything you have done for me. It does not go unnoticed. So that is where we are, the point I'm at in my life. Now I get to mentor those people who are doing the training program, but also still meaning people along the way to help me in the little things that I still need to learn. I'm still like a new grad in my eyes. I still have no idea what I'm doing. And that feeling unfortunately doesn't go away. So for those new grads that say, Oh, I just need to get a year out, I promise you're still not gonna feel like you know what you're doing. So look forward to that. So that is my journey and quick synopsis of hey, this is my journey. Hey, this is where I'm coming from when I talk about what mentorship is and what it is not. I know I talked about what I think a mentor is and what is mentor is not, in the sense of, in my opinion, it is not just one person. If you are lucky enough to find a mentor that is just one person, like I love that for you. That is amazing. I think mentorship is like a network of mentors. I have so many people in my corner that I can call. I remember one story in particular. I was in Dallas and I was doing a spay on a dog, and there was multiple areas that like continued to rip, even though when I was like trying to tie it off. So the dog was like continuing to bleed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was in a clinic that I really had never worked before. I didn't know what we had, what we didn't have. I did not know what to do. I that had never happened to me in surgery before. And I called somebody who I had not talked to in like probably three years, and I called her and I said, Hey, I'm in this clinic, I need help. This is a situation. And she was like, FaceTime me. And we literally FaceTimed my technician had the phone, and I was walking through things that were happening, and she was like, Okay, this is what you need to do. Literally save that dog's life. I learned so much from that case, but literally saved that dog's life just by her answering my phone call and walking me through what was going on. In that scenario, it was like, oh my gosh, this has never happened before. I don't know what to do, and I need help. But I knew she was that person for that call. And then if I have another case of, hey, what should I do? I'm sure I could call somebody else or somebody else. And so I think it's like a network of people that you know that has your back and knows that, hey, I have a dumb question, or hey, I don't know what to do here, or hey, I just need someone to confirm that I'm doing the right thing. All are really important. Or honestly, life questions of, hey, I don't know what I should do next steps in my career. Hey, I want to leave this clinic, what do I do next? Or hey, I need help on deciding contract negotiations or whatever the case is. So again, I think it's like more of a network of people versus just one person in particular. The next question I normally get is saying, why do I need a mentor? I think if you're wanting to go in emergency, I think it's crucial. When I was an ER technician at the private ER, we had a lot of new grads come in and I watched them continuously get burned out within three to six months. It was a cycle of lack of mentorship from new grads. It was like new grads helping new grads, lack of mentorship, burnout because you don't know what you're doing. And it was this cycle over and over again. What came in, the new grads would try to mentor them of, hey, this is what I've learned in my six months or year. And then it was like, again, this continuous cycle of I'm burned out. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to help this case. I like, and I didn't help the cycle of, hey, this is a really stressful job. Hey, you can't learn everything in four years of vet school. There are still things I'm almost two years out, which is crazy to say. And I still have not seen everything that you can see. I still call people continuously. And to say, hey, when you graduate, which a lot of people are about to be graduating here soon, is saying, I need a mentor, I need mentors to say, hey, I don't know what to do about this case. I need help, or hey, I'm way out of my depths here. Can you jump in? I just think it's so important within emergency medicine, within emergency medicine, within general practice, honestly, within anything, to have just a solid either group of mentors, a mentor in particular. Now I'm talking to the new grads really quick. When you graduate, I'm sure a lot of you guys have already signed on a job. For the people that are third years, about to go into fourth years, probably gonna start looking for jobs here in the next three to six months. A lot of companies are gonna say, Hey, we offer mentorship. My advice for you guys in particular is to say, ask the real questions of what does mentorship look like? Is this in my contract? Because you can say mentorship. What is mentorship to them? What is mentorship to you? What do you feel like you need? And so I knew coming out of school that I needed like mentorship and true mentorship because I saw how many doctors burned out and I was like, I am not gonna do that. I'm not gonna go into emergency medicine and not know what I'm doing. And so even though I had multiple years of emergency experience, I still knew. I think it was like I knew what I didn't know. I knew I wasn't ready, and that's why I jumped into that training program. And so circling back to like why it's so important is like saying we don't want you to burn out, we don't want things to happen because you're a new grad. It is okay to be a new grad. It is okay to be a baby doctor. People don't like the term, but I use it all the time for myself. But it is okay to be a baby doctor, it is okay to not know what you're doing. I've been almost out two years and I never feel like I know what I'm doing. You'll get used to that feeling. But saying, like you knowing you have somebody there, you know you have someone instead of getting thrown into the deep end of veterinary medicine, you're gonna hate this career. And it is such a fun career and it's so rewarding and is so fun. You're gonna hate this career if you have that burnout of I have no idea what I'm doing, and I have no one here to help me. I've just seen it so many times, and I just don't want that for you. So that is my advice on that front. Now I'm on the other side of it. I am training this people, these people in the six-month training program, which is like wild for me to say because I like I said, I don't feel like I still know what I'm doing, but it's like passing down the knowledge that I've learned and honestly learning with them. But talking about how to be a good mentee, of how to receive mentorship. So, again, I've been on the side of being mentored, and I've been on the side of teaching and helping. So I would say there's like a lot of things on my list of how to be a good mentee, but in particular is like the willingness to learn and the willingness to take feedback. Feedback is so hard to take sometimes, especially in emergency medicine. You're trying so hard every day, you feel like you don't know what you're doing. Every day, you feel like you're drowning, every day the world feels like it's falling apart. And then, oh, by the way, someone's telling you, hey, you messed this case up, or hey, next time make sure you do this. It makes you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm just never gonna be good at this. There are some days that you feel like you're really good at your job, and there's more days that you probably feel like you're not, especially in the growth of being a new grad. You feel like you have no idea what you're doing. And again, people are constantly telling you, hey, what about this? Or hey, what about this? And I think taking the feedback of saying these people want what's best for me. When I tell a new grad or I tell people in that training program of, hey, like next time, maybe have these conversations, or hey, make sure like we look at this next time, or we add this, or whatever the case is, I'm not telling that to degrade them in any way. I want them to succeed, I want them to be the best ER doctor that they can. But I think that also comes with there are some things that we need to work on. And again, me too, but it's being willingness to learn and grow and have that growth mindset, but then also take the feedback well of I'm not trying to harp on you every five seconds. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm not trying to do anything like that. It comes from a place of again, I want you to grow. I want you to be the best ER doctor that you can, large animal, small animal, surgeon, whatever the case is, wherever you're at, whatever facet you go into. But those mentors are truly trying to make you the best doctor that you can. So come with an open mind and an open heart to like what they're trying to tell you, and just be willing to learn. I think that's the two recipes on like how to be a good mentee and how you're gonna be the best doctor that you can and get the most out of your mentorship. Also, along that those lines of saying, hey, be a good mentee, but like also be a good mentor. It's weird to say, especially for new grads in particular, you're someone's mentor. And I know that's super weird to say, but hear me out. There, where you have been, someone else is going through. Let's say you're a new grad and you're graduating, you're like, I have no idea what I'm doing. There are people behind you that also are looking up to you, which is so weird because you're like, oh my gosh, I'm just like throwing a focus on making it. But those people are looking up to you. So for example, and I think I can speak for her, is my roommate in vet school. She was two years behind me. So when I was a third year, she was a first year. And when I graduated, she was a second year. She had always looked up to me, which is like wild to think about because you're like, dude, I have no idea what I'm doing. And she's like asking me questions. And I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just kind of winging it. So don't take my advice. And like, she just continuously looked up to me. And again, I feel like I can say this. I think she would agree with that. And so it was so weird and to put myself into that perspective of being a new grad, of I have not even stepped foot in a clinic as a doctor and being a mentor to somebody else. So I just want to throw that out there. You are a mentor to somebody else, and be the best mentor that you can in the shoes that you're in right now. Be a good mentor, be a good mentee. So, with all of that being said, I want to thank you guys for showing up for this episode. I think mentorship is an area that I'm like super passionate in. I can go on probably for another hour talking about mentorship. So, again, that was a very condensed version of my thoughts on mentorship. I think it's super important to one, get the mentorship, but then two, to pass it down to behind you. Someone else did it for you. This career can be really hard. There's a lot to learn in this career path. There is so many good things that come from this career. There's so many frustrating parts that come from this career. And I think having a mentor or someone you can rely on or lean on will help you and go so far. Be a good mentor, be a good mentee, show someone that you care today. Thank the mentors that have helped you. And yeah, I want to thank you guys so much. This coming month, we are gonna have a lot of interviews here coming up just for graduation, friends that I'm seeing, again, different perspectives. So definitely stick around. There's fun things coming up in the next month or two. Again, if you have any questions, always feel free to DM me. Okay, I just have to put a disclaimer in here. This content shared behind the stethoscope is for educational and informational purposes only. This podcast does not provide medical advice, establish a veterinary client patient relationship. Any cases that I discuss throughout this episode are generalized and anonymous, but pet owners should always consult their veterinarian for medical decisions regarding their pet. And opinions expressed are my own and does not represent my employer or organization. Thank you guys so much.