The Vet Vault: Veterinary Career, Clinical Skills & Wellbeing

For people who are feeling overwhelmed: that’s normal. One of the main messages I want to get out to the vets is to normalise the enormity and the depth of emotion that they’re going to experience. Because it’s new. And to not pathologise it. 

We live in a world where when we have an emotion we almost want to give it a Broadway musical: “Why am I feeling sad today? Let’s focus on that sadness.”  But in actual fact - it’s not a healthy way to deal with day tot day emotions. So when people are going to bed and they are reliving what they’ve experienced and they are fatigued and they’re thinking:  “My goodness, I’ve get to get up and face this again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” and on top of that they’ve lost their own properties, or they’re still at risk of loosing their properties.

To feel overwhelmed - can I just say: A HUNDRED PERCENT NORMAL!

Welcome to our third and final episode talking about dealing with trauma, loss and grief in a crisis situation, and specifically as it relates to the bushfire catastrophe that we are currently experiencing in Australia, with our super-star social worker Liz Crowe. In this episode Liz speaks to us about the weeks and months after the firestorm has passed: what happens once the crisis has abated and the world has stopped talking about it, but the victims, and those who went to help them, are left to pick up the pieces and deal with what they had experienced? The advice from this episode goes far beyond this particular situation: Liz gives some invaluable input into burnout and compassion fatigue in everyday life, and how to deal with it. 

Here are those resources again if you want to read more about Liz' work:

https://lizcrowe.org/about/

https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-1-liz-crowe-for-st-emlyns/

https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-2-st-emlyns/

Treatment advice for burn wounds and smoke inhalation: https://www.animalemergencyservice.com.au/news/vetapedia/emergency-burns-info/

The Australian Veterinary Association Benevolent Fund to provide assistance to affected veterinarians: https://www.ava.com.au/donate/

Welcome  to the next installment of our bushfire special series with Liz Crowe. 

In part two Liz tells us how we can best support someone who is caught up in a challenging situation, like the fires that our Aussie vets and thousands of other workers are currently dealing with. Watching our friends an colleagues give so much of themselves is inspiring, but sometimes we feel powerless to help if we aren’t right there on the front lines. Liz gives us the best answer I’ve heard so far on how we can be useful from afar.

Here are those resources again for listeners who need help during this challenging time:

Treatment guidelines for burn wounds and smoke inhalation:  https://www.animalemergencyservice.com.au/news/vetapedia/emergency-burns-info/

Liz's blog on wellbeing, part one:  https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-1-liz-crowe-for-st-emlyns/

Part two:  https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-2-st-emlyns/

And if you want to help your colleagues financially - The Australian Veterinary Association's Benevolent Fund:  https://www.ava.com.au/donate/

Liz Crowe is  an Advanced Clinician Social Worker who has worked extensively for 20 years with individuals, families and children impacted by grief, loss, trauma, crisis and bereavement. She’s worked in intensive care, emergency departments, cancer wards and all areas associated with children’s health.  In her current job in a children’s intensive care unit she is exposed daily to death, violence, trauma and illness and is now recognised as one of the most experienced counsellors in this field in Australia. Liz is passionate about assisting the community to understand the breadth of loss and grief and how to support yourself, your children, partners, family and friends during times of change and sadness. 

https://lizcrowe.org/about/

This is a special episode that we’re rushing out as a resource to our colleagues who are caught in the apocalyptic bushfire crisis that Australia is currently experiencing, but also for anyone who wants to support those in the crisis but feel unequipped to do so. Beyond the current crisis - we also believe that the advice from this episode’s spectacular guest will be a valuable resource to anyone who ever finds themselves in a crisis situation, or regularly deals with traumatic situations that puts them at risk of  compassion fatigue, burnout, and dark days in general. 

Our guest is Liz Crowe. Liz is  an Advanced Clinician Social Worker who has worked extensively for 20 years with individuals, families and children impacted by grief, loss, trauma, crisis and bereavement. She’s worked in intensive care, emergency departments, cancer wards and all areas associated with children’s health.  In her current job in a children’s intensive care unit she is exposed daily to death, violence, trauma and illness and is now recognised as one of the most experienced counsellors in this field in Australia.  Liz is passionate about assisting the community to understand the breadth of loss and grief and how to support yourself, your children, partners, family and friends during times of change and sadness, which is why we really needed to speak to her at this time. 

As expected from someone with such a depth of knowledge in their field we had a lot to talk about. We wanted to make sure that anyone who is currently in the thick of the action with limited leisure time for things like listening to podcasts could snatch a few moments to listen to this, so we’re deviating from our usual long form format and chopping the podcast into shorter episodes, starting with what to do while you are in the midst of a catastrophe such as this one. 

A few useful resources:

Treating burn wounds and smoke inhalation: https://www.animalemergencyservice.com.au/news/vetapedia/emergency-burns-info/

Liz' blog on dealing with grief and burnout = part one:  https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-1-liz-crowe-for-st-emlyns/

Part two:  https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-2-st-emlyns/

More about Liz:   https://lizcrowe.org/about/

For this episode we're trying something new. We've had so many valuable insights from our guests that we thought it would be well worth it to review some of our favourite bits. Join us as we dig deeper into  the topics that we think can make a big impact on your career. 

In this episode we explore some important themes from Dr Oliver Liyou, our guest from episode 4.  Oliver shared some hard-earned wisdom that can be career-, or even life-saving . If you missed Oliver the first time, or if you need a refresher, please join us as we review Oliver's 7 rules for surviving veterinary science.