Fear Free Veterinarian? Ah, NO WAY!

Have you ever been scared out of your mind?  If you say “no” you are a big fat liar.

In veterinary medicine there are plenty of opportunities to be afraid.  We are afraid of delivering a bad diagnosis, giving a poor prognosis, or experiencing a surgical complication. We fear angry clients, poor reviews and making even the smallest mistakes.  We fear the 90-pound, untrained, aggressive dog that arrives seemingly every day.

Paralyzing fear is our daily friend. 

This week my smartest and most experienced associate veterinarian had the opportunity to be scared out of her mind.  We have both been doing this work for over 25 years, and we still have many occasions to be fearful.  This week fear arrived in the form of a cute little friendly dog, named Freddy.   Freddy had bladder surgery a few days prior to this visit and he was back in the office because he was not feeling well.  My associate was terrified that there was some sort of surgical complication causing his malaise.  As she worked up his case, doing radiographs and ultrasound to determine if he was having any internal complication, she worried that something had gone wrong with his surgery.  As the two of us combed over his test results trying to decide if he needed another surgery, we were both feeling fear. 

Who wants to see this sweet pet go through a second surgery?  Who wants to feel like a failure if something has gone wrong?

 The AVMA wants us to have a “fear free” practice for our dogs and cats, but what about us?  Who is working to help us with our fear?

Fear is defined as – A feeling induced by perceived danger or threat that occurs in certain types of organisms, which causes a change in metabolic and organ functions and ultimately a change in behavior, such as fleeing, hiding, or freezing from perceived traumatic events.

How do we deal with our daily fears and not let them consume us?

Realize that fear is a normal brain response that all humans experience.  The part of your brain that is there to protect you, will cause you to experience a fear response.  Your fear is caused by your thoughts about your current situation.  Once you realize that you are thinking thoughts that are causing your fear, you can work to change those thoughts.  In the case of our little dog, our thoughts of surgical complications were causing our fearful feelings.

Approach the thoughts that are causing your fear response with curiosity.  If you examine your fearful thoughts and try to understand where they are coming from, it will start to alleviate your fear.  When you realize that many of your thoughts are coming from a place in your imagination – worst case scenario thinking - you can start to let them go.  

Take some action in order to gain perspective.  If you can take action to investigate the facts of the situation, you can let go of fearful thoughts and start to formulate a plan.  Once you have a solid plan in place, you can start to let go of your fear.  In our case with our little friend, we took some diagnostic actions to rule out internal complications.  As we talked over his results, we were able to let go of our fearful thoughts and replace them with a medical plan.    

Our fear was unfounded on this day with Freddy, and he was able to return home with some medication for his symptoms.  My associate and I were spurred in to action by our fear and were able to do the right thing, but we know from experience that fear may be back tomorrow.

“You know, I think you try harder when you’re scared.”

Rocky Balboa

Dr. Julie Cappel

Join me on the Podcast!  The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast. 

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

Breaking Free of your Past.

I spent way too much of my valuable time this week focusing on the past.  

It started with a coaching session that had me caught in a thought loop about my podcast and blog.  I was beating myself up about my lack of progress, my difficulty with time management, and how it was affecting my work.  I also had a long conversation with a colleague that took me back to a difficult situation in the past.  I spent hours focused on the worry that something similarly negative could happen again.

Intellectually I know that focusing on the past is not useful, so why does my brain do it?

We all have a way of focusing on things that happened in our past.  Especially those things that created strong emotions for us.  Our strong emotions cause us to remember detailed thoughts and feelings that we had when we were in our past situations.  We become attached to our past experiences because they feel familiar to us.  We indulge in the familiarity to avoid feeling the uncertainly of stepping into our future.

Why not hide in the past?

Because it keeps us from taking action towards a better future.

If you tell yourself that you are not doing as well as other people or you should have gotten more done today, you are going to feel negative and defeated.  If you focus on a negative circumstance from your past, you will feel worried and paralyzed in fear.  Those negative, worried and defeated feelings are going to make you less likely to take positive action. You will get into the habit of spinning in your thoughts and emotions and never move forward.

