Posts by:
DoveLewis Veterinary Well-being Program Director
Sometimes practicing self-care can feel the least accessible when we need it the most. When we’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it can be hard for us to engage in problem-solving or planning. A written self-care plan can be a helpful tool when you need a reminder of some of the practices that serve you.
Self-care can be so fiddly. I was introduced to the concept of self-care in my social work program, and beginning there, my relationship with it has been multifaceted.
Our Technician Training team, along with Debrah Lee, our Veterinary Well-being Program Director, and Monica Maxwell, our Chief Administrative Officer, have been working on a new kind of veterinary education. Traditionally, our educational efforts at DoveLewis have been focused on increasing our medical knowledge. It can be easy to simply focus on the hard skills of our jobs. As technicians, we perform medical math and critical blood transfusions with such keen repetitiveness that we can overlook other aspects of our profession- like personal and professional development. However, our well-being and success as an industry are significantly impacted by our emotional intelligence, resiliency, and how we respond to conflict. This led us to create a different kind of educational video series: B.A.R. on the Floor.
There is a lot that we are trying to contend with. For many of us, there’s an underlying sense of urgency and helplessness as we try to find something to control in this surreal, and often uncomfortable, new landscape. There are many different reactions we may be experiencing as a result of this including those mentioned in our previous well-being article:
We may be beginning to feel like we have more questions than answers. It is not unusual to experience a wide range of thoughts, feelings, and reactions. Some of these reactions may include:
