May 4, 2025 • 54 mins
PS: Congress is trying to pass a bill that would prohibit the boycott of the genocidal state of Israel's products. Please contact your rep to tell them to vote against the bill and stop the madness.
H.R.867 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): IGO Anti-Boycott Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Field veterinarian Dr. Kathryn Cehrs shares her experience responding to avian influenza outbreaks and the devastating mental health toll of mass animal depopulations. Her story reveals a systemic failure in supporting veterinary personnel doing essential but traumatic work in disease control.
• Mass depopulation of poultry farms causes significant trauma to veterinarians and animal care workers
• Minimal training provided to field veterinarians
• Methods used for mass depopulation are often inhumane
• Workers experience isolation and ostracism when requesting mental health accommodations
• A colleague's suicide on the job site led to no systemic changes or additional support
• While veterinarians suffer mental health crises, large egg producers saw a 718% profit surge since 2021
• Speaking out about mental health issues helps create awareness and potentially saves lives
If you're experiencing thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help. No job benefit is worth your life.
National Hotline for Mental Health Crises and Suicide Prevention | NAMI
RI’s Anchor Medical to close in June; roughly 25,000 patients need new doctors | WPRI.com
Country’s Largest Egg Producer Saw Profits Surge 718% Amid Shortage
H.R.867 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): IGO Anti-Boycott Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
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Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
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Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
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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 (00:28):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
I am honored to be here todayagain with Erica and a guest
speaker that Erica is going tointroduce.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hi everyone, Just before we get started and thank
you so much for being here, wedo have a couple of PSAs, our
public service announcements,that England area that they are
not yet acknowledging, but theyhave found more bodies since we
last did an episode.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And I think four of them were found on hiking trails
.
So just be really cautious andcareful.
If you are out by yourself,take all the precautions needed.
Let people know where you'regoing.
And then the second one isspecific to Rhode Island know
where you're going.
And then the second one isspecific to Rhode Island.
I know I have a lot ofConnecticut and Rhode Island
listeners that one of thebiggest entities for primary
care in Rhode Island is closingtheir doors effective at the end
(01:32):
of June, and that's Anchor,which is leaving 25,000 people
in the state of Rhode Islandwithout a primary care doctor.
I think that's obviously a hugeproblem, and the waiting lists
for primary care doctors now inRhode Island is roughly about
two years to get a physical.
This will also translate overto medications, I would imagine.
If you're being discharged froma practice, you would have to
(01:54):
find somebody to prescribe newmedications, and it kind of
concerns me.
I think we are going to have avery serious problem in Rhode
Island.
So I would encourage everybodyto reach out to their
representatives and demand thatthere's an overhaul for the
healthcare system in RhodeIsland, because clearly it's not
working.
It's a massive problem and forthe mental health providers out
(02:15):
there.
I think we just need to beaware of the struggles that
people are going through and tobe cognizant of that.
So that is my PSA for the stuffin my area.
And now, erica, I will go backto you.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, and I thank you , Matt, so much for your
collaboration on this andpromoting this.
So Animal Healthcare WorkersAgainst Genocide is an
organization that me and severalveterinarians work across the
country and other.
We have also veterinary nurses,veterinary technicians and
other.
We have also veterinary nurses,veterinary technicians all
(02:47):
people who are involved inanimal welfare, animal care, who
are working in this space.
We are having our firstin-person event, One Health
Night, at the People's Forum inNew York City.
It's going to be May 30th.
It includes a panel of humanand animal health care
professionals.
This is part of our One Healthin Action series, and the panel
will discuss how genocideimpacts one health and how
(03:10):
genocidal regimes create animalsuffering to worsen human
suffering.
So we have speakers who arediscussing Palestine, a
veterinarian in Gaza and apediatrician who worked in Gaza,
and we are working to confirmspeakers who will also discuss
the Congo and Sudan.
So there'll be information inthe show notes and all right.
(03:30):
So I am so, so honored to bewelcoming and introducing our
guest today, Dr Catherine Sears.
She worked as a fieldveterinarian and her role is
what I would like to describe aslike an emergency first
responder for animal health inthe context of food, animal work
(03:52):
and also other things thathappen in wildlife and domestic
species.
So one of those you know likeone of those awesome, heroic
veterinarians that is going outand making sure that the public
and the resources of the publicare safeguarded, and right now,
the majority of the work for thelast two years roughly, but
(04:13):
more than that is bird flu.
So, just to prepare you all, weare going to be talking about
depopulation.
These are when there arediseases of significance that
are impacted or have beendetected on farms that sometimes
there is the requirement ofdepopulating those farms in
(04:34):
order to attempt to prevent thespread.
Now, this has been a traditionof how avian influenza has been
responded to.
This is a significant diseasebecause it can evolve into a
zoonotic disease and it goesaround the world through
migrating birds.
So we are going to put moreinformation on the show notes
for you if you want to exploremore.
(04:55):
So it's not going to be themajor theme of this, but it's
part of it and a facet about it.
So, Catherine, tell us a littlebit about your journey as a
veterinarian as you stepped intothis position, Some of the
things that you found to bechallenging.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah.
So I started to want to work onanimal outbreaks, animal
disease outbreaks.
When I was in vet school atIowa State, iowa State I worked
with the swine medicineeducation program and on one of
their rotations they did anexercise simulating a foot and
mouth disease outbreak.
They had this big they broughtin, like the state vets, and
(05:34):
they had this big exercise boardwhere we simulated a disease
outbreak and how we wouldrespond with tokens and moving
pieces around to respond to anoutbreak.
And it was a really cool thingto do and I had a lot of fun
doing it.
But then you get out in thefield and you find out that
(05:56):
dealing with an outbreak asboots on the ground personnel is
very different than a simulatedoutbreak on a board, because
when you're directing a piecearound, it's not the same as
when you're responsible foreuthanizing animals with your
own hands.
And when it gets to the numberof animals that have to, I keep
(06:19):
saying euthanasia becausedepopulation depopulation by
definition is inhumane becausethere's no way to humanely kill
that many animals in such ashort space of time.
But I say euthanasia for lackof a better word.
So it's when you have to dothat and you're the person
(06:41):
responsible for it and you'redoing it yourself, with your own
eyes and your own hands.
It's a soul crushing thing tohave to do.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Thank you so much.
And I also used to work inagriculture with food animal.
It was the African swine feverconcerns that were top of mind
and, historically, pedv that's acoronavirus that kills piglets
(07:18):
and these types of events aredefinitely something that the
public is kind of like, shieldedfrom the degree of emotional
harm that both the veterinariansthat are responding to it and
the other, like animal healthcare workers, are responding to
it the barn managers, the peopleand the and the producers, the
(07:38):
people who care for theseanimals on a daily basis.
And it's a very, very highlydebated topic.
And so, yeah, absolutely Ithink that so many of us can't
even really we can onlysympathize with our colleagues
who are field veterinarians, whoare on the ground, and I think
that you're kind of pointing outthis big gap between people in
(08:00):
the field and people who are notin the field.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, and, and the weight of these outbreaks.
Um, my case man I I didn't gettrained really.
I was hired during.
I was hired during the pandemicand trainings were canceled due
to disease risk for humans.
And then the outbreak startedand we still hadn't been trained
(08:24):
yet.
So my training to be casemanager was a two hour
PowerPoint on YouTube.
But they opened up that videosaying that when we come in and
depopulate a farm, it's sodevastating to farm owners that
some farm owners end up takingtheir own life because it's such
a horrible thing to have theirwhole farm depopulated like that
(08:46):
.
So when you go on a farm to dothis, you're carrying the weight
of what you're doing to thoseanimals and you're carrying the
weight of what it might do tothe farmers and what it might do
to your colleagues and what iteven does to yourself.
So it's a heavy weight andthere's just not a lot of
assistance for those of us whoare out there going through it.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I can't even imagine I mean you called it heavy and I
don't even think that's astrong enough word, I mean it's
just so, I hadn't even thoughtabout it until you mentioned it
that the impact that it wouldhave on the farmers, I mean the
responsibility that's hangingover people's heads that are
doing that, is tremendous.
And again, first of all, youknow, to kind of echo what Erica
(09:36):
said earlier, I mean thank youfor all the work that you did,
because you've talked about howthis is it's a necessary thing
that has to happen, for toprotect people right To protect
it's just it's wow.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And and there's always and there's, you know, I
think that one thing that hashas come up in my conversations
with Catherine has been howthere are a lot of, there's
opportunities to do better right, Just because something is like
when we are in a situation thatthe methodologies that are
required in these circumstanceshave these big impacts.
(10:18):
I think we owe it to bothourselves and the animals that
you know that are part of ourfood systems, and the people
involved in that, like we owe itcollectively to each other to
do the difficult things as bestas we can, and I think that
Catherine has pointed out thatthere were a lot of things that
(10:41):
were lacking in this, and youknow we could have many
conversations about why, whetheror not it's like
under-resourced under, likeunder-resourced things that
could, you know, potentiallycontinue to get worse, or just
like a lack of knowledge and alack of will from people in
leadership positions tounderstand how we need to
(11:04):
intervene to get throughsomething with human dignity and
also dignity for animals, whichis a conversation that the
veterinary medicine is having.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Ventilation shutdown is flatly inhumane and should
not be used.
Flatly inhumane and should notbe used and the government, you
know, does say it shouldn't beused for the most part.
But I've seen on this outbreakwhen when a farm pops off and
the virus hits and there's highmortality in a single barn, they
were still using ventilationshutdown for that, you know,
(11:41):
that specific barn because itwas said it was necessary.
