October 20, 2024 • 69 mins
Join us for a profound conversation with our special guest, Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel, who enlightens us about the intricate intersections between veterinary medicine, mental health, and advocacy for marginalized communities. Discover their heartfelt dedication to inclusivity within veterinary clinics, as they shed light on the challenges LGBTQIA and racially diverse professionals face in a predominantly white industry. We journey through Dr. Hendel's impactful work with organizations such as Pride VMC and the Multicultural Veterinary Medical Association, as well as the somber realities of suicide and pet loss, with initiatives like the VIN Foundation standing at the forefront of mental health support for vets.
The episode further unveils the pressing issue of mental health struggles in the veterinary profession, spotlighted by the efforts of Not One More Vet. This nonprofit, born from tragedy, is reshaping mental health resources for veterinarians through education and support initiatives. We explore how the solitary nature of veterinary work, especially in rural areas, contributes to mental health risks and the critical importance of community support. Matt also shares his personal endeavors to facilitate mental health services for first responders and veterinarians, while delving into potential collaborations with the International Association of Veterinary Social Workers to tailor resources for this unique field.
Finally, we address the emotional complexities faced by veterinarians, from the challenges of cyber harassment to the ethics of euthanasia. Discover strategies for managing online negativity and the profound human-animal connections that make end-of-life decisions so poignant. Through personal insights and professional stories, we highlight the necessity of compassionate communication and the emerging role of veterinary social work. This episode is a heartfelt call to foster change and bolster support within the veterinary community.
CattleDog Publishing
Vets4Vets - VIN Foundation
About The International Association of Veterinary Social Work - International Association of Veterinary Social Work
Home | Not One More Vet
Work-related stressors and suicidal ideation: The mediating role of burnout: Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health: Vol 36, No 2
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi everybody.
This is Matt, and welcome backto another episode of the United
States of PTSD.
I have both Julia and Cora withme today and a very special
guest, Erica, and I will letErica introduce themselves in a
minute.
We do want to give a little bitof a trigger warning ahead of
time, and actually first I wantto apologize for my voice.
I just came back from Italy andI'm sick, so you're going to
have to bear with the terriblevoice today.
(00:49):
But we do want to do a littlebit of a trigger warning because
we are going to be talkingabout a couple of things,
including suicide and pet deaths, and those can be really tough
topics for a lot of people.
Those of you that have listenedknow that Julie and I have
recently had pet deaths of ourown in our lives and how tough
that is, and suicide iscertainly a really tough topic
for a lot of people.
(01:09):
So, Erica, I'm going to let youintroduce yourself now if you
would like.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Hi, my name is Erica Lynn Hendel.
I'm a veterinarian, so Dr EricaLynn Hendel my pronouns are
they, them, theirs.
I do relief work, so thatbasically means that I help
doctors get a break, and I workin Arizona and I do companion
(01:38):
animal medicine.
I've been in other areas ofveterinary medicine too.
I've done some work in SWI.
I worked with pigs for four anda half years in the Midwest and
then I shifted back tocompanion animal medicine and my
heart is with access to care,sheltering, humanitarian
(02:01):
response and also transmittingclinic culture and solutions
across clinics.
I have a group that I work with, western Veterinary Partners
that allows me to play aroundwith that.
And then I do a lot of work inthe industry with affinity
organizations.
I've helped out with somethings with Pride VMC, who has
(02:25):
been around for 30 yearssupporting LGBTQIA veterinary
professionals.
We have the Gender IdentityBill of Rights.
That is a really importantpiece of work.
They are currently working onthings with what's going on with
the upcoming election andconcerns about our community
(02:47):
there.
I used to be a board member atthe Multicultural Veterinary
Medical Association.
It's an organization thatreally strives to end the impact
of racial and ethnicdiscrimination in our field,
because veterinary medicine isone of the whitest professions
(03:08):
around care, care industry andlet's see, and also not one more
vet.
I'm an active board memberwhere I also do work for
students.
I really care aboutneurodiversity, so I basically
like I've got a lot ofmarginalized identities that
kind of combine with what I'mdoing in veterinary medicine,
(03:30):
which is like very meaningfulwork.
But it's definitely you know,if you, if you have a
veterinarian, know that theveterinary team, the whole
veterinary team in that hospital, works really hard to do the
best they can to keep you andyour pets healthy and happy with
(03:55):
that human animal bond.
So I'm really glad to be havingthis conversation here and
hopefully bring some veterinaryprofessionals to listen to your
podcast.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to belistening from start to finish
from the topics that I saw andit just is really meaningful.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I really appreciate that and, my God, erica, you do
a lot listening to all the stuffthat you do.
So, first of all, thank you foreverything that you do, because
, I mean, you're obviouslybringing a lot of awareness to
many, many different topics thatneed to be talked about.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, I really appreciate it.
I, when I was a student, youknow, veterinary medicine is
like kind of a bit of like whatmade me like existing possible
right, like being able to tendto like existing possible right,
(04:49):
like being able to tend to thewell-being of living things,
right.
It's just like very muchimportant as part of like my
cultural heritage and it waslike in some ways, a gift, right
.
This has been a very big giftfor me, for me, and I want I
want the parts that made mequestion that, which are
unnecessary, to not be part ofwhat the younger generation
(05:18):
questions.
So I'm like we're still.
We're still in that cycle,right, healthcare education has
cycles that are aroundhierarchical toxicity and our
students are impacted by that.
So I think that there's changeright.
I believe that veterinarymedicine that has changed so
much like from establishment ofcooperative care, dr Sophia Yin,
(05:42):
who really spearheaded that,who hurt her suicide in 2014.
And that tragic loss was whatresulted in us having a serious
conversation about suicide andveterinary medicine.
So the VIN Foundation, some ofher legacy.
(06:07):
They have a program that's forvets as a support program.
So we have a lot oforganizations working on this to
kind of change that nature atpretty much every veterinary
professional has lost someone orknow someone.
So it's something that we'retrying to make a move on and you
(06:27):
know, I'm really proud to seehow this area of activism in the
field continues to grow.
You know, not One More Vet andVet for Vet and all of these
other programs, all of the youknow organizations that are
taking things seriously.
We have increases in employeeEAP programs to increase access.
(06:50):
We're decreasing stigma.
We're working with so nowthere's a specialty social
workers, for veterinary socialworkers.
It's so tremendous to see thosechanges and how so many
individuals are involved, orlike little little pebbles that
ripple outwards and I agree.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You said a lot that I want to comment on, so of
course I want to throw out apositive story.
So I just recently came back,as you heard, from italy and
italy.
They have feral cat colonieseverywhere, right, so like, and
they very much value.
Cats like you're not allowed tolike, you have to feed them.
You obviously can't hurt them.
If you do, you get fined.
And I mean when I tell youthere was cats at every museum,
(07:35):
like um place we went, likethere were cats at the parthenon
, there were cats in greece,there were cats at um the
coliseum.
There are cats like literallyeverywhere.
And of course I have to petevery cat I see.
So naturally but they also haddogs and like they just you know
they all seem like so happy, sothat that's an excellent
positive spin.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, you had brought up EAP benefits, which I think
is great.
My experience with EAP benefitsand I don't know, cora or Julia
, if you've had this experienceis companies will often pay for
EAP, which is employeeassistance programs for those
people who don't know that andfor them to, for the employees
to go into counseling, but theypay for like four visits or five
(08:14):
visits right and they expecteverything to be kind of wrapped
up in a neat little package andthen, what ends up happening is
, then usually it's not covered.
So then if they want to continuewith counseling, it's like a
ridiculously high copay or likethey have a large deductible.
So it's almost like gettingsomebody started and then
kicking them out the door, whichI almost think is more
(08:35):
detrimental.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Oh, you know what.
I'm so excited that this wasyour response to that, because I
would say that that's exactlythe critique that I have had
about these.
So what we are working on also.
For example, namv has a programcalled Clear Blueprint right,
(08:57):
and that is a program that helpsus work with a clinic for
creating tools on trainingpeople around mentally healthy
practices.
So, like I think access tomental health care is really
important.
It has taken me a really longtime to finally find the type of
(09:19):
therapy that I need for therapyto be a fully safe place.
So I finally have.
My therapist is a Black womanwho has worked with autistic and
neurodiverse people for likemaybe 20 years and who also is
(09:40):
like a disruptor or changer inher fields as well.
So, like now, when I'm talkingabout trying to make change or
try and push back, to be like,yes, eap, great, four sessions
isn't going to do it.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's equivalent to you know, when we talk about
grief, when you have a familymember or a pet or somebody
that's important that passesaway and your job gives you
three to four days ofbereavement, like max, because
again you're supposed to be likeover it.
Yes, right, so it's all likethe same, the same thing, and
there's a there's a big push tonot take insurance too right
because of like how many.
I just had a situation happen Iwas telling Cora and Julie
(10:21):
about, before we started, whereI had a client who had a her.
The insurance that she had wasactually her secondary insurance
, but I didn't know that.
She didn't tell me it didn'tshow up so now here it is
October, and the insurance I hadbeen billing had said oops, she
had a different insurance.
So now they're recouping all ofthe money for the whole year
(10:44):
that I saw her and there'snothing I can do about it
because of course it took themthat long to figure it out right
.
So like it's circumstances likethat that make us not want to
take insurance because it's justa it's.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It's such a scam so, uh, you, you are in a position.
So we're all impacted by thesethings like access to care right
and what is covered, what isnot, how much we can get people
to undergo a therapeutictreatment, that is the ascribed
(11:16):
time that it needs to be right,I have.
We call this moral injury right.
We call this moral injury rightand it's actually one of the
core component of veterinaryprofessional distress is that
when we cannot do the thingsthat we need to do, when we
(11:39):
cannot intervene due to lack ofresources, yeah, especially for
pets too, because the pets areit's expensive.
It's I mean, pet care isincredibly expensive, and well,
yeah, all of the costs of whenwe also when we don't have it.
So this is for insurancecurrently for pet owners doesn't
(12:02):
work the same way thatinsurance works in human
medicine.
It's hopefully we will able tokeep it from going that way, but
I have a quick story about that.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So I have true pionion.
My vet highly recommended truepionion.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
And.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I, I, so I've had it on the two newest cats that I
won't, that I have cause.
I've had them since they werekittens and one of them needed
dental.
At two years old she needed tohave some teeth extracted.
And when I tell you, it wasjust as bad dealing with true
panion as it was dealing withinsurance companies for mental
health, I could not believe it.
(12:40):
They kept asking for thingsthat they wanted her like
original records, and I saidshe's a stray.
The only records I have is therecords from the adoption agency
that I adopted her from andthey're like well, we need the
records before that.
And I was like there are norecords before that and it just
it kept going back and forth.
It took me like seven months toget paid.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I'm so sorry.
So it's kind of the same thing,right, right, yeah, and like
the thing.
So the face that I'm making,which your audience cannot see
right now.
My eyes are narrowed, I am likecuddling my coffee cup.
I love the visual.
(13:19):
Yeah, like it's one of the andlike kind of squinting.
Right, there are people withI'm.
I like paperwork is like.
I have been like building up theemotional gumption to go
through every single petinsurance policy.
(13:41):
There are people in my industrywho have done that.
Sometimes they talk about likeso I'm I, you know, like we need
to have some more collaborativediscussions.
Like access to care is a bigproblem, right, we also have to
be able to have all of ourveterinary team have a livable
wage.
Have all of our veterinary teamhave a livable wage with good
(14:09):
benefits, right, so we're alltrying to do that when, with the
way things like our, our healthcare that we provide to pets is
still incredibly affordable incomparison to what the actual
medical bill that people receive.
(14:30):
You know, and the care that weprovide sometimes we say is
arguably, depending on thesituation, a little bit more
timely or something, right, likeI get my clients get very upset
with me if I am running morethan like 25 minutes behind,
(14:51):
right.
So, um, I, you know, I I thinkthat we have things like prop
129 in Colorado that, likeveterinary professionals are
terrified about.
That creates a mid-levelpractitioner that potentially
undermines our credentialedveterinary technicians Also our
(15:16):
veterinary I I am probably oneof the more radical people in my
field where I'm like this isend stage capitalism and then we
have other you know I haveother friends that are working
(15:38):
on unionizing but like all wecan do is kind of work together
for the best that we can, right.
