Course is Titled Compassion Fatigue Module 2: Healing our Practices

 INSTRUCTOR is Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR

COURSE DESCRIPTION from VSPN: Compassion Fatigue has been called the “cost of caring,” and it is costing our practice or facility money! When we have team members who are suffering from chronic compassion [...]]]> Managing Compassion Fatigue in Your Practice…New Course on VSPN!

Course is Titled Compassion Fatigue Module 2: Healing our Practices

 INSTRUCTOR is Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR

COURSE DESCRIPTION from VSPN:
Compassion Fatigue has been called the “cost of caring,” and it is costing our practice or facility money! When we have team members who are suffering from chronic compassion fatigue, it can affect the policies and processes of the business, and infect the overall culture. The symptoms of organizational compassion fatigue include many basic management challenges that can affect any business; yet in a care giving profession, we can first examine compassion fatigue to see if healing this can help our business be stronger and more profitable. If your practice is not currently experiencing symptoms of compassion fatigue, it could be a matter of time. Prevention is possible as well, so that the team is monitored and the symptoms are recognized and treated as quickly as possible. If your practice needs to become healthier, or you want to preserve the healthy workplace you have now, this course will help.

For more information or to register, visit http://www.vin.com/CE/STAF139-1110_VSPN.htm

Excerpt from the VSPN Course Description:

Chances are you entered the veterinary or animal [...]]]> Would you like to learn more about compassion fatigue, and how to recognize and minimize this in your own personal and professional life? Katherine Dobbs will be teaching a compassion fatigue course on VSPN in October. Visit http://www.vin.com/CE/STAF138-1010_VSPN.htm for more information and registration instructions.

Excerpt from the VSPN Course Description:

Chances are you entered the veterinary or animal healthcare world because of your love of animals. That has remained your passion, although now you may be experiencing emotional difficulty in the role of caregiver. You are not alone – every care giving profession can suffer from two similar but different conditions: burnout, and compassion fatigue. Yet even if you are feeling toasted around the edges, or your compassion has been stretched thin, you can learn how to diagnose your condition so that the proper treatment plan can be generated. This course will help you to identify why the job tends to get tougher by the year, by the month or week even, and what you can do to turn things around. Your love of animals led you to this career, but your love for yourself will carry you through.

“…over the last decade there has been an increasing awareness of the need to develop ways to “care for our carers”. With this, is a growing recognition of the necessity for a three-pronged approach to [...]]]> The question is, who is responsible for the changes that can help to minimize Compassion Fatigue, you or your employer?

“…over the last decade there has been an increasing awareness of the need to develop ways to “care for our carers”. With this, is a growing recognition of the necessity for a three-pronged approach to managing occupational stress. Firstly, an organization responsbility to care for staff, secondly, an obligation amongst peers to support colleagues, and thirdly, a personal responsbility to care for oneself.” ~ Huggard and Huggard, 2008

I spoke to a practice manager once that had come across this concept of compassion fatigue, acquired some information and an assessment test, and distributed them to her team members. The results of the exploration and test results revealed that indeed, they were affected by compassion fatigue. They came back to the practice manager and said, what are you going to do about it? The manager fought the urge to say in return, what are YOU going to do about it? It has become quite clear that compassion fatigue is an issue for both the person and the practice, or organization. The symptoms we see in people with compassion fatigue are compounded by an environment where others also have compassion fatigue, and the effects multiply until they hit the bottom line and the entire team.

As for the veterinary pactice, here is what they can do to help:
* The practice can provide a place and time for the discussion of compassion fatigue
* The practice can offer tools to the team
* The praactice can give the team as a whole the space to explore compassion fatigue
* The practice can continue ongoing awareness of compassion fatigue and its effects and remedies

However, as the veterinary professional, you must in turn be held responsible:
* The practice can open the conversation, but YOU must talk
* The practice can offer tools, but YOU must take advantage of them
* The practice can give your team the space needed, but YOU must enter in together and help each other
* The practice can make you AWARE, but you must open your eyes!