But this outbreak, at leastthis specific outbreak at the
time, was not spreading farm tofarm.
So I personally didn'tunderstand why we couldn't have
taken an extra day to just getequipment in place to do it
(12:03):
better, why, why couldn't wehave waited to do it?
You know they're none of it'shumane, but they're.
Ventilation shutdown is theleast humane of the methods and
it's like I didn't understandwhy we couldn't wait a day to to
do it better, like because itwasn't, it wasn't making a
difference to do it just then.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Catherine, do you mind explaining just because I'm
not sure everybody wouldunderstand what ventilation
shutdown means?
Could you just explain whatthat means?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, it's.
When they close all the doorsand windows and shutters and
vents on a building and theyturn up the heat and the animals
die of suffocation,asphyxiation and heat exposure.
They're exhaled carbon dioxideand heat stroke.
It's horrible thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Thank you for explaining that yeah, and and
like on.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
On the on the depots I was on, we were using co2 gas
and co2 gas is can be humane ifused correctly.
To do co2 as a humaneeuthanasia, you have to put the
animal in.
I think it's like no more than30 percent co2 and you have to
put the animal in.
I think it's like no more than30% CO2 and you have to slowly
(13:18):
turn up the CO2 so that they'reeuthanized without ever having
the awareness.
So the CO2 causesunconsciousness before they ever
have the awareness they'redying.
But on the depopulations I wason, we essentially just like
built gas chambers out ofwhatever we had available, like
(13:38):
we like made chambers out ofnest boxes and pulled tarps over
it and then you just put theCO2 hose inside there with the
birds in and you just turn it onfull blast so it goes from zero
to 100% CO2 as fast as they canand like they know they're
dying, they're, they're, they're, they're screaming, they're
(13:58):
flapping their wings, they'retrying to escape and and you
have to stand there and you gotto hold that tarp down so they
don't escape the gas chamber andit's it, it, it.
It's horrible to be the persondoing that Um and and to see
them dying in that way and umthis the disease does.
(14:21):
The disease kills um chickensand turkeys at a really high
mortality rate, but I wasworking deep populations on
ducks and they don't die atquite a high rate, so it's
really really tough when theydon't look sick and you have to
do this.
It's a horrible job.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I can't even imagine.
I think I had mentioned I don'tknow if you were there for this
but I recently had to put oneof my cats down.
I think even in a situationthat's ideal, it's hard to do
that when there's like a um,when the cat, when the animal's
not showing symptoms, right, butlike you know, that there's
(15:05):
like something fatal happening,like it's really hard to make
that decision once.
So I can't.
I mean, I have a tremendousamount of empathy for you
because I can't imagine howdifficult that that would
actually be.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah it, it kills everybody.
Everybody in the agency likeknows this better than they all
told me it kills them too whenthey were out on D pops it.
It kills something inside ofthem.
Everybody who does that ends uphaving to talk to somebody.
But the people on the ground inthe field end up going to Depop
after Depop, after Depop, untilyou know it it goes too far.
(15:44):
My, I had a coworker take herown life on the job site and, um
, it's it's, it's, it's ahorrible job and some people
reach their breaking pointwithout ever getting the help
they need.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And so I just want to take a we can take a collective
breath, because it's alwaysdevastating devastating to talk
about that when we, when we losepeople to, to suicide and um,
to be there and lose a colleague, uh, when it's also something
(16:24):
that you are experiencing isreally like I don't have words
for that like I have experiencedthings that are kind of
indirectly parallel, but this iswhen you shared that with me
and agreed to have thisconversation.
(16:45):
I feel like we're doingsomething by pointing out, if
you are a leader and you areneglecting the concerns brought
to you by people in the fieldwho are calling out the degree
of difficulty and you haven'tbeen in that position for a long
(17:05):
time you need to go with themon the field.
You need to go and be there andremind yourself of the thing
that you are requiring thepeople under your leadership to
do so you can make accuratedecisions as a leader, and I
(17:28):
don't feel like you experiencedthat and I'm very sorry, and I'm
very sorry that the resourceswere not available to help your
friend before it was before itwas too late, like nothing
changed.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
nothing changed about our orders.
Nothing changed about nothing.
You know, her death changednothing when, when they sent out
(18:02):
the email to the agencyannouncing her death, they
spelled her name wrong and itjust that little detail, just it
killed me that they couldn'teven give her the dignity of
spelling her name correctly whenthey announced her death.
And then to have no measurablechange, like to see that doing
(18:25):
this has reached the point thatpeople are taking their own
lives.
It's harming us this much andstill nothing changes it.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
just the futility of it killed me so I want to circle
back to this like two-hourpowerpoint.
Oh yeah, right, that openedwith talking about the suicide
of farmers, right?
So like to emphasize this,right, we know that in this time
(18:58):
you were not on boarded abouthow to respond to mental health
crises, how to recognize mentalhealth crises, why they
literally say that it's a riskof something like there.
To know how do you directfarmers to resources which exist
.
There are farmer mental healthresources that exist explicitly
(19:20):
for this reason, right, andadditionally, just if you
wouldn't mind talking a littlebit about kind of like this
other lack of resources forsupport, lack of resources for
support Like they also neverthought about.
Well, we've had a loss tosuicide and how do we support
people grieving their colleague?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
So, yeah, the just the lack of training.
I was hired in 2020 and when Iquit in 2024, I still hadn't
received program disease fieldskills training, which is
considered the core training forevery field veterinarian that
you're supposed to get withinsix months of hire.
It had been four years and Ihadn't received that training.
(20:04):
And like that two hourPowerPoint, to be honest, I
never got more than 15 minutesinto it because I'd watched 15
minutes of this PowerPoint ofsomebody talking and I'd
realized I was thinking about mycat and then I'd start over
again and then, 15 minutes in,I'm thinking about my lunch
because, like it's, you can't.
You can't absorb two hours ofinformation from a PowerPoint.
(20:25):
It's not a functional way tolearn.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And if I can add to that too recently, because I
just did an online training,because you know we have to do
CEUsUs, I'm sure you everybody'sa private do the exact same
thing.
And the end of doing the onlinetraining, they give you the test
that you have to take.
And what stands out to me thisis the same when I worked in a
hospital setting as well.
You had mandatories that we hadto do where we had to answer
(20:48):
questions about disease and firesafety and life safety and all
that stuff is you can take thetests at the end as many times
as you want because you don'tactually fail.
So if they're giving somebodythe opportunity to do an online
training and that's their onlymethod of training them, there's
no real guarantee that theperson, like you had said, is
even going to be able to do itor that they're going to be able
(21:09):
to comprehend it.
So, but we've set up a systemthat it's impossible to at least
from my experiences it'simpossible to fail those things.
So you're going to pass, evenif you don't watch it like you
could have.
You know what I mean Like that.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, and I will say I was assigned to the job before
even receiving the training.
Like I was sent to the job, Iwas on site and I was like, is
there any training for this?
And they're like, oh yeah,there's that video on YouTube.
So, like I was, I was alreadythere, assigned doing the job
before I even knew there wastraining available.
It was just like like there wasno instruction whatsoever.
(21:44):
Here's some forms to fill out.
Sites is often with one day'snotice, which the level of
stress is.
You know, I it was.
It was Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving Iwas with my family and my phone
was blowing up.
It was like email after email,after email, and it was just,
(22:07):
you know, you were enjoying onebrief moment with family and
just having those come in.
Like you know, the phone, mywork phone, constantly going off
, um, it, just you know it sentmy.
I was so stressed out and it was.
I went back home and I gotdeployed the next day to go to a
depop because, like you oftenget one day's notice, they'll
(22:30):
try to send you.
With less, they'll try to sendyou the same day.
I was like I needed a day tolike figure out arrangements for
my cat, like I can't go withone day's notice without with
the same day, but that's howfast they want you to deploy,
just like pack up your stuff andgo be there right now.
And that's a really hard thingto do on top of everything else.
(22:52):
To do on top of everything else, I will say, since I've left
that job, I have everything onmy phone set to silent, because
the sound of my phone going offstresses me out so much these
days that everything is onsilent in my house now.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, I did that too, after I left that position that
I was previously in.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Catherine, would you mind?
Because after you had talkedabout your friend, you had also
said that it started to impactyour mental health in a way that
was going to a dark place.
Do you mind talking about that?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, so the one-year anniversary of my dad's death
was December 1st.
My great aunt I found out shedied December 2nd and December
4th is when I found out mycoworker took her own life.
So that was a lot of deathright together and there's no
(23:55):
system set up to deal with adeath in the agency like that.
And so everybody was sort ofreeling on their own with no
idea what to do.
And somebody asked me if I wasokay to deploy and I said no, I
needed a break.
And I told them that.
And despite that, four dayslater I was in the middle of a
(24:17):
Christmas party at a friend'shouse.
I got a phone call saying Ineeded to deploy to another duck
farm and and I said no, I saidI couldn't.
I said like I can't do that atthis point.
I said like I can't do that atthis point because this was just
too much.
I was so this was too muchdeath for me, and so I said no.
(24:46):
And when I did that, everyonestopped talking to me, because
this is an agency whereeverybody does their part and as
soon as they think you're notdoing your part, you get
ostracized.
Now I mean no matter what weall had going on, no matter how
hard it is, like everybody knows.
But when I said no, I can't doit, everyone stopped talking to
me Like I would send emailssaying, hey, can I I begged to
(25:07):
help with the outbreak in anyother method than Depop?