So I think that you know, knowthat the veterinary professional
teams are advocating everywherethat we can, when we have power
, to try and keep thingsaffordable, while also, you know
(16:06):
transport costs, likeeverything is increasing in
price prices and drugs barriers.
You know the economics of itare incredibly complex and you
know we just have to continue tohave those conversations, right
.
I regularly have to haveconversations about what is
realistic and having thoseconversations where you know a
(16:30):
pet parent is coming in, beinglike oh, I just want to do like
a regular checkup or seemed alittle bit off the last, like
day or two, and I'm like yourdog has a giant, like your dog,
has a giant mass in its abdomen.
That is a ticking time bomb andI know that, like you, weren't
(16:52):
expecting to hear this today,but you basically have to make
the decision of surgery, whichis unlikely to do anything, and
letting go now, today, because Idon't know what's going to
happen if you, or how long we'regoing to be okay Once you leave
the building.
Right, that?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
sucks it does, suck it's.
It sounds like it's one moresystem that's designed to fail,
like every other system we haveCora.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I think you had a question you wanted to ask have
Cora, I think you had a questionyou wanted to ask.
I just wanted to kind of goback to what you're saying and
for our listeners you knowthat's our people and as I was
looking at Not One More Vetwebsite you guys do a really
good job of outlining a lot ofthe different hardships that
veterinarians and veterinarianprofessionals experience.
(17:44):
Answered one of my questions,but I mean, could you paint that
picture a little bit for us,like some of those things that
people are dealing with thatmake I wonder, though, before we
get to that, if we can justtalk about what one, not one
more vet is right.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So those people.
I became aware of it because Iwork with somebody who's a vet,
and that's how I found out thatsuicide rates among vets were
like really high, and I wasshocked by it, because it's not
something that's publicknowledge.
So can you talk a little bitabout what that website is?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, so Not One More Vet is a nonprofit organization
, 501c3, um was founded in 2014after dr sophia yin's um death
to suicide, which, like,completely rocked the industry.
Right, she was um instrumental.
(18:39):
So now we have like fear free,right?
I don't know if you've heardfear free certification or
anything like.
So fear free, it's like lowstress handling in veterinary
medicine to kind of um make andthings like cooperative care
also exist in like zoos andstuff where they train the
animals to like hold out theirpaw and get yummies while they
(19:01):
get their blood pulled right.
It just makes it so we can worktogether rather than any sort
of like combative restraintright To the best of our ability
.
So that was like shespearheaded that.
So she was Asian American aswell.
(19:23):
So, like, for me as an AsianAmerican veterinarian, it was
also like a big deal.
There was another veterinarianof color that had died by
suicide only a couple monthsahead of time.
That was priming, kind ofpriming the situation.
So then we we started talkingabout it.
Right, a group of veterinariansput together a Facebook group
(19:48):
for veterinarians to like talkabout problems that they were
going through, because sometimes, you know, in rural settings,
the veterinarian might be theonly veterinarian in the area
area, right, we might have likeone veterinary team in a larger
(20:09):
area.
So sometimes it can be a littlebit of a solitary like
existence.
So that's why social media wasa really great place and then it
grew from there.
So its mission is to oh gosh,I'm not going to get read it off
right but, like it's, totransform the mental health
status of the industry througheducation, resources and support
(20:30):
, right?
So we have a bunch of differentprograms and, in addition to
that, like there are lots of youknow, like I said, vets for
Vets, veterinary mental healthservices that recently joined
NAMVI, that runs support groups,and you know there are lots of
(20:56):
there are social workers andmental health professionals that
have decided to specificallyserve veterinary professionals.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You know I want to add to that too.
I have also tried to.
I did that with firstresponders as well, because
first responders have, like,really high rates of suicide.
And we have made multipleattempts to reach out to first
responders and offer them freecounseling services through the
use of student interns, becauseright now CORE is an intern of
mine and I have anotherfantastic intern Julia used to
be an intern of mine, now sheworks for me.
(21:23):
So the benefit to doing it thatway is that they're free, right
, so you could go see a studentintern that's supervised by a
licensed person and it's free,but with first responders.
When I tell you there was nointerest whatsoever, and I can't
even tell you how many times Itried it, I also tried it with
vets and the same thing happened.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It kind of fell flat, you just gotta, I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So if you have any, if you have any pointers, let me
know.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Oh, I mean, hey, like I'll get you in touch with our
executive director and you know,like I think that like there's
also the internationalassociation of veterinary social
workers, they're also a greatorganization to connect with.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's good to know.
Can you also send me thatinformation as well, because
then I can read all of thatstuff.
Yeah, absolutely One of thethings when you had mentioned Dr
Yin, was it?
I can't remember the name.
Sophia.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yin Sophia Yin.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
What I was surprised by and, corey, you have the
numbers for this was.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It looks like suicide rates among female vets were
higher, which is, oh, it's not.
That wasn't the case core.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I thought it was.
Oh it's.
Yes, it it is, I believe.
I think core core has theactual numbers.
She looked it up.
I just for some reason Ithought it was.
What is it core?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
one in six veterinarians consider suicide
at one point during their career.
Male veterinarians have 1.6times increased risk for death
by suicide.
Female veterinarians have a 2.4times increased risk.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So that means they are at more risk, right.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Which surprises me, because usually it's men that
are higher risk.
So what do you think?
Well, first of all, oh, goahead, cora, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
All technicians have a five times increased risk.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, and so our technical staff, so our
certified veterinary technicians.
We also have hospitalassistants.
We have other type of.
We have non non-licensed,non-licensed veterinary um uh
assistance and our um, our uhCSRs.
(23:32):
Our customer servicerepresentatives also have and,
like we haven't studied everycohort yet, right, we also have
to look at office managers too.
It's across the board, right.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Which is what I love about?
Not One Vet.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Not.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
One Vet.
It's everybody and we want totalk about students as well Like
it's everybody in theprofession.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, everybody, and it's also animal welfare.
Oh yep, right.
So, actually, like, animalwelfare is.
So that's still within animalcare, right.
So, like I am, and you knowwhat I would guarantee you, if
you looked at like wildlifeecologists, right, like, and
(24:21):
anyone involved in animal care,in care, is having a hard time.
Um, it's like, it's a it's,it's rough, right, and I think
and I I've spent a lot of timethinking about it because, um,
(24:43):
like, every, every veterinary GPhas ER moments, like, I have
codes, I have cases that are gutwrenching, that make it into
our clinic.
I have cases that I have tomanage that are like I am
pulling all resources togetherand picking an animal between
(25:06):
the emergency team and my teambecause I can't get them in to
be seen by an internist becausewe don't have enough and they
can't be seen for like a monthand the issue is critical now,
right.
So I usually think that, for meat least, personally, what I've
observed and this is kind ofanecdotal like we're still
(25:28):
understanding dimensions ofmental health in our profession,
right, we don't, we, we did uh,uh, there was a research paper
looking, trying to look atintersectionality.
Um, I have a hard timeinteracting with it because it's
a little traumatizing ingeneral.
(25:48):
So I'm like, uh, because Ithink it was like they didn't
quite have enough people to askquestions of and that's like.
You know, like I, I strugglewith that every day, like
because we don't, we don't have.
I want the mental health surveythat we do in our field to look
like the topics that you arecovering in your podcast.
(26:10):
That's the survey I want.
Hasn't been done yet.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Well, if I can do, if we can do anything to help, let
me know, erica, one of thethings that you just mentioned,
which I think when you weretalking about how you wanted to
read it, but it was triggeringto you.
I've actually heard the samething about the Facebook page
for Not Another Vet is that?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
because I think they post a lot when, when vets
commit suicide, right, orthere's like notifications of
when vets commit suicide.
Yeah, that's gosh.
We have, we have always kind ofnavigated that process is very
delicate, right, so, like, firstand foremost, the, the needs
and the wishes of the familyneed to be what is centered and
honored, right.
So, um, in any circumstance, um, we, sometimes we hear about it
(27:01):
, just because we are a spacethat people go to, um, and
usually people would be like did, did anyone find out or did
anyone hear about blah, blah,blah, right, and we kind of
there's different ways.
So, just, basically, we wait tobe contacted because, you know,
(27:25):
sometimes, as an organizationwe're, although we are very like
mental health, like centered,there's still that component of,
of of suicide, right, that'sour.
So, our, our, our, like, youknow, our, um, uh, president
Emeritus, uh, yeah, uh, Dr Kerry.
(27:48):
Journey, those like our.
Our very presence, you know,implies something.
So we usually have to be verydelicate on our initial
approaches and it really isabout holding space, for if
someone wants the support wehave you know, mental health
care professionals, that or we,we, we search for the mental
(28:12):
health care professionals in thearea, um, local resources, um,
we have like grieving resources,um, we try and be present for
the community as they want, umand um.
You know, as far as like theface, but like social media is
(28:35):
like challenge, right?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
well, that's the truth, right, it's always a
mixed bag um and so like.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Personally, I don't really interact with social
media.
I really try and engage withlike direct action work because
that's like my personalpreference of like working with
people to get them connected tolike professional mental health
(29:03):
support if that's what they want, or just like books or whatever
like, or just a friend, rightlike you, just like hang out.
There's a thing that I cameacross.
I still have to do the researchdeep dive, but it was like
eight minutes on the phone witha friend when you're in distress
can help re-regulate yournervous system a bit.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Wow, that's awesome.
You know, but like, if that'sthe case, like that's powerful
Of course, there was a fact Iwanted to put out, and then core
, because I know you've done alot of research, so I want to
make sure you get a chance toask questions with the research.
In terms of suicide, survivorsof suicide are More likely they
(29:45):
have a higher risk commitsuicide themselves.
Right so, if in its exponential.
So if you have a family memberwho commit suicide themselves,
right so if it's exponential.
So if you have a family memberwho commits suicide, you're two
times more likely to commitsuicide.
And if you have another personwho commits suicide, you're four
times more likely to commitsuicide.
And of all of the ways somebodycan die, whether it's, you know,
murder, like natural disasteror natural causes or whatever
(30:07):
suicide is the one that peoplenever recover from, ever,
because they just don't.
They don't have the answers.
It's always what did I miss?
Should I have done this, shouldI have done that?
Like, could I have stopped it,etc.
Like even random people whohave very brief contact with
that person will have thosefeelings of like what did I miss
?
How did I?
And you know it's, it's, it'sjust such a tragedy, it's awful.
(30:30):
What was there anything fromthe research that you wanted to
ask?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Well, so I guess, to get back, I want to ask two
things.
Like some of the things thatimpact a vet's daily life in
terms of stressors, like some ofthe things I was reading on the
website were really interestingbecause I'd never heard them
before.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
So like yeah, being something, um, oh something
dropped that, dropped the audiofor the first thing that you
said.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
So could you repeat that cyber bullying was
something I had never considered.
Um student debt, um constraints, that that one seemed a little
obvious but still kind of whatyou were saying.
Um, as listeners, as justpeople who interact with
veterinarians, if we could talka little bit about like what
(31:23):
your day looks like, and then aspeople, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Um, it's different for every veterinarian.
I mean, every place is a littledifferent, right?
So it depends on whether or notthe place takes drop-offs,
walk-ins, scheduled appointments, how, like, how densely my
appointments are scheduled, howstaffed well-staffed, I am right
(31:55):
.
So sometimes we fall behindbecause, like, sometimes you
need three people to interactwith an animal to get a blood
sample.
Yep, this is just the realityof the situation.
You need one person restrainingfor safety of everyone involved
(32:18):
, right, these are the peoplethat keep me alive and keep me
from having a mauled face, whichis totally something that
happens, right?
So that person is reallyimportant and that person needs
to focus on that job and theycan't do more than one thing,
right.
Then you have the person that'spulling the sample.
They're working with a sharpneedle, they're doing a thing
(32:41):
that might get a reaction andwe're trying to do it in as
gentle as way possible.
So usually, with a lot ofanimals, we can just do that
with two people and it's okay.
But every now and then, there'san animal that needs another
thing.
This involves lightly tappingthe head, shoving cheese in its
(33:01):
face, singing a song, like wewill literally do, freaking like
Broadway musicals to make yourpets more comfortable, um, and
to get what we need to do whilealso staying safe.
And I think that sometimes, Ithink, in general, just like
(33:25):
patience, right, just patienceand understanding, and like when
we like we're not going to beable to do this today because
it's stressing out.
You know, fifi, what's myfavorite?
I don't know.
I have, like, so many wonderfulpet names, and sometimes we
can't solve everything.
(33:46):
And sometimes we needdiagnostics, right, which are
expensive, and, trust me, we areanxious about it too.
You know, like we will try andwork with you, but there are
some things like, we are notlike money, like it's not
expensive, because we're tryingto pull one over on you, right,
(34:09):
and I think that is thechallenge.
And I think that sometimes, um,medicine is an art, right, it's
like the art and the practice ofmedicine, right, everything
about each individual animal,yeah, I had a one, one patient
that was severely allergic to astandard type of medicine that
(34:30):
the owner had been using frompreviously, right, and I had to
figure out like which one wasn'tgoing to cause a reaction in
some of the typical like, so, sowe have to work together, and
it can be difficult tocommunicate, right, and
communicate under stress.
So I think that sometimes, likeI'm pretty lucky that I have
(34:54):
been able to work throughdifficult conversations with
clients that needed toemotionally process something,
that was like making them upsetright, because it's people are
very like I say, say, likeveterinary professionals are
taking care of the mental healthof our nation by taking care of
(35:14):
pets.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's really well said.
I like that.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And that's a big responsibility, right, like I
know, like pets saved my life,pets and animals saved my life
every single day.
Right, I get it.
I understand, we understand weare like at times we are at a
loss because we are trying to bethe most perfect we can be, for
(35:41):
in, in our devotion to ourpractice.
Right, every veterinarian feelsthis way.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
And I think one of the things that's really hard
when we talk about this becausewe don't expect surgeons in the
medical field to also be able tospeak with their patients,
family and express, like allthese things, and hold the
emotional brunt.
But then when I was in theresearch it was like no
veterinarian schools areteaching, you know, students how
(36:10):
to handle this and that's a lot, that's yeah, well, there is a
new model that I hope continuesto like progress, which is the
um veterinary social worker thatis in the building right.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
There are some hospitals that are large enough
that have a social worker onstaff that can help um clients
process those feelings and havethat space held for them.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Um with also like some knowledge would they also
be there for the vets though?
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Because I that's the goal.
I can tell you in a hospitalsetting, right.
So like I've worked in ahospital setting and they have
hospital social workers and theyare there to serve the patients
.
But when I have a lot ofclients who are nurses and when
they lose patients, I'll say tothem what did the hospital do?
Like, did the hospital have anysort of protocol to come talk
to you and help you grieve?
(37:11):
They're like nope, they justsay suck up and move on to the
next patient.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yeah, so my concern is that that would be the same
thing, right Is that it wouldjust, I think sometimes I think
it depends on the hospital,right, and it depends on the
(37:36):
social worker, and this is alsothe kind of thing that I run
into.
Two like with working, uh, instudent advocacy right, like I
have like one university thathas like three mental health
professionals available, uh, allof they have like qpr certified
uh faculty.
They have like different stagesof like interpersonal
communication, like there's likeall sorts of there.
There are programs that arelike super innovative and then
(37:57):
there are other programs thatare like antagonistic and
gaslight and mistreat theirstudents when the students are
like, hey, this is not workingfor us, like we're having a hard
time, so yeah, like I thinkthat makes veterinary medicine
very exciting and alsoincredibly infuriating, but what
(38:21):
it means is that anything ispossible, right.
So, like the right clinic, theright hospital that would have
that relationship, would designthat or check in with that
social worker, say, can you doboth?
If not both, then I need two,one for the people, one for the
pet parents.
How big?
Do we actually have enoughcapacity?
(38:43):
Can everyone who need to beseen within a week be seen in a
week, or do we need moreresources?
Yeah, my gosh, that could bedone you know you had earlier.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
You had earlier talked about end stage
capitalism.
Of course, that's the firstthing I think of right.
So like, if you have, if youhave two social workers there,
one for the vets and one for thepet parents, then they need to
be paid.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
So it's going to drive up the the cost of the
services and it's it just kindof keeps doing this like I don't
know.
Now it's unaffordable right.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
No, I know you don't have the answer but like these
are things I mean, like I thinkthe important thing and this is
the thing that I get, like Ihave, I have a reputation for
this in the industry, rightwhere I'm like well, let's
imagine where we could be.
I get this from my mom and so Ijoke that it's like very
(39:35):
Taiwanese of me to be like,because you know, like there was
several rounds of colonization,then military occupation, then
military dictatorship, then thisdreaming of democracy, right,
and dreaming of maintaining itright.
So I'm a dreamer.
I have a tendency to be likehow far can I, you know, trump
(39:59):
myself down the path and stick aflag and be like this is where
we're going to go.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, we need that.
We need people who arevisionaries and people who can
look down the road and say, likethis is what we need to do.
I just I wish everybody was onthe same page with this yeah, I
mean, that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
So this is why I work with students like this is.
This is why I work withstudents.
Because, um, when I communicateto students that I am really
excited for them to join thisfield, while also simultaneously
making the field that they areentering in better, like, I am
like this is the stuff that youneed to be like, this is the
(40:42):
stuff you are that you deserve,and stop Right.
So now they have theinformation that they need to be
like, this is unacceptable.
I will not tolerate abuse,right.
And then, on the other side, Ihave the leadership that I'm
like hey, y'all.
(41:02):
Uh, you're not gonna have achoice.
I am making sure that thoseyoung ones have that language.
So if we like are going to,yeah, so that's like first part,
because some stuff you can justdo by better communication.
This is compassion with eachother, right?
Speaker 2 (41:22):
of course, and this is why I think students are so
important.
Like the student, you know thestudent entrance.
Like, unfortunately, you knowthey're not paid and I wish that
they could be paid, but they'renot and they're.
They're a great resource to useand it would be so much more
effective to have students doingwork for you in a veterinarian
clinic, talking to vets andfamily, family families of pets,
than it would be for them tohave be doing like busy work,
(41:44):
filing paper and answeringphones.
Right, but like, unfortunately,that's where a lot of them end
up and it's right that's a wholeproblem, though you had
mentioned earlier that you'velost students to suicide too
correct, is that common?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
It is more common.
It is like the source of mygreatest distress, heartbreak
and dissatisfaction.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
What do you think?
What do you think causes it?
Is it the?
Is it the workload?
Is it the?
Is it the financial burden Isburden.
Do you have any thoughts on it?
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think it's multidimensional.
I think that, well, so I'm ADHD, autistic ADHD.
I've never had accommodationsduring my education and it
almost, like it put me in severeclinical depression, right,
(42:35):
because that was during my PhDwork, right, so like that was
before.
I knew that, like I needed acertain amount of stimulation to
regulate my dopamineappropriately not to drop into
clinical depression.
Like these are things that Idid not understand about my
brain.
I did not understand, you know,like there's things like we are
(42:57):
pushed so far, like the amountof sleep deprivation, the amount
of like being told like you youshould know this, right, but
like maybe we're not actuallyteaching in a way that students
are able to absorb it that's awhole nother conversation,
(43:18):
because we could do an entirepodcast.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Just right, what you just said yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I mean like, so, and not only that, but like our
professors aren't taught toteach, it's across the.
It's across like biomed.
It's across stem.
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, Idon't think that that's an
unfair statement.
It's across stem.
(43:47):
This is structural.
It's like there's, there's andthere's also the isms in it.
Right, there's isms in oureducational systems and there's
just like the hierarchy ofmedicine, it like I always say
this, like hierarchy is onlythere for functionality, not for
(44:09):
oppression.
Functionality, not foroppression.
We have the position in thehierarchy because we are
supposed to be responsible,principled and ethical stewards
of the people below us anddeveloping and being part of a
culture of care, community care.
(44:30):
This is what happens when yourmom is a Taoist.
Right, like, but so like that isnot happening sometimes.
Like we are not approachingwe're instead of being like our
students aren't being successfulright now.
What do we?
What barriers?
What things are going on?
(44:50):
Do we need to enhance theirlearning experience?
How are we missing the mark?
Not what's wrong with thesestudents?
You're lazy, you just need towork harder.
Like it's seriously the mostabsurd thing.
Every single veterinary studentthat gets into vet school is
should be finishing and andpracticing medicine wherever
(45:14):
they want to, because it takesthat much grit, dedication, hard
work to even get into vetschool.
So I'm just like I'm alwayslike you know we should be, yeah
, but this is like.
This is a cultural difference,right.
This is about culturalperpetuity.
(45:35):
It's the like Maslow'shierarchy of needs comes from
the Blackfoot nation, so it'sincomplete, right, that we need
to think about our culturalperpetuity and how we are
investing in care, our industryor our ecosystem, and that's
like the thing that I'm goingaround being like just take care
(45:55):
of each other, like you know,like why does it only have to be
in disaster?
We can do that all the time.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
I 100% agree with you and I want to go back to
something that C said and core.
You were talking about cyberbullying in terms of you know
veterinarians and and how thatimpacts them, and I know just to
give you a piece of personalinformation you know as an
educator myself we get the endof the reviews from the students
(46:25):
at the end of the semester thatyou know have all these reviews
on like how we did, and in oneof actually the class that Cora
was in, there was a couplestudents that I caught using
chat gbt, you know they.
They obviously have theconsequences related to that.
So then the reviews were, ofcourse, horrible and they like
made stuff up, they like trashedme and said things that I never
(46:46):
said and like were just reallyawful, and it got to the point
where I'm like you know, I'm noteven to read them anymore
because, like it's not worthreading, which is a problem,
because then people like cora,who we've like really good
remarks and, like you know, haveall this positive stuff I'm
just not going to read becauseit's not worth it.
So in terms of vets, it's, youknow, it's more like an external
thing, right, so people can goon like yelp and they can go on
(47:07):
all sorts of reviews and writeterrible, terrible reviews about
vets.
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (47:14):
So there are a lot of different.
So the AVMA has some strategies.
They've put together a responsepacket.
We have some cyber bullyingresources no, actually cyber
harassment resources, reframingso cyber harassment because what
(47:34):
it is, it is harassment.
Usually people are engaging inthreats, they're trying to
mobilize people to harass alocation through like phone
calls, even like physicalthreats, death threats, those
kinds of things.
We have had violence show up atveterinary clinics and we have
(47:54):
to take it very seriously.
There is a strategy that someveterinary practices are
engaging in that are creatingcontracts that new clients sign.
That basically makes it clearthat if one engages in that type
of harassment because usuallyit's just like you know, if it's
(48:17):
a single bad review andsomebody like counters it or you
know each clinic will decidehow they want to like address it
or not.
If there's like misinformation,that kind of thing, like have a
response versus like notengaging versus someone who's
like really organized, likeblasted and like tried to be
like this clinic did this thingto me.
(48:40):
They killed my animal.
Go like throw rocks at theirwindows Right, this happens,
right, right.
So I think that veterinaryhospitals are working on making
sure that people have responseplans that their staff feel
trained on how to approachthings, how to navigate
(49:00):
de-escalation techniques, andalso that there are people
within the clinic that feelcomfortable navigating that.
And also just like understandingthat there's legal recourse,
right, like if you bring downthousands of people to harass a
place of business with repeatedphone calls or throwing rocks at
(49:21):
windows or you know threats ofviolence, we're going to respond
to that.
You are probably not going to beseen by that veterinarian
anymore, right, that's like thething where, uh, if you are
probably not going to be seen bythat veterinarian anymore,
right, that's like the thingwhere, if you are like it's just
plain and simple, if someone isrude or yells or swears at my
staff or makes my staff feeluncomfortable, I am going to,
(49:46):
you know, fire that that client.
I'm going to say we go, say goforth and find yourself another
clinic, right, and so, like someof it is pre-communication,
some of it is calling it likemore recognizing the degree of
harassment and what that is andremind people when they're like
(50:09):
keyboard warriors, right, likewe care about each other.
The veterinary profession issmall and under duress, right,
and when you are under suchduress, when things are so hard,
you often have to have a morefirm boundaries because you
don't have excess bandwidth tomess around with.
(50:32):
Yeah, we're just, we're working, we're working on our
boundaries.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
I just I want to throw this out really quickly,
so I may have to take a phonecall because I was in an
accident before I went to Italyand the agent is supposed to be
calling me back at 10.
