Stress, Compassion Fatigue and Burnout Handling in Veterinary Practice

1. Introduction to work-related stress syndromes and how they arise in the veterinary sector

2. How these syndromes affect the company and personnel
Psychosocial factors
Company-specific characteristics that affect worker stress
Psychosocial consequences of monotonous work
Indicators of work-related stress in the company
Wellbeing at work and self-efficacy

3. Understanding stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue in the veterinary profession
What is stress?
What is burnout?
What is compassion fatigue?

4. Vicarious trauma or vicarious traumatization
Signs and symptoms associated with vicarious trauma
Working on empathy
Balancing systems
Clarity of thought and common sense

5. Relationship between fatigue syndromes in human and veterinary medicine
Is there a parallel between human medicine and veterinary medicine with respect to fatigue syndromes?
Auxiliary veterinary personnel
What are toxic work environments and toxic companies?
Some empirical studies and data

6. Ethics, morals, and values in animal care
Ethics
The ethical dilemma
Strategies for reducing ethical tensions
Taboos in the veterinary profession
Documents that minimize the number of ethical dilemmas

7. Ten best practices to support staff and colleagues in veterinary practice
Ten best practices to help jumpstart the project
Compassion satisfaction is a best practice

8. How to deal with euthanasia and its emotional impact on veterinary clinic personnel
What is euthanasia?
How does euthanasia affect veterinary staff?
How do adults go through the grieving process?
Grief in children
How to deliver bad news to the owner: Buckman’s 6-step protocol
When to opt for euthanasia
Communication with the team
Future needs

9. Loss, grief, and suicide in veterinary medicine
Loss
Grief
Suicide
Best practices for organizational grieving
Best practices for individual grieving

10. Incorporating integrated wellness and standards of self-care in veterinarians and staff

11. Self-evaluation to measure levels of stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue
The Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) self-test
The Secondary Traumatic Stress Informed Organization Assessment (STSI-OA)
Onsite debriefings
Additional testing

12. Next steps: achieving and sustaining wellness in the veterinary profession

There is a need to publicize the syndromes occurring in veterinary personnel due to work-related stress. Vets are apathetic or leaving the profession. It is vital for their emotional health that they know about these syndromes and the importance of seeking help early on. The up-to-date compilation of studies gives a clinical and human vision of these challenges based on the authors’ experience.

Patricia Smith is the founder of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project©. As a certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist, she has been writing, speaking and facilitating workshops on the subject throughout the USA for the past 20 years. As the training and development manager for Humane Society Silicon Valley, she created a shelter-wide compassion fatigue training that led to consulting and training nationwide for American Humane.

With a background in journalism, she was a correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News for 20 years, and has written a number of training manuals and books on the subject of compassion fatigue. Her book To Weep for a Stranger: Compassion Fatigue in Caregiving received the 2010 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award presented by the North America Bookseller’s Exchange. Patricia is also the recipient of the “Excellence in Writing Award,” presented by the National League of American Pen Women. As program director at Ronald McDonald House at Stanford, she received the 2005 “Best Bets” award for its “Healing Arts” program.

Additionally, in 2012 and 2013, she was named a Whiteley Scholar, which provides a writing/study grant funded through the Helen R. Whiteley Foundation at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. As a consultant for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in New York City, she assisted in creating and rolling out a nationwide compassion fatigue program for their 800-plus employees.

In September 2016, Patricia presented a TEDx talk entitled: “Navigating the Path to Wellness: Compassion Fatigue in Caregiving”.

Inmaculada Pérez Madrigal obtained her degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Córdoba (Spain) in 1992 and a Master’s Degree in Management of Manufacturing and Service Companies from the Spanish National Distance Learning University (UNED) in 2002. She also earned a diploma in veterinary acupuncture in 2009.

She is a member of numerous veterinary business associations such as the Spanish Association of Veterinary Management (Agesvet), the Cádiz Veterinary Business Association (AEVECCA), the Spanish Veterinary Business Corporation (CEVE), and the Spanish Small Animal Veterinary Association (AVEPA). She works as a small animal clinician and veterinary clinic manager.

Her interests have led her into the world of veterinary clinic management and neuromarketing for veterinary companies, a subject about which she has coauthored a book. Her interest in sociology and psychology have driven her to write this new book in collaboration with Patricia Smith.