I begged to do data entry.
Can I upload files than DPOP?
I begged to do data entry.
Can I upload files?
Can I, you know?
Can I, like organize supplies?
Can I do anything to helprespond other than other than
DPOP?
(25:27):
And I got told no.
I got told no, that was thatwas my only option for helping
with the outbreak.
Was Depop?
I would.
I was not allowed to be trainedin any other position and I
begged and it just sent me to adark place and I, um, because I
couldn't help, because theywouldn't let me do anything with
(25:51):
Depop and I can't deal withfeeling like I'm not doing
anything.
I instead volunteered to deployto North Dakota to inspect the
border crossing there becausethey didn't have a vet.
And so this was January, it wasminus 65.
Um, and I was.
I was in a.
(26:11):
I was not in a good place whenI went up there, but I did it to
feel like I was being usefuland my hotel was 45 minutes from
the border because there's nota lot of options for hotels up
there, and I would go to theborder every morning and then
(26:31):
I'd drive 45 minutes back to myhotel and I would sob the entire
way.
Um, and the hotel had akitchenette in it and you know,
so you could cook, and, um,there was a knife in it that I
used to cut cheese and avocados.
But I spent so much timethinking about that knife and
(26:55):
thinking about hurting myselfthat it's been.
It's been a year and a halfsince then and I can I can still
picture that knife vividly inmy head.
That's how much I thought aboutthat knife in that kitchen
while I was there and, like youknow, they took me while I was
(27:17):
there.
They took me off all the emaillists.
So I noticed myself not gettingemails about the outbreak
anymore.
They sort of took me off allthe email lists.
I stopped getting emails fromany of my coworkers.
So you know it, just it.
It was a horrible period of mymental health.
You know it, just it was ahorrible period of my mental
health.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, but that isolation and ostracizing and
all that contributing to it.
It's really distressing to hearabout these actions that people
take that further contribute toisolation and like not actually
(27:58):
answering the need right, likenot leaning in with more
curiosity to say, like I, this,we know this is an issue.
Right, this is a longstandingissue as far as we know, that
Depop and doing that work hasmental health consequences.
(28:19):
That is knowledge.
So the fact that they've hadthis knowledge for a very long
time, that they receive thedirect feedback they lose staff
to it, that there's nomethodology, that you had to
have creative answers for them,like you had to say can I do
this, can I do this, can I dothis?
(28:39):
Right, where they don't have,like, is there a rotation?
Right, that they have, theydon't have a design rotation.
They don't track on whether ornot one person is having all the
burden of the ducks versusanimals that are actually um
more severely clinically ill,rather than being a carrier.
(29:00):
Right, like they don't, likeI'm, I'm just yeah yeah, there's
questions, right, it's like why?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
they just.
One of the reasons why isthey've never had an outbreak
last this long before.
The previous outbreaks of avianinfluenza lasted seven, eight
months and then they stopped andthey did stamping out like that
and they just I think they justexpected that this outbreak to
end like that, and nobodyexpected this to be the third
(29:32):
year of the outbreak and keepgoing.
And I always felt like once wehit year two and nothing, the
same method wasn't working.
I thought it was time to changetracks and it didn't happen.
So that yeah, yeah.
I think everybody was like,well, this worked in the past
(29:54):
and it wasn't working like ithad in the past, but nobody else
knew what to do other than whatthey'd already done.
And I think that was part ofthe problem in trying to
maintain the status of doingeverything the same they'd
always done, even though itwasn't working.
And that was something that washard for everybody in the field
(30:14):
feeling like what you did wasfutile, that it wasn't working,
and having to do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Catherine, thank you so much for being really
vulnerable in talking about whatyou were going through.
I think it's a it's a testamentto just what isolation can do
to people.
It brings people to thesereally dark places and I'm very
glad that you were able to getout of that.
And for those people out therewho might be listening and who
have had similar experiences,this is just a reminder that
(30:44):
you're not alone in that feeling.
Other people can relate to thatfutility and just how difficult
things are.
I don't know if this will beworth mentioning, so I'm just
going to put this right here andwe can edit this out if you
want.
But I know, because I hadlooked up I had heard rumblings
about like how much, despite allthis stuff going on with bird
flu and the D pops, that theprofit for people, the profit
(31:10):
for the industry, has gone up718% since 2021.
Is that worth mentioning?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
I have no knowledge of that.
I didn't track the industry,but that wouldn't surprise me.
When there is a shortage, ofwhen there is a perceived
shortage, people increase prices.
My understanding from I don'tknow if there yeah, I don't know
(31:40):
how much of an actual shortagethere was versus a perceived
shortage, but when there's aperceived shortage, people raise
prices.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
There's an article I found from Forbes and I'll put
it in the notes, that saidcountries' largest egg producers
saw profit surge 718 percentamid shortage, and that came out
in it looks like they're sayingthat this was since 2021.
It came out on March 29th 2023.
So what I find really appallingabout that is here here you are
(32:09):
somebody who is on the groundtalking about the lack of
services for people who needmental health services because
of the, the impact and theintensity of the job, yet the
the producers are making a 718profit.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Uh, seems egregious at at least yeah, I can speak a
little bit to this because thisis something that I've paid
attention to since COVID and Iused to work with pigs and the
food sector the food productionsector was considered essential,
(32:45):
right, so workers had tocontinue going and, of course,
animals need continuous care.
One of the big things thathappened was that a lot of the
meat was being shippedinternationally.
So it wasn't, and, in addition,the worker safety was highly
inadequate.
So we had people within meatprocessing plants.
(33:09):
Significant number of those areeither immigrants and like
mostly not white populations,and these people specifically
state the producers and thefarmers are not the integrators.
The companies making the mostprofit are not the farmers who
(33:47):
are raising the animals, and so,fundamentally, where money is
being produced or where most ofthe profits are happening are on
the large multinational level.
(34:18):
Where I find it to be reallyfrustrating is that there are
these veterinary organizationsAmerican Association of Swine
Veterinarians, there's one forpoultry, there's one for dairy.
Right, I have reached out tosome of these organizations
asking about their responses.
Right, because, in my opinion,there's part of veterinary
medicine that is completelyabsent from the labor advocacy,
both for like, for example, ourfield veterinarians who are
(34:38):
experiencing these types ofthings, as well as workers that
are experiencing this, and I'mgoing to use this moment to say
veterinary medicine leadershipwake up right.
You need to be havingconversations about how
veterinarians can advocate forworkers' rights, not just on the
(34:58):
context of field veterinarians,but also of the workers that
are associated with our field.
That might not necessarily beveterinarians, so that is.
There's a racialized issue onthat, like veterinarians also
have not talked about the factthat we have integrators who are
(35:19):
having child labor inmeatpacking plants, that we, as
veterinarians, are not holdingthat aspect of business, of
which we are a part of,accountable for violations, and
this is something that I wouldlike you know, like to see more.
So sorry to get on a soapbox,but I think it happens in every
(35:42):
profession.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I think it happens in every profession, like I'm
still disgusted by the fact thatthe NASW has said nothing about
genocide, absolutely nothing.
Not surprised, disgusted, but Imean mean I think it happens in
like every unfortunately, butthat that's a whole nother issue
, because you know well, eventhough they're all.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
They're all connected right, because it's all the
same issue so, you know, in this, like dear audience, thank you
for being here as we talk aboutsomething that, like you know,
know, with Catherine coming on,I was like this connects to so
much right, there'senvironmental components,
because avian influenza is, youknow, part of the infectious
(36:28):
disease process are fromwildlife, right, not even from
farm to farm, which I think is abig part of this particular
outbreak, and that we want tomake sure that we are listening
and humanizing the fieldveterinarians, humanizing the
farmers and, overall, likehumanizing your workers in the
(36:48):
field who are on the front lines.
Like so many of so much of whatyou have talked about,
katherine, could be laterallyapplied to so many other areas
of medicine, not just veterinarymedicine, but also human
medicine.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Us, when people who are in the field are holding the
most burden and the people inleadership are disconnected and
I think you see that everywhere-I think a lot of people look at
(37:25):
veterinarians and animal healthtechnicians and everybody going
out on these deep hops andthinking how could they do this,
how could anybody do this?
But I think if you really thinkhow scary it is to be unemployed
especially for some of theanimal health technicians I
worked with, they'd been withthe government 20 years, imagine
like, and when people have beenwith the government, you know
(37:47):
you have to be there a certainnumber of years to get the like
good retirement benefits.
So people like they, you knowyou don't just have the option
to refuse and it's very, it'sterrifying for people to think
about not having retirementbenefits or not having or not
having a job in in the way, it'snot necessarily easy for
(38:09):
somebody whose whole career wasbeing an animal health
technician to just up and findanother job and so, like I was,
I was very lucky in order to beable to leave and and for the
people who aren't able to leaveto, you know, nobody doing these
(38:33):
things actually wants to dothem and the how could you?
I just the the terror of nothaving a job and not being able
to retire or not being able toprovide for your children, like
that that's what it is?
It's not.
It's not easy to find anotherjob and at the same time,
everybody in their head isthinking like maybe this one's
going to end the outbreak, maybethis is going to be the last of
(38:55):
it.
Like everybody keeps goingbecause they, you know, it feels
like at some point it's goingto end, and so people just keep
going and there's notnecessarily an easy out for many
people.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
That's a great point.
When you bring up the benefits,you think about those, because
that's what draws people intothe jobs in the first place is
these, you know these greatbenefit packages with retirement
and healthcare and all thatstuff.
