Last month, I wrote about spotting burnout in the workplace. This month, I will attempt to identify their wellspring so we will all stand a better chance of capping them before they overflow onto our workplaces, our careers, our families, and our physical and mental health. I will even offer a couple of suggestions that might help you handle them better in the future. 1) A lawsuit or complaint To be clear: I have never been sued. I have, however, found myself hiring an attorney to defend my license after a client lodged a complaint. The client was mentally unwell, and the complaint was ultimately found baseless and frivolous. In fact, my supposed transgressions were not fully rooted in reality (this client was absolutely bonkers), but the anxiety it provoked was too real. In the end, I suffered an unnecessary degree of stress for almost a year as a result of a long-winded, rambling, hand-written complaint. If you practice long enough, it will probably happen to you, too, but here’s the truth: most of the time, you will prevail. If you are sure you did nothing wrong, your suffering is theoretically optional. Sure, you have to endure the pain of being hated by a client and the possible expense of a legal defense, but it is highly unlikely you will lose your license. I’m not claiming you will not suffer, I’m just saying you shouldn’t. My suggestions here are twofold: Before receiving a complaint is the best time to be sure you have ticked the box that lets you opt in to the “license defense” section on your PLIT insurance. (This ensures you have an attorney to represent you in front of your professional board.) Once you have been sued or received a complaint, it is the best time to seek extra help with your mental health. If you are anything like me, this is probably the time you will need it most. 2) Medical errors Making an honest mistake while practicing medicine is bad enough. Making one that leads to the death or injury of a patient can be devastating. Nothing less than the future of your career is at stake when the almost inevitable happens to you … because you will make plenty of mistakes and you will lose patients. The chance that both events will coincide at some point in your career is pretty high. So, fasten your seatbelt. The emotional toll of medical errors is uniformly high. As it probably should be. However, that does not mean you should quit practicing or stop performing procedures. (I have seen colleagues make both costly decisions.) Nor does it indicate your worthiness as a professional or as a person. Mistakes are how we learn. As you well know, it is why they call it “practicing” medicine. Here are my suggestions: Talk to your colleagues. If you are comfortable, post about it on social media in a vet-only forum. Above all, do everything in your power to include as many veterinarians’ opinions as possible. I promise they will free you of the notion you suck as a human and as a veterinarian. We have all done it (and probably will do it again). Read Complications, a great book by Dr. Atul Gawande. You will know why I recommended it after you read it. Or maybe the title says it all. 3) Comparing yourself As I like to tell my son, “Comparison is the root of all evil.” Once you start fixating on what other people have and compare those features and effects to those you do not possess but would like to, unhappiness almost invariably ensues. It does not matter whether we are talking about shiny objects, like boats, cars and homes; or less tangible things, like respect, power, and fame, comparisons can start to feel really ugly, even when these things include objects or characteristics you do not even want (but are sometimes told you should aspire to). In veterinary medicine this happens most typically when comparing ourselves to friends, family, clients or acquaintances, who seem measurably less intelligent or hard-working and earn five times the income. “It’s just not right!” you exclaim. Most of the time, you would be correct in your assessment, but justified resentment only gets you so far. After all, it always feels worse to indulge the resentment than to have ignored the comparison altogether. Here’s how I handle it: Identify the problem. Admit that your current unhappiness toward a person or situation might be rooted in comparison. This here is half the battle. Handling it often comes readily thereafter. Make a gratitude list. Instead of assailing the character or the possessions “enjoyed” by the object of your comparison, list those things that mean something to you. This is a life hack that has never steered me wrong. 4) Personality clashes and office gossip You cannot get along with everyone all the time. Since we work in close quarters with plenty of young and/or stressed-out individuals, drama has a way of stalking us in the workplace. As I have gotten older, I have become more immune to office gossip (something to look forward to in middle age), but with respect to personality clashes … not so much. These will persist, and you will have to get better at dealing with them lest your work life devolve into a perpetual s—show. To get past the pain of ill will, personality mismatches and other intra-office clashes likely to recur in close quarters, consider these options: Don’t feed the trolls. Acknowledge that you would be happier and your work product would be better if you ignored the offensive behavior. Pledge to be a better person (not the better person). Do not continue to harp on personality flaws or misdeeds. Instead, try to identify your part in the personality clash or problem at hand. (What did you do wrong? How did you add fuel to the fire?) After all, you can only fix one side of the equation. There is nothing you can do about someone else’s behavior. Having addressed your side, it is up to them to clean up their side of the street. You will be surprised to see how quickly things can resolve thereafter. 5) Client complaints and negative online reviews Nothing gut-punches like a client complaint … unless it is one that appears in a negative online review. Worse still? A credible, reasonable negative online review about a justified client complaint. Sure, crazy, negative online reviews about imagined transgressions will sometimes hurt the practice harder than the truth. However, for me, nothing hurts more than when news of our most egregious shortcomings is disseminated among the public at large. The good thing about the latter kind of review is there is something you can do about it. Reasonable people will sometimes remove negative reviews when we respond with an honest apology and a promise to do better. That’s the first thing I recommend everyone do. And, if possible, address it as a personal phone call or in-person conversation, not an online message. But what’s a veterinarian to do if the person is absolutely bat guano wackadoodle? Try to reason with the human. It is always worth a try. Pro-tip: Always appeal to their pet’s best interest first. Try to get the review removed. This is becoming increasingly difficult, but again, it’s always worth a try and becomes especially feasible when the review is threatening or names individuals. Do not ignore the review altogether but never get into a back-and-forth on the subject. Write something anodyne about your willingness to serve the patient and put a period on it. Then try to ignore the review forever and ever, amen. All my solutions are easy to write and even tougher to implement. However, the hard truth is that we should try to have these roll off our backs as we go. Our only other option is to accumulate increasingly stressful workplace situations, and none of us wants that. This job would become untenable otherwise, and I’m not ready to give it up just yet. Patty Khuly, VMD, MBA, runs a small animal practice in Miami, Fla., and is available at drpattykhuly.com. Columnists’ opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Veterinary Practice News.
