NOTE: THIS IS AN AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOS.

What discouraging others from pursuing a vet med career actually reveals about you. That's what we're talking about in episode eight. I'm Dr. Cari Wise, and this is the Joyful DVM Podcast. Hello, my friends today, I have a question for you. Do you discourage or encourage others from pursuing careers in veterinary medicine? How would you answer that question? We all end up in situations where somebody shares with us that they are dreaming of becoming either a veterinarian or a veterinary technician.

They often say how it's something they want to do for their whole entire lives. And when they find out that you are in veterinary medicine yourself, then they can't wait to talk about it. They share with you their dream. So what do you do? Do you encourage them to pursue that dream or do you discourage them? Do you jump right into all the reasons why pursuing a career in veterinary medicine is a really bad idea how you answer that question reveals way more about you than it does provide information for them.

And that's what I want to talk about right now, because many of us would discourage young people from pursuing careers in veterinary medicine, for reasons that seem quite logical. And here over the next few minutes, we're going to go through some of the most common reasons why we often discourage people from pursuing that med careers. And I'm going to show you how continuing to do this is actually hurting you and the profession as a whole.

And it's holding us all back. So reason number one, that a lot of us sight when we're talking to people who are considering a career in veterinary medicine, is we tell them to avoid it because of the financial implications. So many of us believe that we are in financial ruin. We are in financial traps because of our decision to pursue veterinary careers.

And this relates to how much money that perhaps we take it out on student loans and how that correlates to what we're getting paid and all of that. So it seems like a very logical thing to do to warn people about the debt that they're going to incur and the wages that they are going to receive once they get out into the field. That seems like a very logical reason to discourage somebody from pursuing a career in Batman.

As we look at that, and we consider that what we want to notice is that we ourselves are believing that we are trapped by our debt, that we don't have the opportunity to be able to make enough money to pay off that debt. And we often believe that somebody should have warned us. So one of the reasons that we cite this reason in our list of reasons,

why not to pursue a veterinary career is because we believe that somebody along the way should have told us how much money we were going to accrue in debt and how much the pay rate was going to be on the other side. Now, the truth is there is lots of information provided to us all along the way that helps us to see that on the front end.

But when you're in the throws of your dream and pursuing what's on your heart, we don't often take that information into consideration in a practical and real and reality based kind of way. We also believe at that point that if we pursue this career, that we've always wanted to do that the rest of it's going to work out after all, there's all these people around us that have gone into veterinary medicine and they're surviving.

So I can do that too. We don't really consider the implications, but once we get out into the profession, a lot of us start to feel very trapped by a combination of the student loan debt that we have and the wages that we're able to earn. And that brings us back around to, we should have understood that better. Somebody should have explained it to us more because now here we are having pursued these degrees,

having become part of the veterinary profession. And we feel very trapped by that debt and really a bit jaded because we didn't know, we feel a lot of, of regret, I guess, but really we feel cheated in some way that we were kind of duped. If you will, a second reason that a lot of us would give as to why pursuing a career in veterinary medicine might be a really bad idea,

has to do with the hours. So we would often say, Hey, it's horrible, horrible hours. There's just no such thing as work-life balance. And so that's one of the reasons we might discourage somebody who's considering a career in veterinary medicine from doing it. If we take a look at that one and we, we consider it a little bit further,

we find the belief system underneath there, which is that if we're going to work in vet med, we are going to be required to sacrifice our time, our own personal time. And for many of us who believe that that's because that has been our experience that we have worked in vet med, that we have realized that we work long hours. We go in on our days off,

we get calls when we are away from work and we're supposed to be off. We go by on our days off because we feel like we have to, there is no downtime for a lot of us. And so the conclusion that we draw is that there just is not a possibility of having work-life balance as long as you're in veterinary medicine, that you have to,

that you're required to, that you're expected to sacrifice your own time for the job. And so of course, if that is our belief system around that, that is information that we feel compelled to share with somebody who's considering entering the profession. Reason, number three, toxic work environment, many of us would share our thoughts about veterinary work environments. And what we would recognize is that it's impossible to work in a veterinary organization without some degree of drama and backstabbing.