But that it becomes a trap inthe end because you then become
stuck.
It's like you're almost like anindentured servant on some
level.
I mean, you had I think you hadbrought up earlier about like
student loan, debt and howsometimes you know part of
(39:33):
working in jobs they'll pay offstudent loans and they'll give
you all these benefits and thenif you leave, you have to pay it
all back.
So people get stuck and rightnow I don't know anybody who
isn't financially struggling.
Every single person I know isfinancially struggling and I
think anybody at this point intime would be hard pressed to
(39:53):
leave a job, no matter howabusive it is, because they're
they're afraid of what that'sgoing to look like to be
unemployed.
So that totally makes sense,catherine, and I'm glad that you
mentioned that that's.
It's a huge part of what keepspeople stuck.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, and what got me my leaving was, you know, I was
stuck too, but not likeactually, I just felt stuck.
I couldn't, I couldn't seeclearly the thing that got me to
leave.
I had reached the point where Iwas so at risk of ending my own
life that I applied forreasonable accommodations.
(40:28):
And I typed up and I said I, I,I, I, I submitted a request for
reasonable accommodations dueto suicidal ideation I wanted.
My request was to respond tothe outbreak in an on-field
position and I sent the requestto my boss with a note that said
(40:50):
like this is my last option,otherwise I have no other option
in order to stay in the job.
And he sent me a very HR speakemail saying well then, you
should find another job.
And that was definitely theclosest I ever came to taking my
own life, because there was nocompassion there and there was
no.
Are you okay?
There was no, can I help you?
(41:11):
Like I just I wanted somebodyto care, I wanted my boss to
care, I wanted somebody to carethat I had reached this point
and he didn't.
But but in a way, in the end,this saved me because two days I
got through that night Cause Iwas seeing my therapist the next
day and I talked to her andthen the following day after
(41:33):
that I went into the office andI told one of my co-workers
about this and I told her all ofthis and she talked to me about
how she had one time had mentalstruggles and she had taken
FMLA and taken time off for hermental health, and how she had
(41:53):
also quit the field at one timeand worked at Costco, and and so
those were all things she haddone.
But then she asked me anotherquestion.
She asked me if I had loans,and I'm I'm very privileged to
not have loans.
And when I told her I didn'thave loans, she looked right at
me and she said, then why areyou here?
And and I was like, well, well,benefits, well, leave time.
(42:16):
Well, well, you know, I didn't.
I didn't have a good response.
And then I drove home.
It was a two hour drive homeand the whole time I was driving
back I was thinking, yeah, whyam I here?
And and the whole time I just Icould not come up with a valid
reason for staying, and I hadalways thought private practice
(42:37):
would be worse.
I'm like, oh, I can't doeuthanasia.
I'm like I, what I'm doingright now is euthanasia, and
it's not justified or humane inmy opinion.
Like, like I was, just like Ialways thought private practice
could be worse, but I am at thepoint I'm about to end my own
life there.
There's no like it can't beworse than this.
Like I got to try it.
(42:58):
So I got home and I, you know Iapplied for private practice
jobs and, um, as it's just her,her question, why are you here?
Just it, it like reset me.
It made me look at it and belike one, I don't have a reason
for being here and two, thereare other options out there.
And I just I didn't realizethat and I sort of felt like in
(43:22):
the whole conversation, it'slike she gave me permission to
leave.
It's like I hadn't.
It's kind of hard to explain,but it's like I didn't.
It's like I needed.
I needed somebody to tell me Icould do it, like I needed
permission to leave and in a way, she gave me that permission
and so I finally like, okay, Ican do it, I can leave.
(43:45):
And just realizing I can leavejust changed everything for me
and it's the one thing I youknow, mental health is a huge
problem in veterinary medicineand I, just the thing I am going
to take with me is no matter,no matter how bad it gets, I can
leave.
There's always.
(44:05):
There's always another optionout there and it doesn't.
And the thing is, it doesn'tmatter how good the benefit of a
job is, it doesn't matter howmuch vacation leave you get, it
doesn't matter how many perksyou get.
If your job has youcontemplating taking your own
life, there's no benefit worththat.
(44:27):
There's no benefit worth yourlife.
So if that's what your job hasyou contemplating, you need to
leave because there's nothing tostay for.
If that's what your job has youcontemplating, you need to
leave because there's nothing tostay for.
If that's what, if that's atthe point you're at, and I just
didn't realize that at the time.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
I'm so grateful to your friend, who both was
someone that you knew you couldtalk to about what you were
experiencing and also that shehad the knowledge to help you
challenge that narrative.
(45:02):
So I just want to remind theaudience that you have a lot of
power with people in your life.
So check in with people, right?
If someone says that they'restruggling with something, hold
space, and if you don't feelequipped, there are resources.
(45:22):
Matt, I'm sure that we can comeup with some things to put in
the show notes and you probablyrattle some things off here.
Recognize the signs that thereis no risk.
Just asking people hey, are youcontemplating suicide?
That you will not make it morelikely for a person to take
(45:48):
their own life by asking themthat question and trying to
support them into gettingsupport, getting mental health
support, getting support right,getting mental health support.
I'm so glad that you have had atherapist through that time and
thank you for sharing like this, because this narrative is
literally life-saving the toolsthat people can use literally
life-saving.
(46:08):
As a boss, you don't have to useHR speak alone, you really
don't and as a colleague, youdon't have to ostracize somebody
that is talking about a barrier.
Right, and when people usetheir voice to point out
something that is wrong, the actof ostracizing is um is a very
(46:33):
big problem and is not okay.
So if you experience that andI'm just saying that because
I've also experienced that inthe past and when you hear
someone say something that youknow is true, right Avoidance is
a natural human behavior, butit's not a good one and it's
something that we have to pushthrough and use some courage and
(46:56):
compassion towards the peoplethat we are working with.
I'm so glad that you're here,I'm so glad that you're my
colleague and thank you so muchfor your vulnerability, your
openness, because I really thinkthat just this conversation
people hearing it is going tohelp people and going to help
people feel empowered.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I totally second that and I'm also glad that you had
a therapist that you weretalking to.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Mental health is so important and I wonder,
catherine, the people that werereally unsupportive do you think
(47:46):
that they also become victimsof the system in some way, like
that they're also in that sametrap, or no, I am.
So I went to the WesternVeterinary Conference and I ran
into one of my old coworkersthere doing outreach and when I
had quit I had put a Facebookpost up on my on my page about
my reasons for leaving.
And my coworker I was notfriends with on Facebook but
when we talked he said he hadread the Facebook post and I had
(48:06):
outreach from other people Ihad not like been close to who
had outreach.
And, um, there, at everydepopulation there is a safety
coordinator and one of thesafety coordinators I had met
before reached out to me andthanked me for my post because
she said it was an importantreminder that safety includes
(48:26):
people's mental health and, as asafety coordinator, she was
going to be discussing mentalhealth when she was on site
health when she was on site andso I, I there are a lot of
people out there being affectedby this and I think I I'm hoping
that I did reach some peopleand and I know everybody was
affected by it and I know evenmy coworkers who ostracized me
(48:50):
were affected by it, and I think, I think some of the mentality
is that we're going through hellwhy isn't she?
And so, but they don'tunderstand that I was going
through hell too, and I think.
I think there's this.
Yeah, I think there is a lackof understanding of each other.
(49:13):
Understanding of each other,that's a problem, but people
have reached out and told methey've read the post and
they're gonna talk about mentalhealth, more so, I'm glad making
waves.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thank you for demonstrating the power of words
right, the power of the pen soand for being brave too and
taking a stand like.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
it takes people like you to make risks, for people to
start to change, and it's areally scary thing to do.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Yeah, it was a scary transition, but I'm glad I made
it, I'm glad I'm here and I'mvery thankful to the people who
got me through that period oftime so that I can be here.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Well, thank you so much, I think, matt.
As far as time goes, I thinkthat this is.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's just it's so powerful,like I really I feel like we
need to, catherine, I think atsome point we need to do a part
two to this, because I just Ifeel like that we just kind of
scratch the surface on it.
You know there's there's so muchto talk about and you know, as
we had mentioned earlier Erica,just like how many of the
(50:26):
systems are also interconnectedand impact each other.
Mental health, you know, in oneof the earlier episodes I talked
about, if you're, you know, ifyou're in an abusive
relationship with somebodyliving with them, you can't
really work on it until you getout of the relationship.
I mean, you can certainly workon safety issues and you can
(50:47):
work on, like risk managementand all of that stuff, but you
can't truly start to process thetrauma until you get out of it.
But what do you do when theentire culture around you is the
abuser?
Like every time you leave yourhouse you're being abused by
something, and I that's actuallyone of the reasons I started
the podcast was becauseeverything we talk about whether
(51:09):
we're talking aboutveterinarians and deep opera,
we're talking about genocide inGaza, or we're talking about,
you know, the lack of mentalhealth services I mean they all
kind of come back to the samething that there's a, there's a
systematic failing that'shappening, but I think it's by
design.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
People are being erased from the equation.
Right when we talk aboutCatherine, when you were talking
about the exercise.
So, catherine, when you weretalking about the exercise,
(51:59):
right, so I also sat on in somesimulations around African.
We use that leadershipstructure to respond to the
crisis of living beings.
We have to be very criticalabout that beings.
We have to be very criticalabout that.
And you were right, and, assomeone that is has a little bit
(52:26):
of reputation in the industryfrom being critical, I'm always
delighted to meet anothercritical spirit who you use your
voice in the midst of your mosthow should I say when you were
like threadbare, right, when youwere threadbare and at so much
risk.
You still utilize your voice inthe midst of all of that and I
(52:49):
want to commend that and I wantyou to continue to like, and
your journey of healing andrecovery continue to be grounded
in the fact that, even thoughyou were like barely keeping
your head above water, that youare also fighting to change the
system.
You know, like when you sharedthat in the space that we were
(53:14):
when we met, that was the reasonwhy I was like hey, I would,
your voice could use moreamplification.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
So thank you.
Thank you for inviting me here.
It's been really nice talkingto you too Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Thank you for being here and I will put all the
stuff that we talked about inthe podcast.
Thank you, and I hope you comeback 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 (00:28):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
I am honored to be here todayagain with Erica and a guest
speaker that Erica is going tointroduce.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hi everyone, Just before we get started and thank
you so much for being here, wedo have a couple of PSAs, our
public service announcements,that England area that they are
not yet acknowledging, but theyhave found more bodies since we
last did an episode.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And I think four of them were found on hiking trails
.
So just be really cautious andcareful.
If you are out by yourself,take all the precautions needed.
Let people know where you'regoing.
And then the second one isspecific to Rhode Island know
where you're going.
And then the second one isspecific to Rhode Island.
I know I have a lot ofConnecticut and Rhode Island
listeners that one of thebiggest entities for primary
care in Rhode Island is closingtheir doors effective at the end
(01:32):
of June, and that's Anchor,which is leaving 25,000 people
in the state of Rhode Islandwithout a primary care doctor.
I think that's obviously a hugeproblem, and the waiting lists
for primary care doctors now inRhode Island is roughly about
two years to get a physical.
This will also translate overto medications, I would imagine.
If you're being discharged froma practice, you would have to
(01:54):
find somebody to prescribe newmedications, and it kind of
concerns me.
I think we are going to have avery serious problem in Rhode
Island.
So I would encourage everybodyto reach out to their
representatives and demand thatthere's an overhaul for the
healthcare system in RhodeIsland, because clearly it's not
working.
It's a massive problem and forthe mental health providers out
(02:15):
there.
I think we just need to beaware of the struggles that
people are going through and tobe cognizant of that.
So that is my PSA for the stuffin my area.
And now, erica, I will go backto you.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, and I thank you , Matt, so much for your
collaboration on this andpromoting this.
So Animal Healthcare WorkersAgainst Genocide is an
organization that me and severalveterinarians work across the
country and other.
We have also veterinary nurses,veterinary technicians and
other.
We have also veterinary nurses,veterinary technicians all
(02:47):
people who are involved inanimal welfare, animal care, who
are working in this space.
We are having our firstin-person event, One Health
Night, at the People's Forum inNew York City.
It's going to be May 30th.
It includes a panel of humanand animal health care
professionals.
This is part of our One Healthin Action series, and the panel
will discuss how genocideimpacts one health and how
(03:10):
genocidal regimes create animalsuffering to worsen human
suffering.
So we have speakers who arediscussing Palestine, a
veterinarian in Gaza and apediatrician who worked in Gaza,
and we are working to confirmspeakers who will also discuss
the Congo and Sudan.
So there'll be information inthe show notes and all right.
(03:30):
So I am so, so honored to bewelcoming and introducing our
guest today, Dr Catherine Sears.
She worked as a fieldveterinarian and her role is
what I would like to describe aslike an emergency first
responder for animal health inthe context of food, animal work
(03:52):
and also other things thathappen in wildlife and domestic
species.
So one of those you know likeone of those awesome, heroic
veterinarians that is going outand making sure that the public
and the resources of the publicare safeguarded, and right now,
the majority of the work for thelast two years roughly, but
(04:13):
more than that is bird flu.
So, just to prepare you all, weare going to be talking about
depopulation.
These are when there arediseases of significance that
are impacted or have beendetected on farms that sometimes
there is the requirement ofdepopulating those farms in
(04:34):
order to attempt to prevent thespread.
Now, this has been a traditionof how avian influenza has been
responded to.
This is a significant diseasebecause it can evolve into a
zoonotic disease and it goesaround the world through
migrating birds.
So we are going to put moreinformation on the show notes
for you if you want to exploremore.
(04:55):
So it's not going to be themajor theme of this, but it's
part of it and a facet about it.
So, Catherine, tell us a littlebit about your journey as a
veterinarian as you stepped intothis position, Some of the
things that you found to bechallenging.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah.
So I started to want to work onanimal outbreaks, animal
disease outbreaks.
When I was in vet school atIowa State, iowa State I worked
with the swine medicineeducation program and on one of
their rotations they did anexercise simulating a foot and
mouth disease outbreak.
They had this big they broughtin, like the state vets, and
(05:34):
they had this big exercise boardwhere we simulated a disease
outbreak and how we wouldrespond with tokens and moving
pieces around to respond to anoutbreak.
And it was a really cool thingto do and I had a lot of fun
doing it.
But then you get out in thefield and you find out that
(05:56):
dealing with an outbreak asboots on the ground personnel is
very different than a simulatedoutbreak on a board, because
when you're directing a piecearound, it's not the same as
when you're responsible foreuthanizing animals with your
own hands.
And when it gets to the numberof animals that have to, I keep
(06:19):
saying euthanasia becausedepopulation depopulation by
definition is inhumane becausethere's no way to humanely kill
that many animals in such ashort space of time.
But I say euthanasia for lackof a better word.
So it's when you have to dothat and you're the person
(06:41):
responsible for it and you'redoing it yourself, with your own
eyes and your own hands.
It's a soul crushing thing tohave to do.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Thank you so much.
And I also used to work inagriculture with food animal.
It was the African swine feverconcerns that were top of mind
and, historically, pedv that's acoronavirus that kills piglets
(07:18):
and these types of events aredefinitely something that the
public is kind of like, shieldedfrom the degree of emotional
harm that both the veterinariansthat are responding to it and
the other, like animal healthcare workers, are responding to
it the barn managers, the peopleand the and the producers, the
(07:38):
people who care for theseanimals on a daily basis.
And it's a very, very highlydebated topic.
And so, yeah, absolutely Ithink that so many of us can't
even really we can onlysympathize with our colleagues
who are field veterinarians, whoare on the ground, and I think
that you're kind of pointing outthis big gap between people in
(08:00):
the field and people who are notin the field.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, and, and the weight of these outbreaks.
Um, my case man I I didn't gettrained really.
I was hired during.
I was hired during the pandemicand trainings were canceled due
to disease risk for humans.
And then the outbreak startedand we still hadn't been trained
(08:24):
yet.
So my training to be casemanager was a two hour
PowerPoint on YouTube.
But they opened up that videosaying that when we come in and
depopulate a farm, it's sodevastating to farm owners that
some farm owners end up takingtheir own life because it's such
a horrible thing to have theirwhole farm depopulated like that
(08:46):
.
So when you go on a farm to dothis, you're carrying the weight
of what you're doing to thoseanimals and you're carrying the
weight of what it might do tothe farmers and what it might do
to your colleagues and what iteven does to yourself.
So it's a heavy weight andthere's just not a lot of
assistance for those of us whoare out there going through it.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I can't even imagine I mean you called it heavy and I
don't even think that's astrong enough word, I mean it's
just so, I hadn't even thoughtabout it until you mentioned it
that the impact that it wouldhave on the farmers, I mean the
responsibility that's hangingover people's heads that are
doing that, is tremendous.
And again, first of all, youknow, to kind of echo what Erica
(09:36):
said earlier, I mean thank youfor all the work that you did,
because you've talked about howthis is it's a necessary thing
that has to happen, for toprotect people right To protect
it's just it's wow.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And and there's always and there's, you know, I
think that one thing that hashas come up in my conversations
with Catherine has been howthere are a lot of, there's
opportunities to do better right, Just because something is like
when we are in a situation thatthe methodologies that are
required in these circumstanceshave these big impacts.
(10:18):
I think we owe it to bothourselves and the animals that
you know that are part of ourfood systems, and the people
involved in that, like we owe itcollectively to each other to
do the difficult things as bestas we can, and I think that
Catherine has pointed out thatthere were a lot of things that
(10:41):
were lacking in this, and youknow we could have many
conversations about why, whetheror not it's like
under-resourced under, likeunder-resourced things that
could, you know, potentiallycontinue to get worse, or just
like a lack of knowledge and alack of will from people in
leadership positions tounderstand how we need to
(11:04):
intervene to get throughsomething with human dignity and
also dignity for animals, whichis a conversation that the
veterinary medicine is having.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Ventilation shutdown is flatly inhumane and should
not be used.
Flatly inhumane and should notbe used and the government, you
know, does say it shouldn't beused for the most part.
But I've seen on this outbreakwhen when a farm pops off and
the virus hits and there's highmortality in a single barn, they
were still using ventilationshutdown for that, you know,
(11:41):
that specific barn because itwas said it was necessary.
But this outbreak, at leastthis specific outbreak at the
time, was not spreading farm tofarm.
So I personally didn'tunderstand why we couldn't have
taken an extra day to just getequipment in place to do it
(12:03):
better, why, why couldn't wehave waited to do it?
You know they're none of it'shumane, but they're.
Ventilation shutdown is theleast humane of the methods and
it's like I didn't understandwhy we couldn't wait a day to to
do it better, like because itwasn't, it wasn't making a
difference to do it just then.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Catherine, do you mind explaining just because I'm
not sure everybody wouldunderstand what ventilation
shutdown means?
Could you just explain whatthat means?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, it's.