So if I step away, that's why,Okay, but how you deal with pet
euthanasia as a personally notas as like the families, but
(50:57):
personally, how do you deal withthat?
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Is that something you feel?
Oh, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, yeah, it just it takes.
It takes a little bit of amoment because this is, in my
opinion, like.
I refer to it as a kind of likecompanion death, doula-ing
practice.
The human-animal bond is whatmy oath is to, it's what I've
(51:28):
dedicated my life to.
I would say euthanasia is whereI bring in ritual the most.
My oath is to.
It's what I've dedicated mylife to, right, it's like it's.
I would say, euthanasia iswhere I bring in ritual the most
.
You know, like I am very much aBuddhist and a Taoist and with
the other aspects of how I grewup, like death was pretty calm,
(51:52):
like I had a familiarity with adeath, with death, from a young
age.
I'm not, I'm not, I'mcomfortable with it, right,
that's part of that's part ofBuddhism, right, alleviation of
suffering is also part of it.
So, um, I view it as an honor.
It's hard, but it is somethingthat I am willing to hold.
That, now, that's not allveterinarians, of course, and,
(52:14):
like you already stated, likethis is personal expression, so
I am able to handle it prettycomfortably.
Um, and there are like reallytough ones, like puppy hit by
car wolf those are garbage,right.
Every, uh, like young animallily toxicity, for example.
(52:36):
Um, it's a way that I know Ican serve and I know I'm
comfortable bearing witness andholding space for grief.
That is heavy.
And the human animal bond it'slike the coolest thing, right,
like, like, holy heck, how luckyare we as human beings, like I
(53:00):
think that's the coolest thingabout being a human being is
that you can have this type oflike deep relationship with
whatever the creature may be afish, an octopus, you know, a
deer, a cow, a pig, uh, you knowa pocket pet, like a hamster,
(53:21):
like all those things, right,those I love everything about it
.
Bees, you know, like I'm just atotal geek for it.
That's like my like here, likemy autistic enthusiasm, I'm like
flinging my hands around, so,and you know, life comes to an
end, and so, for me, euthanasiais the space where we have, if
(53:46):
we have the opportunity, alittle bit of space, although I
definitely have those ones thatare not pretty.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
I think it's how people don't not, that's
obviously, but people don'trespect or value that
relationship.
So I had a 17 year old cat andshe was already in early stage
kidney failure and she had acouple of medical issues going
on.
And there was a Friday where itwas like early Friday morning I
(54:21):
realized that she hadn't she'dstopped using letterbox like a
year ago.
So she was using puppy pads andI noticed that she had not.
There was like no solid wastecoming and I was like, oh God,
she's not eating.
And then I noticed that she wasgoing to the cat fountain and
she was just looking at thewater but she wasn't drinking it
and I was like, oh boy.
So you know, I called my vetand unfortunately they couldn't
(54:42):
see me that day.
So and I knew it was like, Iknew it was the end, it was like
this, and so the option wasagain it was a friday was I
could take her to the emergencyroom, which would have involved
getting her in a car and likedriving her an hour away, and I
thought I don't want to stressher out.
So I looked into places.
I came home, came to your houseto do it and lap of of love, by
(55:03):
the way, most amazing freakingagency I've ever seen in my
entire life.
That woman was freaking,incredible.
But so I called them andobviously it's it's expensive,
but it's a little bit moreexpensive than it would be if I
had gone to the emergency room,probably by like 200 bucks, like
not, you know not.
And this is again 17 year oldcat, huge, huge, huge, like
important part of my life.
(55:24):
So I made the decision to do itand I called somebody that I
care about and I mentioned whatwas happening.
The response was basically whata waste of money.
We'll just come shoot her andthen you can bury her in the
backyard oh my god, I'm so sorryI was literally like, oh, no,
worst possible.
But.
But that's just kind of atestament to what like people
(55:45):
will say, because they don'tthey don't value the, the human
animal connection and you know II was disgusted by it.
It was like a horrible thing tosay, and it was just like I'm
kidding, and it was like don'teven, like, don't, like, don't
yeah, I'd be like I don't.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
My autistic social bandwidth would be like I don't
think I can talk to you for atleast a year.
Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, it's a horrible thing to say, but it's not the
first time I've heard stuff likethat, either towards me or
towards other people, and peopleare like, oh, it's just a cat,
it's just a dog, like what's thebig deal, like you know, just
kind of get over it.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
And you don't have to .
That's not going to be the casewith your veterinary
professional team that supportsyou through it oh, of course not
.
I'm talking about right, yeah,but like I think that that's
kind of the thing, thatsometimes there are people who
care about life and there arepeople who don't.
Now I like that sounds a littlebit harsh, but like in some
(56:44):
ways, like yeah, right, likethere are people who are like we
need to do everything we canand we need, or, if we can't, we
need to be the most ethicalright, like I did food animal
because I care about foodsecurity and I left because I
(57:04):
couldn't.
I couldn't do what I needed todo to move things forward in
parts of the industry andexperience racialized misogyny
at the same time.
I'm sorry you experienced that.
Uh, thank you for holding spacefor that.
And also, like it's one ofthose things where you know like
we humans have amultidimensional relationship
(57:27):
with animals, with wildliferight.
Like when I first started byjourney, I wanted to be a
wildlife veterinarian but I waslike I can't afford that.
So I did a combined degree, Igot my PhD in developmental
neuroscience so I could pay formy veterinary school because
there was no other way that Iwas going to happen.
(57:48):
I didn't, I didn't have thefinancial resources right, which
is like a barrier right For fordiversity in veterinary
medicine, but I realized thatyou know.
So there are like people whocare and people who don't, and
people who are going to beempathetic and people who aren't
there yet, like my.
My hope is always like.
(58:09):
I hope that you're just notthere yet and soon you will
understand more about thedimensions of emotionality that
can happen around this and howcaring for each other as human
beings and as living beings Imean.
I'm just like, why would youwant to be anything else?
(58:30):
I don't understand it, but youknow, I'm a Buddhist
veterinarian.
What can I say?
Speaker 1 (58:37):
I think when I was doing some of the research about
veterinary and burnout and howone of the things that can
really happen is people canbecome so burnt out emotionally
that they can't really expresscompassion.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, that they can't feel anything.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, and so I do think that sometimes you hear
other people's experiences like,oh, this vet didn't care, this
vet was like not engaging, and Ijust want to say like we need
to hold space for compassion forthose people too, and we need
to help those people find help.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Right, A hundred percent, and this is why I was
like, oh gosh.
You know I have had theprivilege of working and having
some really amazingconversations with mental
healthcare professionals andsocial workers that that care
about animals right and thatcare about the people who care
(59:35):
for animals.
It's been like mentalhealthcare support and through
like professionals has beenalthough not always 100% safe
been transformative for me and Ifeel very fortunate that I had
access to that from a young age.
It was very normalized and so Iwant that for more people in my
(59:59):
industry and so I would say,yes, if your veterinarian is not
showing up as the compassionateperson that you would need,
that there is likely burnout,that there is likely them being
overworked or potentially areally, really tough case that
they had that is justpreoccupying their mind.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
While we were having this conversation, I literally
just emailed my vet that I hadin Rhode Island to say thank you
for being such an amazing vet,because he's one of the things I
miss about living in RhodeIsland.
So just like, hey, thanks forall the great work you did.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
I mean, like we like it's a win.
Like you know, I get to seewindows of the human animal bond
, right, and people want to.
That's like why we're there,right, we want to support you on
this journey of your humananimal bond.
That we know is so like.
So it's like, yeah, we're,we're here doing this, you know,
(01:00:59):
holding space for um death andbeing like one of my um
colleagues, dr mallory preston,uh, put like this meme.
That was like sometimes I wakeup in the middle of diet three.
I'm thinking about your pet.
That's for free, right, andthat's real, right.
(01:01:21):
Like I have pets where, like Ileave and I'm like, ooh, you're
going to make it a week.
I really hope so.
Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Especially, like you know, a case workup over a day
that we're like, ah, I hope that, like we did enough to like
make it work and get the body ina position to heal or
reacclimate to a new normal,that is acceptable.
And sometimes we're doing itwith, like chewing gum and
(01:01:54):
bailing twine, what it feelslike medically right, a hope and
a prayer.
Or we're having to be reallyhonest and be like I'm sorry,
can't do anything.
That's got to be such a hardconversation to have.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
I know it's because it's a hard conversation to hear
.
You know, when someone says toyou like there's nothing we can
do, it's very similar toanything else in your life where
it's really important and youcare about it and you're being
told that this is the end.
Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
I mean, honestly, I think what works best for me is
I'm just very straightforwardwith people, Right.
I don't I just go straight Like, if I've got bad news, I walk
in and I'm like, sit down.
I sit down with them, I saidI'm sorry, I have bad news,
let's talk through it, right.
(01:02:46):
And um, you know, I think that,um, I have conversations with
my clients about what might beahead of them.
I'm a very like.
I'm like we're going to talkabout the map out, right, and,
and that is what's needed.
(01:03:06):
And sometimes, when we arepressured to have, like I can't
do that in a 15 minuteappointment, it's just not going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
And I think, as a society, some of the things that
could help parents is to talk,have those conversations about
like, like.
What are you going to do whenthis happens?
Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
um right, yeah, to make a plan right, plans feel
good.
Structure in chaos I think that, like you know, humanitarian
and disaster responses arestructure as much as possible in
(01:03:46):
the midst of chaos.
Our MASH clinic, the same right, access to care, so many things
, right, that's what medicine is.
Structure in the midst ofunpredictable chaos?
That we're doing the best.
I mean, it's not entirelyunpredictable.
We do have, like, a lot of dataand information about certain
things, about what is likely tohappen, right, but we're doing,
(01:04:09):
we are, we are figuring thingsout from multiple streams of
information and we're trying tomake our best judgment.
And you know, it's the samething with doctors, right, and
it's always very interesting,like I'm currently, you know, in
communication with, likedifferent doctors of different
teams involving, like me or myparents, right, care is hard,
(01:04:34):
especially when, I mean, we'vebeen having conversations about
our healthcare system sincebefore I decided to go to
veterinary medicine instead ofhuman medicine.
I never was going to go tohuman medicine.
I just let my parents think fora little bit that it might be a
possibility, but I was probablygoing to say it was all going
to be animals.
Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Really Much you know like.
Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Cora, we didn't hear you, I think.
I think you might be too farfrom the mic or something can
you hear me now?
Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
yes, all right.
I just think that we need tonormalize a little bit more.
You know like we put so muchenergy, love, finances, finances
into our pets but then passaway like society is just like,
oh, get over, get over it, butlike, no, they're our family,
right.
Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Listen.
I cried more for my pets thathave died than I have for some
humans that have died Seriously.
Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Yeah, it's the you know people.
There are a lot of people doingresearch on human-animal bond
and like there's a component ofthat, like animals are very and
and like we'll just say like alot of autistic people made like
(01:05:55):
I made it survived by havingthe companionship of animals.
As an autistic person, there'sa lot of amusing like content of
like a person being at a newlocation and being like, oh,
there's an animal here.
Okay, I know that I wassupposed to have a conversation
(01:06:15):
with you, but I'm actually justgoing to hang out with your dog
until you say that I can goright, like and that's like not
entirely, but like obviously,like for me, any space is more
calming if there are animalsthere, right, because, um,
(01:06:35):
animals, I feel, have like avery um, I don't know, they
teach you things.
I think they teach you thingsabout yourself and about the way
that you can interact withanother being.
And animals have reciprocalrelationships.
(01:06:57):
If you invest in a relationshipwith an animal, that animal
will invest in you.
Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
And they don't judge yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Well, I don't know, there was a couple of cats in
Italy that I was trying to petand they were very judgy.
Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
They was like Well you have to establish a
relationship.
Right Cats are like.
Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
I don't know you.
They were very judgy.
I have pictures of them.
Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
They're like I don't know you.
Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
I only have five people that I approve.
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Well, Erica, thank you so much.
We're running short on time, sowe are going to have you back
to talk about a different topic,though.
Yeah, I really look forward tothat.
Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
Julie was there anything you wanted to ask or
comment before we wrap up.
No, I think that this was anamazing conversation.
I'm sorry I didn't contribute alot, I was just listening.
Um, when I was actually firstlooking into social work, I
discovered the veterinary socialwork.
That was like kind of a pathand yeah, um, it's not really.