“Self-awareness is especially important for persons working in high-stress settings that require great intelligence and high standards. In such professions, “perfectionism and its associated demon, fear of failure” can be quite dangerous to [...]]]> Compassion Fatigue affects veterinary medicine we know, but it also affects those involved in “human” medicine, where we can learn a great deal:

“Self-awareness is especially important for persons working in high-stress settings that require great intelligence and high standards. In such professions, “perfectionism and its associated demon, fear of failure” can be quite dangerous to the types of persons attracted to health care…It is believed that they should always be at the peak of technical proficiency, emotionally available, straightforward, clear, and compassionate.” ~ Robert J. Wicks, Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice

I’m sure we would all agree that this is a tall order to fill. While it’s nice to know that we possess great intelligence and have high standards, we must also admit that we have planted ourselves in a high stress occupation. We often demand perfection, of ourselves and those around us. It is difficult for us to admit mistakes or even misgivings or fears of new challenges. When mistakes are made, we can be hard on each other…but that’s nothing compared to how hard we are on ourselves. Yet mistakes help us grow, so we need to be accepting of our challenges and those of others.

Due to the fact that we need to be at the peak of technical proficiency, we must continue to learn and grow as veterinary medicine evolves. In order to stay emotionally available, we must open our hearts to both our patients and our clients, yet maintain a healthy distance so that we avoid or minimize compassion fatigue. While we sometimes find it is easy for veterinary professionals to remain straightforward and clear, particularly when discussing the medicine aspect, to demonstrate compassion is a much more difficult thing to do.

Yet of all the factors that our clients expect, compassion is the most important. Compassion comes across in the words we say, but also in the things we do: appropriate eye contact, attentive listening, open body language, soft tone of voice, a touch of a hand on a shoulder, or a hug when needed. In order to preserve the human-animal bond, we must create human-human bonds as we move forward in our practices and profession.

“Denial is one of the best-developed coping reflexes in health care workers, particularly phsycians and nurses” ~ [...]]]> Does compassion fatigue sound like something that happens to other people, but not you? Could you possibly be in denial? If so, you’re certainly not alone. Professionals in healthcare, be it “human” or veterinary, can easily suffer from denial.

“Denial is one of the best-developed coping reflexes in health care workers, particularly phsycians and nurses” ~ Anthony Barbato, M.D., in the foreword of the book Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice.

If you still think, nope, not me, let me retell a tale that some of us have heard before, but makes a very good point when it comes to compassion fatigue…the boiling frog tale. Let’s say a frog needs to be cooked, to end up on someone’s dinner plate. If you drop the frog into a pan of boiling water, he’ll immediately sense danger and jump out. That water is hot!

But, if you put a frog in room temperature water, set the pan on the stove and turn on the heat, the frog will stay in the water as it slowly gets warmer and warmer. Before the frog even realizes what is happening, it has allowed itself to become boiled to death. It never reached a point where it’s tiny brain said, wow, I’m in danger here, let’s get out! He became acclimated to the increasing heat so well that he never sensed the danger.

This is how it often works with compassion fatigue. I would venture to say this is likely the way it ALWAYS happens with compassion fatigue…we don’t even realize we’re in danger until we feel boiled alive. This is when we start talking about being “burned out”, but as mentioned before in these posts, they technically are two different things. But alas, they are both dangerous, and we have to stop being so good at coping with the increased emotional stress so that we can identify when the temperature is too hot and we need to step back and cool off.

If you think about it, you probably have some internal red flags that signal when the heat is on. Perhaps you start snapping at your kids or your spouse, perhaps you reach the point where you need an emotional “wellness day” so you call in sick to work, or maybe your co-workers start getting on your nerves more than usual. Whatever triggers you to think, hey, it’s getting too hot in here, I need to find a way to cool off! Then go do something just for you, to recharge your batteries and refresh your perspective. The possibilities are endless, just go do something that you enjoy that you probably haven’t done in a really long time!