When they close all the doorsand windows and shutters and
vents on a building and theyturn up the heat and the animals
die of suffocation,asphyxiation and heat exposure.
They're exhaled carbon dioxideand heat stroke.
It's horrible thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Thank you for explaining that yeah, and and
like on.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
On the on the depots I was on, we were using co2 gas
and co2 gas is can be humane ifused correctly.
To do co2 as a humaneeuthanasia, you have to put the
animal in.
I think it's like no more than30 percent co2 and you have to
put the animal in.
I think it's like no more than30% CO2 and you have to slowly
(13:18):
turn up the CO2 so that they'reeuthanized without ever having
the awareness.
So the CO2 causesunconsciousness before they ever
have the awareness they'redying.
But on the depopulations I wason, we essentially just like
built gas chambers out ofwhatever we had available, like
(13:38):
we like made chambers out ofnest boxes and pulled tarps over
it and then you just put theCO2 hose inside there with the
birds in and you just turn it onfull blast so it goes from zero
to 100% CO2 as fast as they canand like they know they're
dying, they're, they're, they're, they're screaming, they're
(13:58):
flapping their wings, they'retrying to escape and and you
have to stand there and you gotto hold that tarp down so they
don't escape the gas chamber andit's it, it, it.
It's horrible to be the persondoing that Um and and to see
them dying in that way and umthis the disease does.
(14:21):
The disease kills um chickensand turkeys at a really high
mortality rate, but I wasworking deep populations on
ducks and they don't die atquite a high rate, so it's
really really tough when theydon't look sick and you have to
do this.
It's a horrible job.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I can't even imagine.
I think I had mentioned I don'tknow if you were there for this
but I recently had to put oneof my cats down.
I think even in a situationthat's ideal, it's hard to do
that when there's like a um,when the cat, when the animal's
not showing symptoms, right, butlike you know, that there's
(15:05):
like something fatal happening,like it's really hard to make
that decision once.
So I can't.
I mean, I have a tremendousamount of empathy for you
because I can't imagine howdifficult that that would
actually be.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah it, it kills everybody.
Everybody in the agency likeknows this better than they all
told me it kills them too whenthey were out on D pops it.
It kills something inside ofthem.
Everybody who does that ends uphaving to talk to somebody.
But the people on the ground inthe field end up going to Depop
after Depop, after Depop, untilyou know it it goes too far.
(15:44):
My, I had a coworker take herown life on the job site and, um
, it's it's, it's, it's ahorrible job and some people
reach their breaking pointwithout ever getting the help
they need.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And so I just want to take a we can take a collective
breath, because it's alwaysdevastating devastating to talk
about that when we, when we losepeople to, to suicide and um,
to be there and lose a colleague, uh, when it's also something
(16:24):
that you are experiencing isreally like I don't have words
for that like I have experiencedthings that are kind of
indirectly parallel, but this iswhen you shared that with me
and agreed to have thisconversation.
(16:45):
I feel like we're doingsomething by pointing out, if
you are a leader and you areneglecting the concerns brought
to you by people in the fieldwho are calling out the degree
of difficulty and you haven'tbeen in that position for a long
(17:05):
time you need to go with themon the field.
You need to go and be there andremind yourself of the thing
that you are requiring thepeople under your leadership to
do so you can make accuratedecisions as a leader, and I
(17:28):
don't feel like you experiencedthat and I'm very sorry, and I'm
very sorry that the resourceswere not available to help your
friend before it was before itwas too late, like nothing
changed.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
nothing changed about our orders.
Nothing changed about nothing.
You know, her death changednothing when, when they sent out
(18:02):
the email to the agencyannouncing her death, they
spelled her name wrong and itjust that little detail, just it
killed me that they couldn'teven give her the dignity of
spelling her name correctly whenthey announced her death.
And then to have no measurablechange, like to see that doing
(18:25):
this has reached the point thatpeople are taking their own
lives.
It's harming us this much andstill nothing changes it.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
just the futility of it killed me so I want to circle
back to this like two-hourpowerpoint.
Oh yeah, right, that openedwith talking about the suicide
of farmers, right?
So like to emphasize this,right, we know that in this time
(18:58):
you were not on boarded abouthow to respond to mental health
crises, how to recognize mentalhealth crises, why they
literally say that it's a riskof something like there.
To know how do you directfarmers to resources which exist
.
There are farmer mental healthresources that exist explicitly
(19:20):
for this reason, right, andadditionally, just if you
wouldn't mind talking a littlebit about kind of like this
other lack of resources forsupport, lack of resources for
support Like they also neverthought about.
Well, we've had a loss tosuicide and how do we support
people grieving their colleague?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
So, yeah, the just the lack of training.
I was hired in 2020 and when Iquit in 2024, I still hadn't
received program disease fieldskills training, which is
considered the core training forevery field veterinarian that
you're supposed to get withinsix months of hire.
It had been four years and Ihadn't received that training.
(20:04):
And like that two hourPowerPoint, to be honest, I
never got more than 15 minutesinto it because I'd watched 15
minutes of this PowerPoint ofsomebody talking and I'd
realized I was thinking about mycat and then I'd start over
again and then, 15 minutes in,I'm thinking about my lunch
because, like it's, you can't.
You can't absorb two hours ofinformation from a PowerPoint.
(20:25):
It's not a functional way tolearn.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And if I can add to that too recently, because I
just did an online training,because you know we have to do
CEUsUs, I'm sure you everybody'sa private do the exact same
thing.
And the end of doing the onlinetraining, they give you the test
that you have to take.
And what stands out to me thisis the same when I worked in a
hospital setting as well.
You had mandatories that we hadto do where we had to answer
(20:48):
questions about disease and firesafety and life safety and all
that stuff is you can take thetests at the end as many times
as you want because you don'tactually fail.
So if they're giving somebodythe opportunity to do an online
training and that's their onlymethod of training them, there's
no real guarantee that theperson, like you had said, is
even going to be able to do itor that they're going to be able
(21:09):
to comprehend it.
So, but we've set up a systemthat it's impossible to at least
from my experiences it'simpossible to fail those things.
So you're going to pass, evenif you don't watch it like you
could have.
You know what I mean Like that.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, and I will say I was assigned to the job before
even receiving the training.
Like I was sent to the job, Iwas on site and I was like, is
there any training for this?
And they're like, oh yeah,there's that video on YouTube.
So, like I was, I was alreadythere, assigned doing the job
before I even knew there wastraining available.
It was just like like there wasno instruction whatsoever.
(21:44):
Here's some forms to fill out.
Sites is often with one day'snotice, which the level of
stress is.
You know, I it was.
It was Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving Iwas with my family and my phone
was blowing up.
It was like email after email,after email, and it was just,
(22:07):
you know, you were enjoying onebrief moment with family and
just having those come in.
Like you know, the phone, mywork phone, constantly going off
, um, it, just you know it sentmy.
I was so stressed out and it was.
I went back home and I gotdeployed the next day to go to a
depop because, like you oftenget one day's notice, they'll
(22:30):
try to send you.
With less, they'll try to sendyou the same day.
I was like I needed a day tolike figure out arrangements for
my cat, like I can't go withone day's notice without with
the same day, but that's howfast they want you to deploy,
just like pack up your stuff andgo be there right now.
And that's a really hard thingto do on top of everything else.
(22:52):
To do on top of everything else, I will say, since I've left
that job, I have everything onmy phone set to silent, because
the sound of my phone going offstresses me out so much these
days that everything is onsilent in my house now.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, I did that too, after I left that position that
I was previously in.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Catherine, would you mind?
Because after you had talkedabout your friend, you had also
said that it started to impactyour mental health in a way that
was going to a dark place.
Do you mind talking about that?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, so the one-year anniversary of my dad's death
was December 1st.
My great aunt I found out shedied December 2nd and December
4th is when I found out mycoworker took her own life.
So that was a lot of deathright together and there's no
(23:55):
system set up to deal with adeath in the agency like that.
And so everybody was sort ofreeling on their own with no
idea what to do.
And somebody asked me if I wasokay to deploy and I said no, I
needed a break.
And I told them that.
And despite that, four dayslater I was in the middle of a
(24:17):
Christmas party at a friend'shouse.
I got a phone call saying Ineeded to deploy to another duck
farm and and I said no, I saidI couldn't.
I said like I can't do that atthis point.
I said like I can't do that atthis point because this was just
too much.
I was so this was too muchdeath for me, and so I said no.
(24:46):
And when I did that, everyonestopped talking to me, because
this is an agency whereeverybody does their part and as
soon as they think you're notdoing your part, you get
ostracized.
Now I mean no matter what weall had going on, no matter how
hard it is, like everybody knows.
But when I said no, I can't doit, everyone stopped talking to
me Like I would send emailssaying, hey, can I I begged to
(25:07):
help with the outbreak in anyother method than Depop?
I begged to do data entry.
Can I upload files than DPOP?
I begged to do data entry.
Can I upload files?
Can I, you know?
Can I, like organize supplies?
Can I do anything to helprespond other than other than
DPOP?
(25:27):
And I got told no.
I got told no, that was thatwas my only option for helping
with the outbreak.
Was Depop?
I would.
I was not allowed to be trainedin any other position and I
begged and it just sent me to adark place and I, um, because I
couldn't help, because theywouldn't let me do anything with
(25:51):
Depop and I can't deal withfeeling like I'm not doing
anything.
I instead volunteered to deployto North Dakota to inspect the
border crossing there becausethey didn't have a vet.