There's not really muchdiscussion in new england about
it, which is a littledisappointing, but much I was
(01:08:03):
gonna say let's get in touch.
Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
Yeah, I have people I can connect you with Would be
happy to.
Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
That would be awesome , because then I can justify
taking another student Right.
Yeah, that would be awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Okay, well, we'll do a lot of email connections.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Perfect.
Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
This was so much fun.
Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Erica, thank you so much.
I really appreciate the timeand effort that you put.
First of all, I appreciate allthe stuff that you're doing just
in your life.
I mean you're making a lot ofchanges and then I appreciate
that you took the time to behere, so thank you so much and
send me, or Corey, theinformation.
I'll put it all on the podcastdescription for the website and
anything that you need that wecan help you with.
(01:08:42):
Please let me know, okay.
All right, thank you so much.
All right, thank you, Iappreciate it.
Bye everybody.
Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Hello everybody and thank you again for listening.
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi everybody.
This is Matt, and welcome backto another episode of the United
States of PTSD.
I have both Julia and Cora withme today and a very special
guest, Erica, and I will letErica introduce themselves in a
minute.
We do want to give a little bitof a trigger warning ahead of
time, and actually first I wantto apologize for my voice.
I just came back from Italy andI'm sick, so you're going to
have to bear with the terriblevoice today.
(00:49):
But we do want to do a littlebit of a trigger warning because
we are going to be talkingabout a couple of things,
including suicide and pet deaths, and those can be really tough
topics for a lot of people.
Those of you that have listenedknow that Julie and I have
recently had pet deaths of ourown in our lives and how tough
that is, and suicide iscertainly a really tough topic
for a lot of people.
(01:09):
So, Erica, I'm going to let youintroduce yourself now if you
would like.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Hi, my name is Erica Lynn Hendel.
I'm a veterinarian, so Dr EricaLynn Hendel my pronouns are
they, them, theirs.
I do relief work, so thatbasically means that I help
doctors get a break, and I workin Arizona and I do companion
(01:38):
animal medicine.
I've been in other areas ofveterinary medicine too.
I've done some work in SWI.
I worked with pigs for four anda half years in the Midwest and
then I shifted back tocompanion animal medicine and my
heart is with access to care,sheltering, humanitarian
(02:01):
response and also transmittingclinic culture and solutions
across clinics.
I have a group that I work with, western Veterinary Partners
that allows me to play aroundwith that.
And then I do a lot of work inthe industry with affinity
organizations.
I've helped out with somethings with Pride VMC, who has
(02:25):
been around for 30 yearssupporting LGBTQIA veterinary
professionals.
We have the Gender IdentityBill of Rights.
That is a really importantpiece of work.
They are currently working onthings with what's going on with
the upcoming election andconcerns about our community
(02:47):
there.
I used to be a board member atthe Multicultural Veterinary
Medical Association.
It's an organization thatreally strives to end the impact
of racial and ethnicdiscrimination in our field,
because veterinary medicine isone of the whitest professions
(03:08):
around care, care industry andlet's see, and also not one more
vet.
I'm an active board memberwhere I also do work for
students.
I really care aboutneurodiversity, so I basically
like I've got a lot ofmarginalized identities that
kind of combine with what I'mdoing in veterinary medicine,
(03:30):
which is like very meaningfulwork.
But it's definitely you know,if you, if you have a
veterinarian, know that theveterinary team, the whole
veterinary team in that hospital, works really hard to do the
best they can to keep you andyour pets healthy and happy with
(03:55):
that human animal bond.
So I'm really glad to be havingthis conversation here and
hopefully bring some veterinaryprofessionals to listen to your
podcast.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to belistening from start to finish
from the topics that I saw andit just is really meaningful.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I really appreciate that and, my God, erica, you do
a lot listening to all the stuffthat you do.
So, first of all, thank you foreverything that you do, because
, I mean, you're obviouslybringing a lot of awareness to
many, many different topics thatneed to be talked about.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, I really appreciate it.
I, when I was a student, youknow, veterinary medicine is
like kind of a bit of like whatmade me like existing possible
right, like being able to tendto like existing possible right,
(04:49):
like being able to tend to thewell-being of living things,
right.
It's just like very muchimportant as part of like my
cultural heritage and it waslike in some ways, a gift, right
.
This has been a very big giftfor me, for me, and I want I
want the parts that made mequestion that, which are
unnecessary, to not be part ofwhat the younger generation
(05:18):
questions.
So I'm like we're still.
We're still in that cycle,right, healthcare education has
cycles that are aroundhierarchical toxicity and our
students are impacted by that.
So I think that there's changeright.
I believe that veterinarymedicine that has changed so
much like from establishment ofcooperative care, dr Sophia Yin,
(05:42):
who really spearheaded that,who hurt her suicide in 2014.
And that tragic loss was whatresulted in us having a serious
conversation about suicide andveterinary medicine.
So the VIN Foundation, some ofher legacy.
(06:07):
They have a program that's forvets as a support program.
So we have a lot oforganizations working on this to
kind of change that nature atpretty much every veterinary
professional has lost someone orknow someone.
So it's something that we'retrying to make a move on and you
(06:27):
know, I'm really proud to seehow this area of activism in the
field continues to grow.
You know, not One More Vet andVet for Vet and all of these
other programs, all of the youknow organizations that are
taking things seriously.
We have increases in employeeEAP programs to increase access.
(06:50):
We're decreasing stigma.
We're working with so nowthere's a specialty social
workers, for veterinary socialworkers.
It's so tremendous to see thosechanges and how so many
individuals are involved, orlike little little pebbles that
ripple outwards and I agree.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You said a lot that I want to comment on, so of
course I want to throw out apositive story.
So I just recently came back,as you heard, from italy and
italy.
They have feral cat colonieseverywhere, right, so like, and
they very much value.
Cats like you're not allowed tolike, you have to feed them.
You obviously can't hurt them.
If you do, you get fined.
And I mean when I tell youthere was cats at every museum,
(07:35):
like um place we went, likethere were cats at the parthenon
, there were cats in greece,there were cats at um the
coliseum.
There are cats like literallyeverywhere.
And of course I have to petevery cat I see.
So naturally but they also haddogs and like they just you know
they all seem like so happy, sothat that's an excellent
positive spin.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, you had brought up EAP benefits, which I think
is great.
My experience with EAP benefitsand I don't know, cora or Julia
, if you've had this experienceis companies will often pay for
EAP, which is employeeassistance programs for those
people who don't know that andfor them to, for the employees
to go into counseling, but theypay for like four visits or five
(08:14):
visits right and they expecteverything to be kind of wrapped
up in a neat little package andthen, what ends up happening is
, then usually it's not covered.
So then if they want to continuewith counseling, it's like a
ridiculously high copay or likethey have a large deductible.
So it's almost like gettingsomebody started and then
kicking them out the door, whichI almost think is more
(08:35):
detrimental.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Oh, you know what.
I'm so excited that this wasyour response to that, because I
would say that that's exactlythe critique that I have had
about these.
So what we are working on also.
For example, namv has a programcalled Clear Blueprint right,
(08:57):
and that is a program that helpsus work with a clinic for
creating tools on trainingpeople around mentally healthy
practices.
So, like I think access tomental health care is really
important.
It has taken me a really longtime to finally find the type of
(09:19):
therapy that I need for therapyto be a fully safe place.
So I finally have.
My therapist is a Black womanwho has worked with autistic and
neurodiverse people for likemaybe 20 years and who also is
(09:40):
like a disruptor or changer inher fields as well.
So, like now, when I'm talkingabout trying to make change or
try and push back, to be like,yes, eap, great, four sessions
isn't going to do it.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's equivalent to you know, when we talk about
grief, when you have a familymember or a pet or somebody
that's important that passesaway and your job gives you
three to four days ofbereavement, like max, because
again you're supposed to be likeover it.
Yes, right, so it's all likethe same, the same thing, and
there's a there's a big push tonot take insurance too right
because of like how many.
I just had a situation happen Iwas telling Cora and Julie
(10:21):
about, before we started, whereI had a client who had a her.
The insurance that she had wasactually her secondary insurance
, but I didn't know that.
She didn't tell me it didn'tshow up so now here it is
October, and the insurance I hadbeen billing had said oops, she
had a different insurance.
So now they're recouping all ofthe money for the whole year
(10:44):
that I saw her and there'snothing I can do about it
because of course it took themthat long to figure it out right
.
So like it's circumstances likethat that make us not want to
take insurance because it's justa it's.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It's such a scam so, uh, you, you are in a position.
So we're all impacted by thesethings like access to care right
and what is covered, what isnot, how much we can get people
to undergo a therapeutictreatment, that is the ascribed
(11:16):
time that it needs to be right,I have.
We call this moral injury right.
We call this moral injury rightand it's actually one of the
core component of veterinaryprofessional distress is that
when we cannot do the thingsthat we need to do, when we
(11:39):
cannot intervene due to lack ofresources, yeah, especially for
pets too, because the pets areit's expensive.
It's I mean, pet care isincredibly expensive, and well,
yeah, all of the costs of whenwe also when we don't have it.
So this is for insurancecurrently for pet owners doesn't
(12:02):
work the same way thatinsurance works in human
medicine.
It's hopefully we will able tokeep it from going that way, but
I have a quick story about that.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So I have true pionion.
My vet highly recommended truepionion.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
And.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I, I, so I've had it on the two newest cats that I
won't, that I have cause.
I've had them since they werekittens and one of them needed
dental.
At two years old she needed tohave some teeth extracted.
And when I tell you, it wasjust as bad dealing with true
panion as it was dealing withinsurance companies for mental
health, I could not believe it.
(12:40):
They kept asking for thingsthat they wanted her like
original records, and I saidshe's a stray.
The only records I have is therecords from the adoption agency
that I adopted her from andthey're like well, we need the
records before that.
And I was like there are norecords before that and it just
it kept going back and forth.
It took me like seven months toget paid.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I'm so sorry.
So it's kind of the same thing,right, right, yeah, and like
the thing.
So the face that I'm making,which your audience cannot see
right now.
My eyes are narrowed, I am likecuddling my coffee cup.
I love the visual.
(13:19):
Yeah, like it's one of the andlike kind of squinting.
Right, there are people withI'm.
I like paperwork is like.
I have been like building up theemotional gumption to go
through every single petinsurance policy.
(13:41):
There are people in my industrywho have done that.
Sometimes they talk about likeso I'm I, you know, like we need
to have some more collaborativediscussions.
Like access to care is a bigproblem, right, we also have to
be able to have all of ourveterinary team have a livable
wage.
Have all of our veterinary teamhave a livable wage with good
(14:09):
benefits, right, so we're alltrying to do that when, with the
way things like our, our healthcare that we provide to pets is
still incredibly affordable incomparison to what the actual
medical bill that people receive.
(14:30):
You know, and the care that weprovide sometimes we say is
arguably, depending on thesituation, a little bit more
timely or something, right, likeI get my clients get very upset
with me if I am running morethan like 25 minutes behind,
(14:51):
right.
So, um, I, you know, I I thinkthat we have things like prop
129 in Colorado that, likeveterinary professionals are
terrified about.
That creates a mid-levelpractitioner that potentially
undermines our credentialedveterinary technicians Also our
(15:16):
veterinary I I am probably oneof the more radical people in my
field where I'm like this isend stage capitalism and then we
have other you know I haveother friends that are working
(15:38):
on unionizing but like all wecan do is kind of work together
for the best that we can, right.
So I think that you know, knowthat the veterinary professional
teams are advocating everywherethat we can, when we have power
, to try and keep thingsaffordable, while also, you know
(16:06):
transport costs, likeeverything is increasing in
price prices and drugs barriers.
You know the economics of itare incredibly complex and you
know we just have to continue tohave those conversations, right
.
I regularly have to haveconversations about what is
realistic and having thoseconversations where you know a
(16:30):
pet parent is coming in, beinglike oh, I just want to do like
a regular checkup or seemed alittle bit off the last, like
day or two, and I'm like yourdog has a giant, like your dog,
has a giant mass in its abdomen.
That is a ticking time bomb andI know that, like you, weren't
(16:52):
expecting to hear this today,but you basically have to make
the decision of surgery, whichis unlikely to do anything, and
letting go now, today, because Idon't know what's going to
happen if you, or how long we'regoing to be okay Once you leave
the building.
