Veterinary Human Resources

Compassion Fatigue: Getting the Word Out

Katherine — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:52:06 +0000

The word is getting out…compassion fatigue awareness is spreading! It’s interesting, when I speak at conferences I always start by asking who has heard of compassion fatigue…very few hands go up. Then I ask who has heard of burnout…and all hands go up! (Then I ask who HAS burnout, and most of them stay up, lol.) I then proceed to explain that they are similar, yet different in important ways, and we need to diagnose before we can properly treat.

The interesting thing is that even though most of them have NOT heard of compassion fatigue, they come to the session anyways. It must be that the words alone strike something inside, that even without knowing the definition, the words touch something internal. At open admission conferences, where attendees can choose any topic and any track to attend, the topic of compassion fatigue draws an audiences with a majority of technicians. As a technician myself since 1992, I can understand how these professionals feel drawn to a topic like this…they feel their passion stretched thin on a regular basis. Then there are a handful of managers, front office team members, and occasionally, a veterinarian or two. My hope is that as the word spreads, professionals in EVERY position will realize that compassion fatigue affects their personal and professional lives, and they will strive to learn more.

In the meantime, my webmaster is building a page on this website to list my speaking engagements so that you can see if compassion fatigue is coming to your location or a conference you’re planning to attend. So far these are confirmed engagements: (Stay tuned for more!)

IVECCS in San Antonio, TX, September 14, 2010 on Compassion Fatigue Workshop for Technicians

Colorado VMA in Loveland, CO, September 23-26, 2010 on Organizational Compassion Fatigue for Practice Management

North Dakota Veterinary Technician Association in Fargo, ND, October 1, 2010 on Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

North Carolina Veterinary Conference in Raleigh, NC, November 6, 2010 on Compassion Fatigue and Client Communication

American Association of Equine Practitioners in Baltimore, MD, December 5-8, 2010, on Compassion Fatigue

NAVC in Orlando, FL, January 16 & 17, 2011 on Compassion Fatigue Master Class for Technicians, Client Communication for Technicians, Human Resources for Management

Michigan Veterinary Conference in Lansing, MI, January 28 & 29, 2011 on Compassion Fatigue, Client Communication, Managing the Front Lines and Medical Team, and Creating a Client-Centered Position

AAHA in Toronto, Ontario, March 24-27, 2011, on Compassion Fatigue for Management and a Human Resources Intensive Day-Long Workshop

AVMA in St. Louis, MO, July 16-19, 2011, on Compassion Fatigue, and Technician Management and Professional Development

Southwest Veterinary Symposium in San Antonio, TX, October 1, 2011 on Compassion Fatigue, Client Communication, and Professional Development for Office Personnel

Hope to see you soon!

~Katherine

The Price of Emotional Satisfaction

Katherine — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:19:19 +0000

When I present the topic of compassion fatigue to veterinary teams, there is a Caregiver’s Bill of Rights from Patricia Smith (founder of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project) that I like to share. One of these “rights” states that we as caregivers deserve to receive adequate pay for our job as a caregiver…and I pause.

Then I share one of my “theories” on the age-old issue of pay in our profession. The theory is this…that none of us likely entered veterinary medicine with the expectation that we would become rich or wealthy. But it didn’t matter, we wanted to care for animals, and the emotional satisfaction gained from this caregiving offset the amount of pay we received. We were happy with our work, happy with our potential to help, and pay was not the most important factor.

BUT, as emotional satisfaction wanes, whether due to burnout OR compassion fatigue, all of a sudden “you can’t PAY me enough to do THIS job!” Pay becomes critical, it suddenly must offset the dissatisfaction we have either started to feel or been coping with for quite some time. After all, why else would someone who is in this profession regardless of the pay, decide to leave the profession five, ten, fifteen years later?

It’s something to think about, don’t you think???

Inspiring Each Other

Katherine — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:48:14 +0000

My new book from AAHA Press is now out, and it is a project I am particularly proud of. During my preparation to write 101 Veterinary Technician Questions Answered (AAHA Press), I was fortunate to read through hundreds of technicians’ responses to the question “what are your biggest challenges”. Then I turned those challenges into questions to seek the answers to the issues from, you guessed it, more technicians. I knew that we had much more to say to each other than even I have to say to you by myself.

The quotes were amazing, so I promptly pitched the idea for The Veterinary Caregiver’s Book of Quotes to AAHA Press. Fortunately, they accepted my proposal, and the work began. I also gathered quotes from front office members and managers, so this book would be an inpsiration to anyone and everyone in the field.

How does this tie in to the topic of compassion fatigue? One of the most important elements to minimizing compassion fatigue is to have support from the team you work with. During the daily hustle and bustle, we can barely keep our own heads above water much less give inspiring words to others we work beside. So this book is a way for us all to give back to each other. Let’s remember why we’re in this profession to begin with, recognize the emotional hazards of caregiving, and help each other weather the sometimes turbulent water that is veterinary medicine.

Responsible For Change

Katherine — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:11:03 +0000

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!