And so this was January, it wasminus 65.
Um, and I was.
I was in a.
(26:11):
I was not in a good place whenI went up there, but I did it to
feel like I was being usefuland my hotel was 45 minutes from
the border because there's nota lot of options for hotels up
there, and I would go to theborder every morning and then
(26:31):
I'd drive 45 minutes back to myhotel and I would sob the entire
way.
Um, and the hotel had akitchenette in it and you know,
so you could cook, and, um,there was a knife in it that I
used to cut cheese and avocados.
But I spent so much timethinking about that knife and
(26:55):
thinking about hurting myselfthat it's been.
It's been a year and a halfsince then and I can I can still
picture that knife vividly inmy head.
That's how much I thought aboutthat knife in that kitchen
while I was there and, like youknow, they took me while I was
(27:17):
there.
They took me off all the emaillists.
So I noticed myself not gettingemails about the outbreak
anymore.
They sort of took me off allthe email lists.
I stopped getting emails fromany of my coworkers.
So you know it, just it.
It was a horrible period of mymental health.
You know it, just it was ahorrible period of my mental
health.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, but that isolation and ostracizing and
all that contributing to it.
It's really distressing to hearabout these actions that people
take that further contribute toisolation and like not actually
(27:58):
answering the need right, likenot leaning in with more
curiosity to say, like I, this,we know this is an issue.
Right, this is a longstandingissue as far as we know, that
Depop and doing that work hasmental health consequences.
(28:19):
That is knowledge.
So the fact that they've hadthis knowledge for a very long
time, that they receive thedirect feedback they lose staff
to it, that there's nomethodology, that you had to
have creative answers for them,like you had to say can I do
this, can I do this, can I dothis?
(28:39):
Right, where they don't have,like, is there a rotation?
Right, that they have, theydon't have a design rotation.
They don't track on whether ornot one person is having all the
burden of the ducks versusanimals that are actually um
more severely clinically ill,rather than being a carrier.
(29:00):
Right, like they don't, likeI'm, I'm just yeah yeah, there's
questions, right, it's like why?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
they just.
One of the reasons why isthey've never had an outbreak
last this long before.
The previous outbreaks of avianinfluenza lasted seven, eight
months and then they stopped andthey did stamping out like that
and they just I think they justexpected that this outbreak to
end like that, and nobodyexpected this to be the third
(29:32):
year of the outbreak and keepgoing.
And I always felt like once wehit year two and nothing, the
same method wasn't working.
I thought it was time to changetracks and it didn't happen.
So that yeah, yeah.
I think everybody was like,well, this worked in the past
(29:54):
and it wasn't working like ithad in the past, but nobody else
knew what to do other than whatthey'd already done.
And I think that was part ofthe problem in trying to
maintain the status of doingeverything the same they'd
always done, even though itwasn't working.
And that was something that washard for everybody in the field
(30:14):
feeling like what you did wasfutile, that it wasn't working,
and having to do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Catherine, thank you so much for being really
vulnerable in talking about whatyou were going through.
I think it's a it's a testamentto just what isolation can do
to people.
It brings people to thesereally dark places and I'm very
glad that you were able to getout of that.
And for those people out therewho might be listening and who
have had similar experiences,this is just a reminder that
(30:44):
you're not alone in that feeling.
Other people can relate to thatfutility and just how difficult
things are.
I don't know if this will beworth mentioning, so I'm just
going to put this right here andwe can edit this out if you
want.
But I know, because I hadlooked up I had heard rumblings
about like how much, despite allthis stuff going on with bird
flu and the D pops, that theprofit for people, the profit
(31:10):
for the industry, has gone up718% since 2021.
Is that worth mentioning?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
I have no knowledge of that.
I didn't track the industry,but that wouldn't surprise me.
When there is a shortage, ofwhen there is a perceived
shortage, people increase prices.
My understanding from I don'tknow if there yeah, I don't know
(31:40):
how much of an actual shortagethere was versus a perceived
shortage, but when there's aperceived shortage, people raise
prices.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
There's an article I found from Forbes and I'll put
it in the notes, that saidcountries' largest egg producers
saw profit surge 718 percentamid shortage, and that came out
in it looks like they're sayingthat this was since 2021.
It came out on March 29th 2023.
So what I find really appallingabout that is here here you are
(32:09):
somebody who is on the groundtalking about the lack of
services for people who needmental health services because
of the, the impact and theintensity of the job, yet the
the producers are making a 718profit.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Uh, seems egregious at at least yeah, I can speak a
little bit to this because thisis something that I've paid
attention to since COVID and Iused to work with pigs and the
food sector the food productionsector was considered essential,
(32:45):
right, so workers had tocontinue going and, of course,
animals need continuous care.
One of the big things thathappened was that a lot of the
meat was being shippedinternationally.
So it wasn't, and, in addition,the worker safety was highly
inadequate.
So we had people within meatprocessing plants.
(33:09):
Significant number of those areeither immigrants and like
mostly not white populations,and these people specifically
state the producers and thefarmers are not the integrators.
The companies making the mostprofit are not the farmers who
(33:47):
are raising the animals, and so,fundamentally, where money is
being produced or where most ofthe profits are happening are on
the large multinational level.
(34:18):
Where I find it to be reallyfrustrating is that there are
these veterinary organizationsAmerican Association of Swine
Veterinarians, there's one forpoultry, there's one for dairy.
Right, I have reached out tosome of these organizations
asking about their responses.
Right, because, in my opinion,there's part of veterinary
medicine that is completelyabsent from the labor advocacy,
both for like, for example, ourfield veterinarians who are
(34:38):
experiencing these types ofthings, as well as workers that
are experiencing this, and I'mgoing to use this moment to say
veterinary medicine leadershipwake up right.
You need to be havingconversations about how
veterinarians can advocate forworkers' rights, not just on the
(34:58):
context of field veterinarians,but also of the workers that
are associated with our field.
That might not necessarily beveterinarians, so that is.
There's a racialized issue onthat, like veterinarians also
have not talked about the factthat we have integrators who are
(35:19):
having child labor inmeatpacking plants, that we, as
veterinarians, are not holdingthat aspect of business, of
which we are a part of,accountable for violations, and
this is something that I wouldlike you know, like to see more.
So sorry to get on a soapbox,but I think it happens in every
(35:42):
profession.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I think it happens in every profession, like I'm
still disgusted by the fact thatthe NASW has said nothing about
genocide, absolutely nothing.
Not surprised, disgusted, but Imean mean I think it happens in
like every unfortunately, butthat that's a whole nother issue
, because you know well, eventhough they're all.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
They're all connected right, because it's all the
same issue so, you know, in this, like dear audience, thank you
for being here as we talk aboutsomething that, like you know,
know, with Catherine coming on,I was like this connects to so
much right, there'senvironmental components,
because avian influenza is, youknow, part of the infectious
(36:28):
disease process are fromwildlife, right, not even from
farm to farm, which I think is abig part of this particular
outbreak, and that we want tomake sure that we are listening
and humanizing the fieldveterinarians, humanizing the
farmers and, overall, likehumanizing your workers in the
(36:48):
field who are on the front lines.
Like so many of so much of whatyou have talked about,
katherine, could be laterallyapplied to so many other areas
of medicine, not just veterinarymedicine, but also human
medicine.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Us, when people who are in the field are holding the
most burden and the people inleadership are disconnected and
I think you see that everywhere-I think a lot of people look at
(37:25):
veterinarians and animal healthtechnicians and everybody going
out on these deep hops andthinking how could they do this,
how could anybody do this?
But I think if you really thinkhow scary it is to be unemployed
especially for some of theanimal health technicians I
worked with, they'd been withthe government 20 years, imagine
like, and when people have beenwith the government, you know
(37:47):
you have to be there a certainnumber of years to get the like
good retirement benefits.
So people like they, you knowyou don't just have the option
to refuse and it's very, it'sterrifying for people to think
about not having retirementbenefits or not having or not
having a job in in the way, it'snot necessarily easy for
(38:09):
somebody whose whole career wasbeing an animal health
technician to just up and findanother job and so, like I was,
I was very lucky in order to beable to leave and and for the
people who aren't able to leaveto, you know, nobody doing these
(38:33):
things actually wants to dothem and the how could you?
I just the the terror of nothaving a job and not being able
to retire or not being able toprovide for your children, like
that that's what it is?
It's not.
It's not easy to find anotherjob and at the same time,
everybody in their head isthinking like maybe this one's
going to end the outbreak, maybethis is going to be the last of
(38:55):
it.
Like everybody keeps goingbecause they, you know, it feels
like at some point it's goingto end, and so people just keep
going and there's notnecessarily an easy out for many
people.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
That's a great point.
When you bring up the benefits,you think about those, because
that's what draws people intothe jobs in the first place is
these, you know these greatbenefit packages with retirement
and healthcare and all thatstuff.
But that it becomes a trap inthe end because you then become
stuck.
It's like you're almost like anindentured servant on some
level.
I mean, you had I think you hadbrought up earlier about like
student loan, debt and howsometimes you know part of
(39:33):
working in jobs they'll pay offstudent loans and they'll give
you all these benefits and thenif you leave, you have to pay it
all back.
So people get stuck and rightnow I don't know anybody who
isn't financially struggling.
Every single person I know isfinancially struggling and I
think anybody at this point intime would be hard pressed to
(39:53):
leave a job, no matter howabusive it is, because they're
they're afraid of what that'sgoing to look like to be
unemployed.
So that totally makes sense,catherine, and I'm glad that you
mentioned that that's.