Right, that?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
sucks it does, suck it's.
It sounds like it's one moresystem that's designed to fail,
like every other system we haveCora.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I think you had a question you wanted to ask have
Cora, I think you had a questionyou wanted to ask.
I just wanted to kind of goback to what you're saying and
for our listeners you knowthat's our people and as I was
looking at Not One More Vetwebsite you guys do a really
good job of outlining a lot ofthe different hardships that
veterinarians and veterinarianprofessionals experience.
(17:44):
Answered one of my questions,but I mean, could you paint that
picture a little bit for us,like some of those things that
people are dealing with thatmake I wonder, though, before we
get to that, if we can justtalk about what one, not one
more vet is right.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So those people.
I became aware of it because Iwork with somebody who's a vet,
and that's how I found out thatsuicide rates among vets were
like really high, and I wasshocked by it, because it's not
something that's publicknowledge.
So can you talk a little bitabout what that website is?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, so Not One More Vet is a nonprofit organization
, 501c3, um was founded in 2014after dr sophia yin's um death
to suicide, which, like,completely rocked the industry.
Right, she was um instrumental.
(18:39):
So now we have like fear free,right?
I don't know if you've heardfear free certification or
anything like.
So fear free, it's like lowstress handling in veterinary
medicine to kind of um make andthings like cooperative care
also exist in like zoos andstuff where they train the
animals to like hold out theirpaw and get yummies while they
(19:01):
get their blood pulled right.
It just makes it so we can worktogether rather than any sort
of like combative restraintright To the best of our ability
.
So that was like shespearheaded that.
So she was Asian American aswell.
(19:23):
So, like, for me as an AsianAmerican veterinarian, it was
also like a big deal.
There was another veterinarianof color that had died by
suicide only a couple monthsahead of time.
That was priming, kind ofpriming the situation.
So then we we started talkingabout it.
Right, a group of veterinariansput together a Facebook group
(19:48):
for veterinarians to like talkabout problems that they were
going through, because sometimes, you know, in rural settings,
the veterinarian might be theonly veterinarian in the area
area, right, we might have likeone veterinary team in a larger
(20:09):
area.
So sometimes it can be a littlebit of a solitary like
existence.
So that's why social media wasa really great place and then it
grew from there.
So its mission is to oh gosh,I'm not going to get read it off
right but, like it's, totransform the mental health
status of the industry througheducation, resources and support
(20:30):
, right?
So we have a bunch of differentprograms and, in addition to
that, like there are lots of youknow, like I said, vets for
Vets, veterinary mental healthservices that recently joined
NAMVI, that runs support groups,and you know there are lots of
(20:56):
there are social workers andmental health professionals that
have decided to specificallyserve veterinary professionals.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You know I want to add to that too.
I have also tried to.
I did that with firstresponders as well, because
first responders have, like,really high rates of suicide.
And we have made multipleattempts to reach out to first
responders and offer them freecounseling services through the
use of student interns, becauseright now CORE is an intern of
mine and I have anotherfantastic intern Julia used to
be an intern of mine, now sheworks for me.
(21:23):
So the benefit to doing it thatway is that they're free, right
, so you could go see a studentintern that's supervised by a
licensed person and it's free,but with first responders.
When I tell you there was nointerest whatsoever, and I can't
even tell you how many times Itried it, I also tried it with
vets and the same thing happened.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It kind of fell flat, you just gotta, I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So if you have any, if you have any pointers, let me
know.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Oh, I mean, hey, like I'll get you in touch with our
executive director and you know,like I think that like there's
also the internationalassociation of veterinary social
workers, they're also a greatorganization to connect with.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's good to know.
Can you also send me thatinformation as well, because
then I can read all of thatstuff.
Yeah, absolutely One of thethings when you had mentioned Dr
Yin, was it?
I can't remember the name.
Sophia.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yin Sophia Yin.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
What I was surprised by and, corey, you have the
numbers for this was.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It looks like suicide rates among female vets were
higher, which is, oh, it's not.
That wasn't the case core.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I thought it was.
Oh it's.
Yes, it it is, I believe.
I think core core has theactual numbers.
She looked it up.
I just for some reason Ithought it was.
What is it core?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
one in six veterinarians consider suicide
at one point during their career.
Male veterinarians have 1.6times increased risk for death
by suicide.
Female veterinarians have a 2.4times increased risk.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So that means they are at more risk, right.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Which surprises me, because usually it's men that
are higher risk.
So what do you think?
Well, first of all, oh, goahead, cora, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
All technicians have a five times increased risk.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, and so our technical staff, so our
certified veterinary technicians.
We also have hospitalassistants.
We have other type of.
We have non non-licensed,non-licensed veterinary um uh
assistance and our um, our uhCSRs.
(23:32):
Our customer servicerepresentatives also have and,
like we haven't studied everycohort yet, right, we also have
to look at office managers too.
It's across the board, right.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Which is what I love about?
Not One Vet.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Not.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
One Vet.
It's everybody and we want totalk about students as well Like
it's everybody in theprofession.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, everybody, and it's also animal welfare.
Oh yep, right.
So, actually, like, animalwelfare is.
So that's still within animalcare, right.
So, like I am, and you knowwhat I would guarantee you, if
you looked at like wildlifeecologists, right, like, and
(24:21):
anyone involved in animal care,in care, is having a hard time.
Um, it's like, it's a it's,it's rough, right, and I think
and I I've spent a lot of timethinking about it because, um,
(24:43):
like, every, every veterinary GPhas ER moments, like, I have
codes, I have cases that are gutwrenching, that make it into
our clinic.
I have cases that I have tomanage that are like I am
pulling all resources togetherand picking an animal between
(25:06):
the emergency team and my teambecause I can't get them in to
be seen by an internist becausewe don't have enough and they
can't be seen for like a monthand the issue is critical now,
right.
So I usually think that, for meat least, personally, what I've
observed and this is kind ofanecdotal like we're still
(25:28):
understanding dimensions ofmental health in our profession,
right, we don't, we, we did uh,uh, there was a research paper
looking, trying to look atintersectionality.
Um, I have a hard timeinteracting with it because it's
a little traumatizing ingeneral.
(25:48):
So I'm like, uh, because Ithink it was like they didn't
quite have enough people to askquestions of and that's like.
You know, like I, I strugglewith that every day, like
because we don't, we don't have.
I want the mental health surveythat we do in our field to look
like the topics that you arecovering in your podcast.
(26:10):
That's the survey I want.
Hasn't been done yet.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Well, if I can do, if we can do anything to help, let
me know, erica, one of thethings that you just mentioned,
which I think when you weretalking about how you wanted to
read it, but it was triggeringto you.
I've actually heard the samething about the Facebook page
for Not Another Vet is that?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
because I think they post a lot when, when vets
commit suicide, right, orthere's like notifications of
when vets commit suicide.
Yeah, that's gosh.
We have, we have always kind ofnavigated that process is very
delicate, right, so, like, firstand foremost, the, the needs
and the wishes of the familyneed to be what is centered and
honored, right.
So, um, in any circumstance, um, we, sometimes we hear about it
(27:01):
, just because we are a spacethat people go to, um, and
usually people would be like did, did anyone find out or did
anyone hear about blah, blah,blah, right, and we kind of
there's different ways.
So, just, basically, we wait tobe contacted because, you know,
(27:25):
sometimes, as an organizationwe're, although we are very like
mental health, like centered,there's still that component of,
of of suicide, right, that'sour.
So, our, our, our, like, youknow, our, um, uh, president
Emeritus, uh, yeah, uh, Dr Kerry.
(27:48):
Journey, those like our.
Our very presence, you know,implies something.
So we usually have to be verydelicate on our initial
approaches and it really isabout holding space, for if
someone wants the support wehave you know, mental health
care professionals, that or we,we, we search for the mental
(28:12):
health care professionals in thearea, um, local resources, um,
we have like grieving resources,um, we try and be present for
the community as they want, umand um.
You know, as far as like theface, but like social media is
(28:35):
like challenge, right?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
well, that's the truth, right, it's always a
mixed bag um and so like.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Personally, I don't really interact with social
media.
I really try and engage withlike direct action work because
that's like my personalpreference of like working with
people to get them connected tolike professional mental health
(29:03):
support if that's what they want, or just like books or whatever
like, or just a friend, rightlike you, just like hang out.
There's a thing that I cameacross.
I still have to do the researchdeep dive, but it was like
eight minutes on the phone witha friend when you're in distress
can help re-regulate yournervous system a bit.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Wow, that's awesome.
You know, but like, if that'sthe case, like that's powerful
Of course, there was a fact Iwanted to put out, and then core
, because I know you've done alot of research, so I want to
make sure you get a chance toask questions with the research.
In terms of suicide, survivorsof suicide are More likely they
(29:45):
have a higher risk commitsuicide themselves.
Right so, if in its exponential.
So if you have a family memberwho commit suicide themselves,
right so if it's exponential.
So if you have a family memberwho commits suicide, you're two
times more likely to commitsuicide.
And if you have another personwho commits suicide, you're four
times more likely to commitsuicide.
And of all of the ways somebodycan die, whether it's, you know,
murder, like natural disasteror natural causes or whatever
(30:07):
suicide is the one that peoplenever recover from, ever,
because they just don't.
They don't have the answers.
It's always what did I miss?
Should I have done this, shouldI have done that?
Like, could I have stopped it,etc.
Like even random people whohave very brief contact with
that person will have thosefeelings of like what did I miss
?
How did I?
And you know it's, it's, it'sjust such a tragedy, it's awful.
(30:30):
What was there anything fromthe research that you wanted to
ask?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Well, so I guess, to get back, I want to ask two
things.
Like some of the things thatimpact a vet's daily life in
terms of stressors, like some ofthe things I was reading on the
website were really interestingbecause I'd never heard them
before.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
So like yeah, being something, um, oh something
dropped that, dropped the audiofor the first thing that you
said.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
So could you repeat that cyber bullying was
something I had never considered.
Um student debt, um constraints, that that one seemed a little
obvious but still kind of whatyou were saying.
Um, as listeners, as justpeople who interact with
veterinarians, if we could talka little bit about like what
(31:23):
your day looks like, and then aspeople, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Um, it's different for every veterinarian.
I mean, every place is a littledifferent, right?
So it depends on whether or notthe place takes drop-offs,
walk-ins, scheduled appointments, how, like, how densely my
appointments are scheduled, howstaffed well-staffed, I am right
(31:55):
.
So sometimes we fall behindbecause, like, sometimes you
need three people to interactwith an animal to get a blood
sample.
Yep, this is just the realityof the situation.
You need one person restrainingfor safety of everyone involved
(32:18):
, right, these are the peoplethat keep me alive and keep me
from having a mauled face, whichis totally something that
happens, right?
So that person is reallyimportant and that person needs
to focus on that job and theycan't do more than one thing,
right.
Then you have the person that'spulling the sample.
They're working with a sharpneedle, they're doing a thing
(32:41):
that might get a reaction andwe're trying to do it in as
gentle as way possible.
So usually, with a lot ofanimals, we can just do that
with two people and it's okay.
But every now and then, there'san animal that needs another
thing.
This involves lightly tappingthe head, shoving cheese in its
(33:01):
face, singing a song, like wewill literally do, freaking like
Broadway musicals to make yourpets more comfortable, um, and
to get what we need to do whilealso staying safe.
And I think that sometimes, Ithink, in general, just like
(33:25):
patience, right, just patienceand understanding, and like when
we like we're not going to beable to do this today because
it's stressing out.
You know, fifi, what's myfavorite?
I don't know.
I have, like, so many wonderfulpet names, and sometimes we
can't solve everything.
(33:46):
And sometimes we needdiagnostics, right, which are
expensive, and, trust me, we areanxious about it too.
You know, like we will try andwork with you, but there are
some things like, we are notlike money, like it's not
expensive, because we're tryingto pull one over on you, right,
(34:09):
and I think that is thechallenge.
And I think that sometimes, um,medicine is an art, right, it's
like the art and the practice ofmedicine, right, everything
about each individual animal,yeah, I had a one, one patient
that was severely allergic to astandard type of medicine that
(34:30):
the owner had been using frompreviously, right, and I had to
figure out like which one wasn'tgoing to cause a reaction in
some of the typical like, so, sowe have to work together, and
it can be difficult tocommunicate, right, and
communicate under stress.