To have a fabulous life we need to take action towards creating a better future by letting go of the past. 

In order to start letting go of your past, you have to acknowledge that your past focus is holding you back.  If I continue to focus on my thoughts about my time management and my blog, I will spin in confusion and never get any writing done.  My past focus is stopping my future work. 

If you hold anger towards a client based on something negative that they said (in person or online), you are living in the past.  You are carrying that anger into each exam room with you. Acknowledge that, focusing on your past client’s comments is causing you to think and act differently around other clients.  Your past focus is robbing you of your future with your current clients.

Once you acknowledge that you are holding yourself back and punishing yourself, you can come up with a reason to move forward.  Your reason to move forward is your most important tool in keeping you committed to the “letting go of the past” process. You have to have a good strong mental reason for becoming future focused because your brain will want to challenge you.  Your brain will want you to stay in the past. 

You will need courage and effort to keep from slipping back into your past focused way.

Stay strong and break free from your past.

“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” 
― Ann Landers

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” 
― Steve Maraboli

Dr. Julie Cappel

Are you smarter than a neurosurgeon?

Recently my Dad experienced a brain issue and was hospitalized for a few days. I had the opportunity to leave work to be with him at the hospital.  After his minor brain surgery (if you can call a brain surgery minor), I was spending the day with him and my mother in his neuro intensive care hospital room.  Because it was an intensive care unit, a parade of doctors and nurses attended to him regularly.  He was doing very well, but they do not put anyone on autopilot in intensive care.  At some point during this parade of health care professionals, a resident neurosurgeon arrived in his room to check on his progress.  The resident neurosurgeon had assisted with my Dad’s surgery the previous day and was stopping by to check on him.  When he entered the room, he greeted my Dad, who in turn introduced me to the doctor. 

My parents often introduce me to strangers as; “This is my daughter, Julie, she is a veterinarian.”  The doctor showed some polite interest in my profession because he is a dog owner. He asked me about my job – how did I like it - and then about how I thought my Dad was doing today.  I told him that I loved my job on most days and that my Dad seemed to be doing remarkably well after what he had been through the day before.  I then shared that my Mom and I were a little embarrassed that we didn’t pick up on my Dad’s symptoms earlier and get him to the hospital.  I felt that we should have known that something was not right sooner than we did.  My Dad had been showing some insidious symptoms for the past few days and none of us picked them up.  I was particularly embarrassed that I didn’t see it earlier.

The neurosurgeon laughed and said, “Let me tell you a story.”  He preceded to tell me that he has a middle-aged dog that sometime last summer started drinking more than usual.  She was losing weight and passing some urine that seemed a little sticky and strange. He told me that it went on for weeks with his dog drinking and urinating more and dropping weight.  He really did not know what was wrong with her. The dog had a huge appetite for water, but he just kept thinking that the water drinking “was because it was hot outside and the dog was drinking due to the heat”.    He said he finally decided to take the dog into the veterinary hospital to attempt to diagnose her problem. 

As soon as the veterinarian heard the symptoms and looked at the neurosurgeon’s dog, she told him that the dog may have diabetes.  As the veterinarian left the room to get her technician to draw the pet’s blood, the neurosurgeon said he sheepishly removed the hospital credentials - clipped to his scrub pocket identifying him as a neurosurgeon - and slowly hid them in his pants pocket.  He could not believe that he didn’t think of diabetes.  He did not want the veterinarian to know that he was a physician and he was quite embarrassed.

He told me, “Do not feel bad about not diagnosing your father’s condition because I couldn’t diagnose my dog’s diabetes.”  He said, “I will take care of your father’s brain and you can take care of my dog’s diabetes.”  I laughed and told him that I appreciated his story because it did indeed make me feel better about my lack of knowledge when it came to my Dad.  

By the way, I also had another neurosurgeon at the hospital tell me that he always wanted to be a veterinarian.  So, when you start doubting yourself and feel as if your job is not all that important, remember that you may be smarter than a neurosurgeon.

"I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do."  - Helen Keller

Dr. Julie Cappel