Unfortunately, that again is the experience that a lot of us have had. And because we recognize the drama, the backstabbing, we identify what we call a toxic work environment. And we've concluded that being at a toxic work environment is just part of being in veterinary medicine, especially if we've been through multiple jobs and had the same experience over and over and over again,

it makes sense that we feel compelled to warn future veterinary professionals, potential veterinary professionals of this risk makes sense why we would discourage them because underneath that, we're believing that if we hadn't pursued veterinary medicine, that we wouldn't be stuck in toxic work environments, that we wouldn't be surrounded by drama and backstabbing. Another reason clients, clients are ungrateful. It doesn't matter how much you care about the pets.

Clients are just ungrateful and they're mean, this is what a lot of us experience day in and day out. And this really feeds into an underlying belief that clients do not value us. They do not value our time. They do not value our knowledge because if they did, they would treat us better. And so every time a client treats us badly,

they're mean they're disrespectful. Then we just see that as evidence of them not valuing what we have to offer, who wants to be in an environment that has that happening day in and day out. A lot of us are believing in it. If we had understood that this was what it was going to be like, that we would have made a different choice.

So we discourage future veterinary professionals by warning them about this. And then of course, there's the mental health side, the negative impact on mental health that a lot of us recognized comes along with a veterinary career. We believe that we struggle with our mental health because of this career field because of what we chose. And so, as we recognize that we are struggling with our mental health and we sh we noticed that it seems to be related to our career.

We also draw the conclusion that if we hadn't pursued it, then we wouldn't be struggling. So these five different things here bring up a lot of negative emotion for us. Let's go back through them real quick, financial ruin. So that belief that I'm trapped by debt, that somebody should have warned me about how the debt and the pay and all that was going to shake out that makes us feel very cheated the hours and the work-life balance.

I believe that working in vet med requires me to sacrifice my own personal time. That makes us feel very disempowered as if we have no choices, the toxic work environment. I believe it's impossible to work in vet med without drama and backstabbing. That makes us feel super disheartened. How about the clients being ungrateful and mean, I believe if clients truly valued us,

they would treat us with respect. That has us feeling then disrespected and the mental health challenges. I believe that I wouldn't be struggling with my mental health. If I had not pursued a career in veterinary medicine that has us feeling victimized. When we stack all these things together, feeling victimized and disrespected and disheartened, disempowered, and cheated. It's no wonder that we feel then regret because all of these things are the evidence that pursuing a career in medicine was a bad choice.

We are believing that we made a mistake in pursuing veterinary medicine, and here's all the reasons why I just listened to them, listed them all out. And so this is where many about to discourage future veterinary professionals from going into this profession. This is our evidence that we give them. It's the evidence that we use for ourselves as to why this was a bad decision.

And now we're trying to help them. We're trying to warn them by telling them this is what you're going to experience. When you get into the field before warrant, I was not for war and had I known I would've done something different, but my friends, this is only a tiny piece of the entire story. What we're missing here is what's actually true in every single situation,

there is an alternative perspective and an alternative experience. It may not be your experience, but it exists. I promise you that. So for the person who is really believing that the financial applications are the solid reasons why they never should've gotten into this, they're going to be stuck with student debt for the rest of their lives. They're going to pay and pay and pay.

And then the best they can hope for is maybe to get loan forgiveness 20 years from now. I want to offer you that there is story after story, after story of people who have gone into veterinary medicine, who ended up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and paid that off. And under 10 years, I personally know somebody who was in a very high cost of living area that paid over $300,000 worth of student loan debt off in seven years.

It's possible. It's possible. The student loan debt does not restrict your life. It is simply a neutral circumstance. It's part of just the data in your life at any given moment. But the story you tell around the debt, the story you tell around your income is what's going to create your reality there. So if your focus is every time you look at that student debt,

you believe that it's ruined your life. You believe that you're trapped by it. Then that will be the experience that you have. It also, doesn't give you any opportunity to find all of the people out there who have knocked these student loans out of the park in a very short period of time. It's completely possible and lots and lots of people do it.