So I think that sometimes, likeI'm pretty lucky that I have
(34:54):
been able to work throughdifficult conversations with
clients that needed toemotionally process something,
that was like making them upsetright, because it's people are
very like I say, say, likeveterinary professionals are
taking care of the mental healthof our nation by taking care of
(35:14):
pets.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's really well said.
I like that.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And that's a big responsibility, right, like I
know, like pets saved my life,pets and animals saved my life
every single day.
Right, I get it.
I understand, we understand weare like at times we are at a
loss because we are trying to bethe most perfect we can be, for
(35:41):
in, in our devotion to ourpractice.
Right, every veterinarian feelsthis way.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
And I think one of the things that's really hard
when we talk about this becausewe don't expect surgeons in the
medical field to also be able tospeak with their patients,
family and express, like allthese things, and hold the
emotional brunt.
But then when I was in theresearch it was like no
veterinarian schools areteaching, you know, students how
(36:10):
to handle this and that's a lot, that's yeah, well, there is a
new model that I hope continuesto like progress, which is the
um veterinary social worker thatis in the building right.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
There are some hospitals that are large enough
that have a social worker onstaff that can help um clients
process those feelings and havethat space held for them.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Um with also like some knowledge would they also
be there for the vets though?
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Because I that's the goal.
I can tell you in a hospitalsetting, right.
So like I've worked in ahospital setting and they have
hospital social workers and theyare there to serve the patients
.
But when I have a lot ofclients who are nurses and when
they lose patients, I'll say tothem what did the hospital do?
Like, did the hospital have anysort of protocol to come talk
to you and help you grieve?
(37:11):
They're like nope, they justsay suck up and move on to the
next patient.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yeah, so my concern is that that would be the same
thing, right Is that it wouldjust, I think sometimes I think
it depends on the hospital,right, and it depends on the
(37:36):
social worker, and this is alsothe kind of thing that I run
into.
Two like with working, uh, instudent advocacy right, like I
have like one university thathas like three mental health
professionals available, uh, allof they have like qpr certified
uh faculty.
They have like different stagesof like interpersonal
communication, like there's likeall sorts of there.
There are programs that arelike super innovative and then
(37:57):
there are other programs thatare like antagonistic and
gaslight and mistreat theirstudents when the students are
like, hey, this is not workingfor us, like we're having a hard
time, so yeah, like I thinkthat makes veterinary medicine
very exciting and alsoincredibly infuriating, but what
(38:21):
it means is that anything ispossible, right.
So, like the right clinic, theright hospital that would have
that relationship, would designthat or check in with that
social worker, say, can you doboth?
If not both, then I need two,one for the people, one for the
pet parents.
How big?
Do we actually have enoughcapacity?
(38:43):
Can everyone who need to beseen within a week be seen in a
week, or do we need moreresources?
Yeah, my gosh, that could bedone you know you had earlier.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
You had earlier talked about end stage
capitalism.
Of course, that's the firstthing I think of right.
So like, if you have, if youhave two social workers there,
one for the vets and one for thepet parents, then they need to
be paid.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
So it's going to drive up the the cost of the
services and it's it just kindof keeps doing this like I don't
know.
Now it's unaffordable right.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
No, I know you don't have the answer but like these
are things I mean, like I thinkthe important thing and this is
the thing that I get, like Ihave, I have a reputation for
this in the industry, rightwhere I'm like well, let's
imagine where we could be.
I get this from my mom and so Ijoke that it's like very
(39:35):
Taiwanese of me to be like,because you know, like there was
several rounds of colonization,then military occupation, then
military dictatorship, then thisdreaming of democracy, right,
and dreaming of maintaining itright.
So I'm a dreamer.
I have a tendency to be likehow far can I, you know, trump
(39:59):
myself down the path and stick aflag and be like this is where
we're going to go.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, we need that.
We need people who arevisionaries and people who can
look down the road and say, likethis is what we need to do.
I just I wish everybody was onthe same page with this yeah, I
mean, that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
So this is why I work with students like this is.
This is why I work withstudents.
Because, um, when I communicateto students that I am really
excited for them to join thisfield, while also simultaneously
making the field that they areentering in better, like, I am
like this is the stuff that youneed to be like, this is the
(40:42):
stuff you are that you deserve,and stop Right.
So now they have theinformation that they need to be
like, this is unacceptable.
I will not tolerate abuse,right.
And then, on the other side, Ihave the leadership that I'm
like hey, y'all.
(41:02):
Uh, you're not gonna have achoice.
I am making sure that thoseyoung ones have that language.
So if we like are going to,yeah, so that's like first part,
because some stuff you can justdo by better communication.
This is compassion with eachother, right?
Speaker 2 (41:22):
of course, and this is why I think students are so
important.
Like the student, you know thestudent entrance.
Like, unfortunately, you knowthey're not paid and I wish that
they could be paid, but they'renot and they're.
They're a great resource to useand it would be so much more
effective to have students doingwork for you in a veterinarian
clinic, talking to vets andfamily, family families of pets,
than it would be for them tohave be doing like busy work,
(41:44):
filing paper and answeringphones.
Right, but like, unfortunately,that's where a lot of them end
up and it's right that's a wholeproblem, though you had
mentioned earlier that you'velost students to suicide too
correct, is that common?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
It is more common.
It is like the source of mygreatest distress, heartbreak
and dissatisfaction.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
What do you think?
What do you think causes it?
Is it the?
Is it the workload?
Is it the?
Is it the financial burden Isburden.
Do you have any thoughts on it?
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think it's multidimensional.
I think that, well, so I'm ADHD, autistic ADHD.
I've never had accommodationsduring my education and it
almost, like it put me in severeclinical depression, right,
(42:35):
because that was during my PhDwork, right, so like that was
before.
I knew that, like I needed acertain amount of stimulation to
regulate my dopamineappropriately not to drop into
clinical depression.
Like these are things that Idid not understand about my
brain.
I did not understand, you know,like there's things like we are
(42:57):
pushed so far, like the amountof sleep deprivation, the amount
of like being told like you youshould know this, right, but
like maybe we're not actuallyteaching in a way that students
are able to absorb it that's awhole nother conversation,
(43:18):
because we could do an entirepodcast.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Just right, what you just said yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I mean like, so, and not only that, but like our
professors aren't taught toteach, it's across the.
It's across like biomed.
It's across stem.
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, Idon't think that that's an
unfair statement.
It's across stem.
(43:47):
This is structural.
It's like there's, there's andthere's also the isms in it.
Right, there's isms in oureducational systems and there's
just like the hierarchy ofmedicine, it like I always say
this, like hierarchy is onlythere for functionality, not for
(44:09):
oppression.
Functionality, not foroppression.
We have the position in thehierarchy because we are
supposed to be responsible,principled and ethical stewards
of the people below us anddeveloping and being part of a
culture of care, community care.
(44:30):
This is what happens when yourmom is a Taoist.
Right, like, but so like that isnot happening sometimes.
Like we are not approachingwe're instead of being like our
students aren't being successfulright now.
What do we?
What barriers?
What things are going on?
(44:50):
Do we need to enhance theirlearning experience?
How are we missing the mark?
Not what's wrong with thesestudents?
You're lazy, you just need towork harder.
Like it's seriously the mostabsurd thing.
Every single veterinary studentthat gets into vet school is
should be finishing and andpracticing medicine wherever
(45:14):
they want to, because it takesthat much grit, dedication, hard
work to even get into vetschool.
So I'm just like I'm alwayslike you know we should be, yeah
, but this is like.
This is a cultural difference,right.
This is about culturalperpetuity.
(45:35):
It's the like Maslow'shierarchy of needs comes from
the Blackfoot nation, so it'sincomplete, right, that we need
to think about our culturalperpetuity and how we are
investing in care, our industryor our ecosystem, and that's
like the thing that I'm goingaround being like just take care
(45:55):
of each other, like you know,like why does it only have to be
in disaster?
We can do that all the time.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
I 100% agree with you and I want to go back to
something that C said and core.
You were talking about cyberbullying in terms of you know
veterinarians and and how thatimpacts them, and I know just to
give you a piece of personalinformation you know as an
educator myself we get the endof the reviews from the students
(46:25):
at the end of the semester thatyou know have all these reviews
on like how we did, and in oneof actually the class that Cora
was in, there was a couplestudents that I caught using
chat gbt, you know they.
They obviously have theconsequences related to that.
So then the reviews were, ofcourse, horrible and they like
made stuff up, they like trashedme and said things that I never
(46:46):
said and like were just reallyawful, and it got to the point
where I'm like you know, I'm noteven to read them anymore
because, like it's not worthreading, which is a problem,
because then people like cora,who we've like really good
remarks and, like you know, haveall this positive stuff I'm
just not going to read becauseit's not worth it.
So in terms of vets, it's, youknow, it's more like an external
thing, right, so people can goon like yelp and they can go on
(47:07):
all sorts of reviews and writeterrible, terrible reviews about
vets.
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (47:14):
So there are a lot of different.
So the AVMA has some strategies.
They've put together a responsepacket.
We have some cyber bullyingresources no, actually cyber
harassment resources, reframingso cyber harassment because what
(47:34):
it is, it is harassment.
Usually people are engaging inthreats, they're trying to
mobilize people to harass alocation through like phone
calls, even like physicalthreats, death threats, those
kinds of things.
We have had violence show up atveterinary clinics and we have
(47:54):
to take it very seriously.
There is a strategy that someveterinary practices are
engaging in that are creatingcontracts that new clients sign.
That basically makes it clearthat if one engages in that type
of harassment because usuallyit's just like you know, if it's
(48:17):
a single bad review andsomebody like counters it or you
know each clinic will decidehow they want to like address it
or not.
If there's like misinformation,that kind of thing, like have a
response versus like notengaging versus someone who's
like really organized, likeblasted and like tried to be
like this clinic did this thingto me.
(48:40):
They killed my animal.
Go like throw rocks at theirwindows Right, this happens,
right, right.
So I think that veterinaryhospitals are working on making
sure that people have responseplans that their staff feel
trained on how to approachthings, how to navigate
(49:00):
de-escalation techniques, andalso that there are people
within the clinic that feelcomfortable navigating that.
And also just like understandingthat there's legal recourse,
right, like if you bring downthousands of people to harass a
place of business with repeatedphone calls or throwing rocks at
(49:21):
windows or you know threats ofviolence, we're going to respond
to that.
You are probably not going to beseen by that veterinarian
anymore, right, that's like thething where, uh, if you are
probably not going to be seen bythat veterinarian anymore,
right, that's like the thingwhere, if you are like it's just
plain and simple, if someone isrude or yells or swears at my
staff or makes my staff feeluncomfortable, I am going to,
(49:46):
you know, fire that that client.
I'm going to say we go, say goforth and find yourself another
clinic, right, and so, like someof it is pre-communication,
some of it is calling it likemore recognizing the degree of
harassment and what that is andremind people when they're like
(50:09):
keyboard warriors, right, likewe care about each other.
The veterinary profession issmall and under duress, right,
and when you are under suchduress, when things are so hard,
you often have to have a morefirm boundaries because you
don't have excess bandwidth tomess around with.
(50:32):
Yeah, we're just, we're working, we're working on our
boundaries.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
I just I want to throw this out really quickly,
so I may have to take a phonecall because I was in an
accident before I went to Italyand the agent is supposed to be
calling me back at 10.
So if I step away, that's why,Okay, but how you deal with pet
euthanasia as a personally notas as like the families, but
(50:57):
personally, how do you deal withthat?
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Is that something you feel?
Oh, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, yeah, it just it takes.
It takes a little bit of amoment because this is, in my
opinion, like.
I refer to it as a kind of likecompanion death, doula-ing
practice.
The human-animal bond is whatmy oath is to, it's what I've
(51:28):
dedicated my life to.
I would say euthanasia is whereI bring in ritual the most.
My oath is to.
It's what I've dedicated mylife to, right, it's like it's.
I would say, euthanasia iswhere I bring in ritual the most
.
You know, like I am very much aBuddhist and a Taoist and with
the other aspects of how I grewup, like death was pretty calm,
(51:52):
like I had a familiarity with adeath, with death, from a young
age.
I'm not, I'm not, I'mcomfortable with it, right,
that's part of that's part ofBuddhism, right, alleviation of
suffering is also part of it.
