Financial Guilt – Caring comes with a cost.

This week and almost every week, I see a client that brings me a pet that has more disease than their finances can cover.  This time it was a family and their beloved cat that is severely anemic and has been that way for weeks. They have visited other veterinary hospitals and have come away with no answers, mostly because they declined all treatment and diagnostic recommendations.  They just don’t have the resources.

It breaks my heart as a veterinarian not to be able to treat each patient the way I have been trained to treat all pets - with excellent medicine and top-notch care.  As veterinary medicine gets more sophisticated there are more and more expensive options for clients to consider.  The more options that we offer, the more we find ourselves in the business of creating treatment plans designed for the client’s bank account ceiling and not for the pet’s medical condition.

It is easy for us to judge our clients when they cannot spend money on an ill pet, but have you ever been in a situation where you wanted something that you could not afford?  Did you judge yourself for that?  Probably not.  It was just a fact.  Too little money in the account for the thing that you desperately wanted.   So why do we judge our clients or become frustrated when they make a financial decision to refuse our best care?  

Most clients do not blame us for their predicament, but there are some that try to unload their guilt on us.   “You must not really love animals, because you will not work for free” is my favorite.  (Yes, I spent 8 years in college to get paid 1/3 of my human medical colleagues, just to refuse service to you and your pet).  Not really fair, but those negative comments are more about their frustration with life than about me, the veterinarian.

In my client’s case, the family was heart-broken about their limited finances and their severely ill cat.  It was now my job to come up with a plan that fits into their budget, but also improves the cat’s quality of life.  If I can do that for the cat, then I can feel as if I have done my job with caring and success.

It is a veterinarian’s job to support our clients through the entirety of their pet’s life.  We do not have the obligation to offer our services for free, but we do have an obligation to care for our clients and patients. During the difficult times we need to reassure them that they are doing “their” best for their pet and we are going to work with them to make sure that we offer them our best.  It is not our place to be judgmental.  Everyone has a financial ceiling. 

If we work within our client’s budget and treat each pet with dignity, we can avoid frustration and guilt to get back to our real business - caring.

“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”
Pablo Casals

Dr. Julie Cappel



Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2

...but our job IS sad!

  

This week I had the awesome privilege to spend an evening speaking in front of a group of veterinarians and veterinary support professionals speaking about stress management and compassion fatigue.  My presentation revolved around understanding why we feel stress and what we can do to manage it to feel better.  Stress is inevitable and is something that we cannot - and really do not want to - fully escape.  Our job involves many complicated situations and our stress response is often necessary to help us to perform our best work.  When a critical emergency comes into the hospital, the primitive part of our brain causes stress to keep us alert; making fast and solid decisions.  In those situations, stress is a great tool.  When stress is allowed to set up camp and live in our bodies for extended periods of time, it becomes dangerous to our mental and physical health.

When I talked to the group about our job being totally amazing while also being very hard, I had some doubters present in the audience.  People that had a difficult time wrapping their mind around the fact that I said, “Stress can be good.” and “We can choose to think better thoughts, to change how we feel about our day.”.  One person was particularly challenged by my words.  She stopped me several times to ask clarifying questions and became a bit annoyed with my answers.  She said more than once, “…but our job IS sad!”  as if it were a fact. 

Here is where it gets tricky.  “Our job is sad.”, is not a fact; however, “Pets die.”, is a fact.  We cannot totally prevent death in our patients - it is beyond our control.  We choose to feel sad when pets die and we also want that feeling.  We want to have compassion and empathy for our clients. Our job is to try to prolong healthy life, which is what we strive to do every day.  We cure and prevent disease by giving our patients excellent care and we feel great about that.  The fact that there is death with every life is not something that we can avoid.  Accepting this fact and learning to embrace the sadness  (not live there), helps keep our stress in check.   The heavy prolonged stress comes from our thinking that we should never have to feel anything negative. 

How do we embrace sadness and stress while caring for our mental, physical, and emotional health?

Feel your feelings fully and process through them.  Remain in the moment and do not try to squash bad feelings down or pretend that they are not there.   Don’t fear your stress or negative emotions.  It is a normal part of life and needs to be experienced in order for you to know when positive things happen.  The low points make the high points feel sweeter.

Take care of your mind, body, and spirit.  Practicing self-care in healthy ways is the most important thing you can do for stress management.  Exercise, yoga, meditation, or nature walks will open up your mind to better possibilities.  If you are feeling very stuck in negativity talk to a friend, coach, or therapist to help you see where you need help.  There is nothing shameful about negative thoughts and feelings.  Everyone has them and the sooner you embrace and manage your own, the sooner you will start to feel better.

Practice mindfulness and examine your thoughts.  When you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed write it all down. Getting the negative thoughts out of your brain and on paper will help you objectively examine them.  Once you see where your thinking is going you can adjust some of your thoughts to more positive alternatives.  If you can choose better thoughts your feelings will improve. Realize that you are perfectly designed to help your clients and patients with their veterinary problems - trained and fully equipped to succeed in this career.   

Sad things do happen but if we understand ourselves, support each other, and embrace the power of our brain, we can move beyond stress and get back to saving pet lives and enjoying our veterinary career.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”  - Viktor E. Frankl


Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2