Compassion Fatigue, The Cost of Caring

Katherine — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:54:46 +0000

Compassion Fatigue
The Cost of Caring

Veterinary medicine is often more than just a career—it is a calling. It attracts compassionate, caring individuals who want to help ill or injured animals. Because of the nature of companion animal medicine, we often find ourselves helping families through suffering and sorrow. However, we do this caring work for others who are in emotional and physical pain at a cost to ourselves, the “cost of caring,” also known as compassion fatigue.

Compassion fatigue can damage us and the work we do. Teams affected by compassion fatigue may contribute to a toxic work environment by becoming dispirited and cynical at work, making clinical errors, and losing a respectful tone toward clients and patients.

Read more about Compassion Fatigue, The Cost of Caring (pdf opens in new window) by Katherine Dobbs for Vet Tech Journal.

Great Minds Think Alike

Katherine — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:18:15 +0000

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.

In Denial: Boiled Alive

Katherine — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:45:17 +0000

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!

Have You Heard of Compassion Fatigue?

Katherine — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:10:10 +0000

As I make my way around the circuit of veterinary conferences, it’s interesting the reactions I receive when I mention that I talk on Compassion Fatigue. Some people know immediately what I’m referring to, either because they’ve heard the phrase before OR they simply realize that the topic’s name is self explanatory. This is particularly true of veterinary technicians, who often times have personal experience with the condition whether they knew it’s name or not.

Some people when they hear compassion fatigue, are a little more perplexed. A curious expression comes across their face, and I offer a bit more: “it’s the emotional cost that we bear from being in a care giving profession.” Oh, then they get it. Oftentimes these folks are veterinarians, who may inadvertently think that their training and education has bestowed some sort of magical protection from compassion fatigue. Yet when they pause to think of it, they realize that whatever immunity they may have had has long since dissipated, and they are therefore vulnerable.

The most difficult group to convince is the administrative team — the reception team and practice management. They can understand how the medical team may be subject to this emotional cost because they see them as the medical “care givers” in the truest sense of the word. So often they need to be reminded of how the elements of compassion fatigue also reach the front office and into the manger’s office. They provide “care giving” to the clients and to the practice team, and because they have often joined the profession with the goal of helping animals just like everyone else on the team, they are subject to compassion fatigue as well.

We will continue to explore the effects of compassion fatigue on each position, and how we can help heal ourselves and our practices.

Managers and Compassion Fatigue

Katherine — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:58:32 +0000

For most of us, it’s easy to understand why our veterinarians and technicians are susceptible to compassion fatigue, being on the front lines of major medical traumas and drama on a daily basis. It’s easy to assume that the manager or boss in the office is protected from compassion fatigue by their big desk, but that is so NOT true!

Managers and leaders in practice deal with their own brand of compassion fatigue, and it’s a doozy. The compassion fatigue survey reported in Compassion Fatigue in the Animal-Care Community (Figley & Roop, United States Humane Society) concluded that one of the top satisfiers for all positions in practice is contact with animals, and one of the top stressors for all positions is dealing with difficult clients.

Well, if you take a manager (particularly one that has “grown up” in veterinary medicine) and put them behind the desk with little or no contact with pets, and then ask them to handle all the really difficult client complaints, you have to be prepared for them to develop compassion fatigue. Once compassion fatigue affects a majority of the team, or any of the key leaders in the practice, then the entire practice becomes susceptible to Organizational Compassion Fatigue…a scary place to be!

There is hope, however, and ways we can prevent and minimize compassion fatigue for our team, our leaders, and our practice as a whole. The most important first step is awareness…Let the Cat Out of the Bag, and TALK about compassion fatigue with your team! Let them talk about difficult cases and medical disasters when nothing they could do would help bring that pet back…let them find out how the others on the team feel when faced with emergencies walking through the door…talk about how compassion fatigue affects EVERYONE on the team, from the kennel assistant to the front office team member, and everyone in between. Awareness is key!

Knowing What You Need

Katherine — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:52:56 +0000

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Michigan Association of Veterinary Technicians. The overall theme of the conference was The Human-Animal Bond, and my day-long track covered topics such as client communication, handling discontented and grieving clients, and compassion fatigue. In my other talks about compassion fatigue, I have learned that this is often a “quiet” lecture; there isn’t a lot of audience participation when it comes to discussing such a personal topic.

Yet the most gratifying part of my day occurs when the Power Point slides are over and the lecture is done, and veterinary professionals come up to me privately to thank me for the topic and the information. As one technician in Michigan said, “I needed this. I’ve attended medical CE often enough, but THIS is what I needed today.”

I applaud her and any of you who can realize what YOU need, and perhaps what you need is time to realize how to take care of yourself, less you fall victim to increasing compassion fatigue. It’s called the “cost of caring” for a reason; it costs our practices money, but it also costs our profession some really wonderful people who just couldn’t withstand the heart-strain that our work sometimes causes.

Make sure YOU know what you NEED, today and every day.