How about the horrible hours and the work-life balance? Did you know, there are a lot of practices that do not require weekend work at all that do not have any on-call who never call their associates. On the day off. Many of them work four day weeks. They get lots of vacation time. They get paid for their continuing education. They get extra days for that.

Those practices do exist. So just because that might not be your experience doesn't mean that it's not out there. It's easy for us when we've jumped from job to job, to job and landed in situations that haven't been supportive in these ways for us to conclude that it's not possible, that work-life balance and the sacrifice thereof is just an expectation of this career,

but I promise you that it's never true. And as veterinary medicine going through the transition that is going through right now, as the foundation of veterinary medicine is being rebuilt, we're finding more and more and more practices that are prioritizing work-life balance. So if your experience in your job right now, doesn't offer you work life balance. Doesn't create a supportive environment for your downtime.

That's an opportunity for you to find an organization that's a better fit for what you want. Don't just buy into the idea that it doesn't exist. Don't buy into the idea that this is just how it is in veterinary medicine, because it's not, that's just not true. And when you give advice from a place that is not the entire truth of a situation,

you're influencing somebody else's life in a way that is very impactful. So the entire perspective is super important for us to see now, what about the toxic work environment? What about the toxic work environment? There are lots of practices out there where people don't spend their day complaining and commiserating about what's happening in their organizations. People who are unhappy are always going to find things to blame for.

They're always going to find people who are responsible for it. That is just human nature. And I'm not even saying that what you're complaining about is wrong. There are lots of opportunities in veterinary organizations to improve the way that the organization organizations function. And as an employee, as an associate, or as a veterinary technician, a support staff, you may not have any power to actually facilitate change in the organization where you work.

If that's the truth, if you've tried to facilitate change and it's a no, then just use it for what it is, which is a data point that the organization that you work in, doesn't align with what it is that you want for your career. And if you're a hospital owner, and this is your hospital, this is your organization that you believe that work environment is toxic.

I want to lovingly and gently tell you that that starts as a leadership issue. That just like we teach clients how to treat us. We also teach our employees how to behave in the workplace. And if we haven't set a very clear expectation and upheld that and modeled that ourselves, it's very difficult for the people around us to behave any differently. So we have to take a step back and look at it.

Where's the problem starting. Am I part of that problem? Is there something that I can do to adjust the culture of the organization that I own, or if I, not the owner, if I'm an associate, if I'm a staff member, can I influence change through having conversations and trying to make things better or do I just get shut down? And if I get shut down,

am I going to stay here and be mad because they're not different than they are? What am I going to take a step out and try to find a better fit for what I actually want for my career. Many of us aren't willing to do either of those things. We're not willing to have a conversation to try to make things better, and we're not willing to make a change.

And so we stick ourselves in a situation where day in and day out, all we do is complain and commiserate to get through. It becomes a coping mechanism, and that becomes what we experience as the reality of a Korean veterinary medicine. But it's not the only option when we give advice as if it is, we just want to start to recognize that that's not useful,

but for the people who are coming up behind us, what about clients? We all have star clients. We all have those clients who are amazing, who will agree to do whatever we recommend, who listened to what we say, who value our information that we give and value our time and value our expertise. We love working with those clients. And then we all have the 10%,

the 10% is going to say, no, no matter what you say, the 10% is going to roll their eyes and they're going to Huff and they're going to show up late for their appointments. And they're going to try to get scheduled in, and they're going to take up all your support staff time. And here's what I have to say about that.

We teach people how to treat us. And so, even though in any service-based profession or job, there's always going to be people who push the limits. It is up to us as organizations and as individuals to set the boundaries of what we are going to allow this idea that the client is always right, is nonsense. We have to step up for ourselves now more than ever before and say,

this is how we do things here. This is a culture of respect of appreciation and of a communication that goes both ways. And if you're not willing to interact with us in a respectful manner, then you are not welcome to get your services here. It's setting boundaries. And again, this comes back to leadership. What is the culture of the hospital?

What are the policies and procedures say? Have we actually done anything to make sure those policies and procedures are upheld? If we are the ownership, do you have your policies and procedures in place? Have you made a plan? Do you set boundaries or are you stuck in your own story and your own fears around money and in your fear of getting blasted on social and all the other things that you say yes to everything you're stuck in people pleasing to try to just keep people happy.

My friend, you can not create emotion in somebody else. That's not your responsibility. And if that's you just notice that it impacts everybody and when we're all doing it together, just trying to keep people happy. The result is often at the sacrifice of ourselves and this last one, the negative impact on our mental health. Please hear me. When I say this,

the challenges of mental health are vast right now, and it's not limited to our profession. Our profession, yes, has been at the high, you know, the higher end of the rate of suicide for decades. We haven't been up there alone doctors and dentists and human nurses and lawyers are also up there toward the top of this list. It's less about the professions that we chose and more about our own abilities to understand our emotion that drives this statistic to being a reality year after year after year.

It's not an evitable though. It's never inevitable. Future performance. Future outcomes are never predicted by past data is simply a moment in time. And so the solution around this, the solution around all of the mental health struggles, any of us have in veterinary medicine or otherwise are not grounded in the activities that we partake in day in and day out. They are grounded in our belief systems and an understanding emotion and starting to really get a handle on the idea that emotion is not created by what happens around us.

But by what we believe about what create is by what happens around us, what we believe about what happens around us, that emotion and that self-confidence, and that sense of self value and self worth is something that we build for ourselves internally. And as a population of people who are high achievers and all of the professions that I listed, many of us have covered up our own personal insecurities with external achievement,

which works really well when you're a student, because you have some kind of extra means to validate where you are. But as soon as you get out into the real world of these professions, there's nothing to tell you that you're good enough. Is there. If we are anchored in that, then those voices take over that tell you you're not good enough.

You're less than that. You're not needed. You're not valued that you're making things worse. And it's those voices. When we believe it, that lead us down. Some of those really dark paths, but those voices are not the truth of who you are. They never have been veterinary medicine that catalyzes personal growth that pushes us right up against the wall to where we must take responsibility for our own wellbeing.

And if we don't know that if we don't understand what's actually happening and driving all this, of course, we conclude that the profession is killing our mental health, but don't give it that much power. There's nothing in this world that has that much power over you. The profession can't destroy you, but it can't save you either. That relationship that you have with you becoming really aligned with who you are,

what you believe, what you're about, building up your own sense of self-worth. And self-value understanding that you are valuable just because you exist. That's what we need to work on. As we work on that, the external variables start to have so much less impact. And the truth is that even though we see struggles in mental health, across a whole bunch of professions,

we also see people thriving in every one of those professions. Ours included. What's really challenging in the day and age of social media is that we don't in front of our face. See the evidence of that. We don't see the stories of the people who are thriving, who are fulfilled by their careers, who are happy, who are taking the challenges that come with these jobs and letting it kind of roll off their back,

accepting what they can influence, letting go of what they can't control. We don't see the evidence of that front and center in our social media feed every day. You want to know why it's not because it doesn't exist. It's because those people are too busy, living their lives to be bothered, to post about it on social media. So just remember it's a bias since system,

you're never going to get the full picture of what's happening in a media feed question. All of it, it makes sense. Why many of us regret our decisions to go into veterinary medicine? When we stack up these reasons, these bits of evidence, financial ruin, horrible hours, no work-life balance, toxic environment, clients who are rude and mean mental health.

When we stack all those things together, of course, it sounds like why in the world, would anybody pursue a degree in veterinary medicine? But those beliefs, those reasons, those pieces of evidence are not absolute, not a single one of those is rooted in factual data and quite to the contrary, because there is evidence to the contrary of every single one of those things.