It's a huge part of what keepspeople stuck.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, and what got me my leaving was, you know, I was
stuck too, but not likeactually, I just felt stuck.
I couldn't, I couldn't seeclearly the thing that got me to
leave.
I had reached the point where Iwas so at risk of ending my own
life that I applied forreasonable accommodations.
(40:28):
And I typed up and I said I, I,I, I, I submitted a request for
reasonable accommodations dueto suicidal ideation I wanted.
My request was to respond tothe outbreak in an on-field
position and I sent the requestto my boss with a note that said
(40:50):
like this is my last option,otherwise I have no other option
in order to stay in the job.
And he sent me a very HR speakemail saying well then, you
should find another job.
And that was definitely theclosest I ever came to taking my
own life, because there was nocompassion there and there was
no.
Are you okay?
There was no, can I help you?
(41:11):
Like I just I wanted somebodyto care, I wanted my boss to
care, I wanted somebody to carethat I had reached this point
and he didn't.
But but in a way, in the end,this saved me because two days I
got through that night Cause Iwas seeing my therapist the next
day and I talked to her andthen the following day after
(41:33):
that I went into the office andI told one of my co-workers
about this and I told her all ofthis and she talked to me about
how she had one time had mentalstruggles and she had taken
FMLA and taken time off for hermental health, and how she had
(41:53):
also quit the field at one timeand worked at Costco, and and so
those were all things she haddone.
But then she asked me anotherquestion.
She asked me if I had loans,and I'm I'm very privileged to
not have loans.
And when I told her I didn'thave loans, she looked right at
me and she said, then why areyou here?
And and I was like, well, well,benefits, well, leave time.
(42:16):
Well, well, you know, I didn't.
I didn't have a good response.
And then I drove home.
It was a two hour drive homeand the whole time I was driving
back I was thinking, yeah, whyam I here?
And and the whole time I just Icould not come up with a valid
reason for staying, and I hadalways thought private practice
(42:37):
would be worse.
I'm like, oh, I can't doeuthanasia.
I'm like I, what I'm doingright now is euthanasia, and
it's not justified or humane inmy opinion.
Like, like I was, just like Ialways thought private practice
could be worse, but I am at thepoint I'm about to end my own
life there.
There's no like it can't beworse than this.
Like I got to try it.
(42:58):
So I got home and I, you know Iapplied for private practice
jobs and, um, as it's just her,her question, why are you here?
Just it, it like reset me.
It made me look at it and belike one, I don't have a reason
for being here and two, thereare other options out there.
And I just I didn't realizethat and I sort of felt like in
(43:22):
the whole conversation, it'slike she gave me permission to
leave.
It's like I hadn't.
It's kind of hard to explain,but it's like I didn't.
It's like I needed.
I needed somebody to tell me Icould do it, like I needed
permission to leave and in a way, she gave me that permission
and so I finally like, okay, Ican do it, I can leave.
(43:45):
And just realizing I can leavejust changed everything for me
and it's the one thing I youknow, mental health is a huge
problem in veterinary medicineand I, just the thing I am going
to take with me is no matter,no matter how bad it gets, I can
leave.
There's always.
(44:05):
There's always another optionout there and it doesn't.
And the thing is, it doesn'tmatter how good the benefit of a
job is, it doesn't matter howmuch vacation leave you get, it
doesn't matter how many perksyou get.
If your job has youcontemplating taking your own
life, there's no benefit worththat.
(44:27):
There's no benefit worth yourlife.
So if that's what your job hasyou contemplating, you need to
leave because there's nothing tostay for.
If that's what your job has youcontemplating, you need to
leave because there's nothing tostay for.
If that's what, if that's atthe point you're at, and I just
didn't realize that at the time.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
I'm so grateful to your friend, who both was
someone that you knew you couldtalk to about what you were
experiencing and also that shehad the knowledge to help you
challenge that narrative.
(45:02):
So I just want to remind theaudience that you have a lot of
power with people in your life.
So check in with people, right?
If someone says that they'restruggling with something, hold
space, and if you don't feelequipped, there are resources.
(45:22):
Matt, I'm sure that we can comeup with some things to put in
the show notes and you probablyrattle some things off here.
Recognize the signs that thereis no risk.
Just asking people hey, are youcontemplating suicide?
That you will not make it morelikely for a person to take
(45:48):
their own life by asking themthat question and trying to
support them into gettingsupport, getting mental health
support, getting support right,getting mental health support.
I'm so glad that you have had atherapist through that time and
thank you for sharing like this, because this narrative is
literally life-saving the toolsthat people can use literally
life-saving.
(46:08):
As a boss, you don't have to useHR speak alone, you really
don't and as a colleague, youdon't have to ostracize somebody
that is talking about a barrier.
Right, and when people usetheir voice to point out
something that is wrong, the actof ostracizing is um is a very
(46:33):
big problem and is not okay.
So if you experience that andI'm just saying that because
I've also experienced that inthe past and when you hear
someone say something that youknow is true, right Avoidance is
a natural human behavior, butit's not a good one and it's
something that we have to pushthrough and use some courage and
(46:56):
compassion towards the peoplethat we are working with.
I'm so glad that you're here,I'm so glad that you're my
colleague and thank you so muchfor your vulnerability, your
openness, because I really thinkthat just this conversation
people hearing it is going tohelp people and going to help
people feel empowered.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I totally second that and I'm also glad that you had
a therapist that you weretalking to.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Mental health is so important and I wonder,
catherine, the people that werereally unsupportive do you think
(47:46):
that they also become victimsof the system in some way, like
that they're also in that sametrap, or no, I am.
So I went to the WesternVeterinary Conference and I ran
into one of my old coworkersthere doing outreach and when I
had quit I had put a Facebookpost up on my on my page about
my reasons for leaving.
And my coworker I was notfriends with on Facebook but
when we talked he said he hadread the Facebook post and I had
(48:06):
outreach from other people Ihad not like been close to who
had outreach.
And, um, there, at everydepopulation there is a safety
coordinator and one of thesafety coordinators I had met
before reached out to me andthanked me for my post because
she said it was an importantreminder that safety includes
(48:26):
people's mental health and, as asafety coordinator, she was
going to be discussing mentalhealth when she was on site
health when she was on site andso I, I there are a lot of
people out there being affectedby this and I think I I'm hoping
that I did reach some peopleand and I know everybody was
affected by it and I know evenmy coworkers who ostracized me
(48:50):
were affected by it, and I think, I think some of the mentality
is that we're going through hellwhy isn't she?
And so, but they don'tunderstand that I was going
through hell too, and I think.
I think there's this.
Yeah, I think there is a lackof understanding of each other.
(49:13):
Understanding of each other,that's a problem, but people
have reached out and told methey've read the post and
they're gonna talk about mentalhealth, more so, I'm glad making
waves.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thank you for demonstrating the power of words
right, the power of the pen soand for being brave too and
taking a stand like.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
it takes people like you to make risks, for people to
start to change, and it's areally scary thing to do.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Yeah, it was a scary transition, but I'm glad I made
it, I'm glad I'm here and I'mvery thankful to the people who
got me through that period oftime so that I can be here.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Well, thank you so much, I think, matt.
As far as time goes, I thinkthat this is.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's just it's so powerful,like I really I feel like we
need to, catherine, I think atsome point we need to do a part
two to this, because I just Ifeel like that we just kind of
scratch the surface on it.
You know there's there's so muchto talk about and you know, as
we had mentioned earlier Erica,just like how many of the
(50:26):
systems are also interconnectedand impact each other.
Mental health, you know, in oneof the earlier episodes I talked
about, if you're, you know, ifyou're in an abusive
relationship with somebodyliving with them, you can't
really work on it until you getout of the relationship.
I mean, you can certainly workon safety issues and you can
(50:47):
work on, like risk managementand all of that stuff, but you
can't truly start to process thetrauma until you get out of it.
But what do you do when theentire culture around you is the
abuser?
Like every time you leave yourhouse you're being abused by
something, and I that's actuallyone of the reasons I started
the podcast was becauseeverything we talk about whether
(51:09):
we're talking aboutveterinarians and deep opera,
we're talking about genocide inGaza, or we're talking about,
you know, the lack of mentalhealth services I mean they all
kind of come back to the samething that there's a, there's a
systematic failing that'shappening, but I think it's by
design.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
People are being erased from the equation.
Right when we talk aboutCatherine, when you were talking
about the exercise.
So, catherine, when you weretalking about the exercise,
(51:59):
right, so I also sat on in somesimulations around African.
We use that leadershipstructure to respond to the
crisis of living beings.
We have to be very criticalabout that beings.
We have to be very criticalabout that.
And you were right, and, assomeone that is has a little bit
(52:26):
of reputation in the industryfrom being critical, I'm always
delighted to meet anothercritical spirit who you use your
voice in the midst of your mosthow should I say when you were
like threadbare, right, when youwere threadbare and at so much
risk.
You still utilize your voice inthe midst of all of that and I
(52:49):
want to commend that and I wantyou to continue to like, and
your journey of healing andrecovery continue to be grounded
in the fact that, even thoughyou were like barely keeping
your head above water, that youare also fighting to change the
system.
You know, like when you sharedthat in the space that we were
(53:14):
when we met, that was the reasonwhy I was like hey, I would,
your voice could use moreamplification.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
So thank you.
Thank you for inviting me here.
It's been really nice talkingto you too Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Thank you for being here and I will put all the
stuff that we talked about inthe podcast.
Thank you, and I hope you comeback thank you again.
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