So, um, I view it as an honor.
It's hard, but it is somethingthat I am willing to hold.
That, now, that's not allveterinarians, of course, and,
(52:14):
like you already stated, likethis is personal expression, so
I am able to handle it prettycomfortably.
Um, and there are like reallytough ones, like puppy hit by
car wolf those are garbage,right.
Every, uh, like young animallily toxicity, for example.
(52:36):
Um, it's a way that I know Ican serve and I know I'm
comfortable bearing witness andholding space for grief.
That is heavy.
And the human animal bond it'slike the coolest thing, right,
like, like, holy heck, how luckyare we as human beings, like I
(53:00):
think that's the coolest thingabout being a human being is
that you can have this type oflike deep relationship with
whatever the creature may be afish, an octopus, you know, a
deer, a cow, a pig, uh, you knowa pocket pet, like a hamster,
(53:21):
like all those things, right,those I love everything about it
.
Bees, you know, like I'm just atotal geek for it.
That's like my like here, likemy autistic enthusiasm, I'm like
flinging my hands around, so,and you know, life comes to an
end, and so, for me, euthanasiais the space where we have, if
(53:46):
we have the opportunity, alittle bit of space, although I
definitely have those ones thatare not pretty.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
I think it's how people don't not, that's
obviously, but people don'trespect or value that
relationship.
So I had a 17 year old cat andshe was already in early stage
kidney failure and she had acouple of medical issues going
on.
And there was a Friday where itwas like early Friday morning I
(54:21):
realized that she hadn't she'dstopped using letterbox like a
year ago.
So she was using puppy pads andI noticed that she had not.
There was like no solid wastecoming and I was like, oh God,
she's not eating.
And then I noticed that she wasgoing to the cat fountain and
she was just looking at thewater but she wasn't drinking it
and I was like, oh boy.
So you know, I called my vetand unfortunately they couldn't
(54:42):
see me that day.
So and I knew it was like, Iknew it was the end, it was like
this, and so the option wasagain it was a friday was I
could take her to the emergencyroom, which would have involved
getting her in a car and likedriving her an hour away, and I
thought I don't want to stressher out.
So I looked into places.
I came home, came to your houseto do it and lap of of love, by
(55:03):
the way, most amazing freakingagency I've ever seen in my
entire life.
That woman was freaking,incredible.
But so I called them andobviously it's it's expensive,
but it's a little bit moreexpensive than it would be if I
had gone to the emergency room,probably by like 200 bucks, like
not, you know not.
And this is again 17 year oldcat, huge, huge, huge, like
important part of my life.
(55:24):
So I made the decision to do itand I called somebody that I
care about and I mentioned whatwas happening.
The response was basically whata waste of money.
We'll just come shoot her andthen you can bury her in the
backyard oh my god, I'm so sorryI was literally like, oh, no,
worst possible.
But.
But that's just kind of atestament to what like people
(55:45):
will say, because they don'tthey don't value the, the human
animal connection and you know II was disgusted by it.
It was like a horrible thing tosay, and it was just like I'm
kidding, and it was like don'teven, like, don't, like, don't
yeah, I'd be like I don't.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
My autistic social bandwidth would be like I don't
think I can talk to you for atleast a year.
Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, it's a horrible thing to say, but it's not the
first time I've heard stuff likethat, either towards me or
towards other people, and peopleare like, oh, it's just a cat,
it's just a dog, like what's thebig deal, like you know, just
kind of get over it.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
And you don't have to .
That's not going to be the casewith your veterinary
professional team that supportsyou through it oh, of course not
.
I'm talking about right, yeah,but like I think that that's
kind of the thing, thatsometimes there are people who
care about life and there arepeople who don't.
Now I like that sounds a littlebit harsh, but like in some
(56:44):
ways, like yeah, right, likethere are people who are like we
need to do everything we canand we need, or, if we can't, we
need to be the most ethicalright, like I did food animal
because I care about foodsecurity and I left because I
(57:04):
couldn't.
I couldn't do what I needed todo to move things forward in
parts of the industry andexperience racialized misogyny
at the same time.
I'm sorry you experienced that.
Uh, thank you for holding spacefor that.
And also, like it's one ofthose things where you know like
we humans have amultidimensional relationship
(57:27):
with animals, with wildliferight.
Like when I first started byjourney, I wanted to be a
wildlife veterinarian but I waslike I can't afford that.
So I did a combined degree, Igot my PhD in developmental
neuroscience so I could pay formy veterinary school because
there was no other way that Iwas going to happen.
(57:48):
I didn't, I didn't have thefinancial resources right, which
is like a barrier right For fordiversity in veterinary
medicine, but I realized thatyou know.
So there are like people whocare and people who don't, and
people who are going to beempathetic and people who aren't
there yet, like my.
My hope is always like.
(58:09):
I hope that you're just notthere yet and soon you will
understand more about thedimensions of emotionality that
can happen around this and howcaring for each other as human
beings and as living beings Imean.
I'm just like, why would youwant to be anything else?
(58:30):
I don't understand it, but youknow, I'm a Buddhist
veterinarian.
What can I say?
Speaker 1 (58:37):
I think when I was doing some of the research about
veterinary and burnout and howone of the things that can
really happen is people canbecome so burnt out emotionally
that they can't really expresscompassion.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, that they can't feel anything.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, and so I do think that sometimes you hear
other people's experiences like,oh, this vet didn't care, this
vet was like not engaging, and Ijust want to say like we need
to hold space for compassion forthose people too, and we need
to help those people find help.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Right, A hundred percent, and this is why I was
like, oh gosh.
You know I have had theprivilege of working and having
some really amazingconversations with mental
healthcare professionals andsocial workers that that care
about animals right and thatcare about the people who care
(59:35):
for animals.
It's been like mentalhealthcare support and through
like professionals has beenalthough not always 100% safe
been transformative for me and Ifeel very fortunate that I had
access to that from a young age.
It was very normalized and so Iwant that for more people in my
(59:59):
industry and so I would say,yes, if your veterinarian is not
showing up as the compassionateperson that you would need,
that there is likely burnout,that there is likely them being
overworked or potentially areally, really tough case that
they had that is justpreoccupying their mind.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
While we were having this conversation, I literally
just emailed my vet that I hadin Rhode Island to say thank you
for being such an amazing vet,because he's one of the things I
miss about living in RhodeIsland.
So just like, hey, thanks forall the great work you did.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
I mean, like we like it's a win.
Like you know, I get to seewindows of the human animal bond
, right, and people want to.
That's like why we're there,right, we want to support you on
this journey of your humananimal bond.
That we know is so like.
So it's like, yeah, we're,we're here doing this, you know,
(01:00:59):
holding space for um death andbeing like one of my um
colleagues, dr mallory preston,uh, put like this meme.
That was like sometimes I wakeup in the middle of diet three.
I'm thinking about your pet.
That's for free, right, andthat's real, right.
(01:01:21):
Like I have pets where, like Ileave and I'm like, ooh, you're
going to make it a week.
I really hope so.
Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Especially, like you know, a case workup over a day
that we're like, ah, I hope that, like we did enough to like
make it work and get the body ina position to heal or
reacclimate to a new normal,that is acceptable.
And sometimes we're doing itwith, like chewing gum and
(01:01:54):
bailing twine, what it feelslike medically right, a hope and
a prayer.
Or we're having to be reallyhonest and be like I'm sorry,
can't do anything.
That's got to be such a hardconversation to have.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
I know it's because it's a hard conversation to hear
.
You know, when someone says toyou like there's nothing we can
do, it's very similar toanything else in your life where
it's really important and youcare about it and you're being
told that this is the end.
Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
I mean, honestly, I think what works best for me is
I'm just very straightforwardwith people, Right.
I don't I just go straight Like, if I've got bad news, I walk
in and I'm like, sit down.
I sit down with them, I saidI'm sorry, I have bad news,
let's talk through it, right.
(01:02:46):
And um, you know, I think that,um, I have conversations with
my clients about what might beahead of them.
I'm a very like.
I'm like we're going to talkabout the map out, right, and,
and that is what's needed.
(01:03:06):
And sometimes, when we arepressured to have, like I can't
do that in a 15 minuteappointment, it's just not going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
And I think, as a society, some of the things that
could help parents is to talk,have those conversations about
like, like.
What are you going to do whenthis happens?
Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
um right, yeah, to make a plan right, plans feel
good.
Structure in chaos I think that, like you know, humanitarian
and disaster responses arestructure as much as possible in
(01:03:46):
the midst of chaos.
Our MASH clinic, the same right, access to care, so many things
, right, that's what medicine is.
Structure in the midst ofunpredictable chaos?
That we're doing the best.
I mean, it's not entirelyunpredictable.
We do have, like, a lot of dataand information about certain
things, about what is likely tohappen, right, but we're doing,
(01:04:09):
we are, we are figuring thingsout from multiple streams of
information and we're trying tomake our best judgment.
And you know, it's the samething with doctors, right, and
it's always very interesting,like I'm currently, you know, in
communication with, likedifferent doctors of different
teams involving, like me or myparents, right, care is hard,
(01:04:34):
especially when, I mean, we'vebeen having conversations about
our healthcare system sincebefore I decided to go to
veterinary medicine instead ofhuman medicine.
I never was going to go tohuman medicine.
I just let my parents think fora little bit that it might be a
possibility, but I was probablygoing to say it was all going
to be animals.
Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Really Much you know like.
Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Cora, we didn't hear you, I think.
I think you might be too farfrom the mic or something can
you hear me now?
Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
yes, all right.
I just think that we need tonormalize a little bit more.
You know like we put so muchenergy, love, finances, finances
into our pets but then passaway like society is just like,
oh, get over, get over it, butlike, no, they're our family,
right.
Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Listen.
I cried more for my pets thathave died than I have for some
humans that have died Seriously.
Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Yeah, it's the you know people.
There are a lot of people doingresearch on human-animal bond
and like there's a component ofthat, like animals are very and
and like we'll just say like alot of autistic people made like
(01:05:55):
I made it survived by havingthe companionship of animals.
As an autistic person, there'sa lot of amusing like content of
like a person being at a newlocation and being like, oh,
there's an animal here.
Okay, I know that I wassupposed to have a conversation
(01:06:15):
with you, but I'm actually justgoing to hang out with your dog
until you say that I can goright, like and that's like not
entirely, but like obviously,like for me, any space is more
calming if there are animalsthere, right, because, um,
(01:06:35):
animals, I feel, have like avery um, I don't know, they
teach you things.
I think they teach you thingsabout yourself and about the way
that you can interact withanother being.
And animals have reciprocalrelationships.
(01:06:57):
If you invest in a relationshipwith an animal, that animal
will invest in you.
Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
And they don't judge yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Well, I don't know, there was a couple of cats in
Italy that I was trying to petand they were very judgy.
Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
They was like Well you have to establish a
relationship.
Right Cats are like.
Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
I don't know you.
They were very judgy.
I have pictures of them.
Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
They're like I don't know you.
Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
I only have five people that I approve.
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Well, Erica, thank you so much.
We're running short on time, sowe are going to have you back
to talk about a different topic,though.
Yeah, I really look forward tothat.
Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
Julie was there anything you wanted to ask or
comment before we wrap up.
No, I think that this was anamazing conversation.
I'm sorry I didn't contribute alot, I was just listening.
Um, when I was actually firstlooking into social work, I
discovered the veterinary socialwork.
That was like kind of a pathand yeah, um, it's not really.
There's not really muchdiscussion in new england about
it, which is a littledisappointing, but much I was
(01:08:03):
gonna say let's get in touch.
Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
Yeah, I have people I can connect you with Would be
happy to.
Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
That would be awesome , because then I can justify
taking another student Right.
Yeah, that would be awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Okay, well, we'll do a lot of email connections.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Perfect.
Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
This was so much fun.
Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Erica, thank you so much.
I really appreciate the timeand effort that you put.
First of all, I appreciate allthe stuff that you're doing just
in your life.
I mean you're making a lot ofchanges and then I appreciate
that you took the time to behere, so thank you so much and
send me, or Corey, theinformation.
I'll put it all on the podcastdescription for the website and
anything that you need that wecan help you with.
(01:08:42):
Please let me know, okay.
All right, thank you so much.
All right, thank you, Iappreciate it.
Bye everybody.
Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Hello everybody and thank you again for listening.
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.