We know that on its own, they can't be true. That's not all there is to the story. So my friends, when you are next time facing a young person who is saying, I want to be a veterinarian, I dreamed of that. Here's what I want you to consider. Instead, I want you to go back to when you were that person to that time,

when you believed in pursuing this career path, when you believe that anything was possible for you, when you could envision what it was going to be like to be in the field. I want you to tap back into that because that is all still there. And I'm not one of those people who's going to tell you that you wanted to veterinary medicine and that you should stay in veterinary medicine for the rest of your life.

Because I don't think that's true for all of us. I don't think we're all lifers, but what I do believe with my whole heart and a hundred percent of my conviction is that if you decided to pursue a veterinary degree, either veterinarian, veterinary, technician, veterinary assistant, any kind of veterinary career, if you decided at some point in your life to pursue that,

and you did so that it was exactly the right choice for you and whatever happens from here forward, you still get to make additional choices that whether veterinary medicine was supposed to be part of your life for a season or for a lifetime that is individual to each and every one of us, but in the event that it's only for a season and it's not for a lifetime,

please do not believe that you made a mistake by pursuing it in the first place. Because when you look at your career through that lens of regret, when you hang tight to that belief that you never should have gone into veterinary medicine and new site, all the reasons that I gave here, you will continue to live your life. Moving forward every single day as a victim of your choices,

it is a miserable place to be. It is impossible to find the light. When every day you live through regret friends, you didn't screw anything up in your future by pursuing a career in veterinary medicine. From this point, the only thing you need to do is to understand your own experience and determine how veterinary medicine is going to fit into the life and the career that you want in perfect alignment.

Not every job is going to be a good fit, but that doesn't make it impossible to. There is one out there there's a million different things that you can do with a veterinary career. If you haven't gotten a copy of our alternative career guide, I just updated it again for 2022, joyful dvm.com forward slash job guide. I go through dozens of different types of jobs that are appropriate for people with veterinary experience and veterinary degrees.

There's a million things that you can do with your life. Making a decision to pursue veterinary medicine was one choice. It doesn't predict your entire future. So if you go through the process and you start to release some of these beliefs that are holding you back, and you find underneath all of that, that you just don't want to stay in veterinary medicine,

that you just want to do something different than do it by all means. And do it. I want you to follow through on what is right for you. But what I don't want you to do is to spend the next 10, 20, 30 years living in regret of decision that you've made in the past, believing that it holds you to a predictable and ugly future,

because that is never the case. That is just simply the experience that you have right now, because you're so caught up in some old thought patterns that a lot of our profession jumps on the bandwagon and supports wholeheartedly. Those belief systems do not move our profession forward. They do not create evidence of people who are flourishing in veterinary medicine, experiencing beautiful work-life balance,

having very strong mental health and wellbeing, enjoying their clients, paying off their debt. Those things are happening. You just don't see them. So trust me, they are happening. Start to look for them and you will find them. And as you find them, use them as inspiration for what you can create for yourself, because anything is possible. I know this 100%,

anything that you want for your life as possible, your decision to go on veterinary medicine has not limited you. One bit. It has catalyzed your personal growth. It's pushed you right up against the wall and a lot of areas that are uncomfortable and that's intentional. That's part of your journey. Your journey does not stop here. It's just getting started. And if you'll give yourself the opportunity simply to investigate your own experience,

to start to decide for yourself what you believe to intentionally pursue what it is that you want, then your entire experience changes. But if you sit back and settle, if you believe all these things that we went through before, and you don't have any interest in making a change, then it will stay exactly how it is for you. And from that place,

I understand why you would discourage others, but just know when you discourage somebody from pursuing a veterinary career, as much as we believe it is helpful that we are warning them. What it really is as simply a reflection of how we are believing that this decision has limited our own lives. And we are compounding that belief as we discourage others from pursuing it.

All right, my friends, just some things to think about today. If you need any help, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm always here. I hope you have a beautiful rest of the week and I'll see you soon. Bye for now.