Una guía veterinaria para escapar

TENDENCIAS VETERINARIAS | SEPTIEMBRE 2022

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Para muchos veterinarios, la idea de irse de vacaciones es casi ridícula. Entre la abrumadora
cantidad de casos y las prácticas con poco personal, tomarse unas vacaciones nunca se había
sentido tan imposible, pero tampoco había sido tan importante para el bienestar de los
veterinarios.

Siga leyendo para ver cómo estos 4 veterinarios manejan la negociación del tiempo de
vacaciones, la negación de las solicitudes de tiempo libre y las notas del caso que se acumulan
cuando se van.
¿Tu práctica te ayuda a ti y a tus compañeros de trabajo a tomar
tiempo libre? ¿Alguna vez ha cancelado, cambiado o no tomado
vacaciones por un problema relacionado con el trabajo?

Sí [apoyan el tiempo de vacaciones]. Ahora más que nunca, desde el COVID. Estamos viendo
que se vuelve más importante para los veterinarios... Los primeros 10 años que estuve en la
práctica, trabajé en una práctica de animales mixtos, con un propietario mayor. La actitud era:
“Te tomaste unas vacaciones hace un año, ¿por qué necesitas unas vacaciones? Esa es una
idea ridícula”. Ahora, más veterinarios se están moviendo hacia prácticas administradas más
modernas. Creo que ha mejorado mucho.

Entre mis amigos veterinarios, tengo el lujo de saber que no tengo que trabajar donde no se
permite una cantidad decente de vacaciones. Es un mercado de asociados. Soy un veterinario
con experiencia. Me encantan mis dos trabajos. Para muchos de nosotros de 15 a 25 años, es
"dame mis vacaciones o búscate a alguien más". Es una gran razón por la que la gente cambia
a trabajos veterinarios alternativos y de socorro.

—Veterinario, divide su tiempo entre la práctica general y la práctica ortopédica especializada,

Maryland

Luché por 144 horas de tiempo libre pagado en mi contrato. Eso incluye tiempo de
enfermedad también. Nos dan tres días para CE fuera de eso. Normalmente no lo uso todo,
pero cuando mi hija contrajo COVID y tuvo que ponerse en cuarentena, tuve que usar cinco
días.

Ciertos médicos solicitan su tiempo libre con mucha anticipación y ha sido la regla que
obtengan la aprobación. Si ambos solicitáramos el mismo día libre, ninguno de los dos sería
aprobado. Particularmente para Navidad, el mensaje fue: "Esa persona siempre lo ha hecho
de esa manera, así que no puedes tener ese tiempo libre". Tengo una hija pequeña, así que
eso es un desafío.

A mi práctica no le gusta usar veterinarios de relevo. Sé que mi decisión de no estar allí pesará
más en mi compañero de trabajo, especialmente con la forma en que COVID ha aumentado
nuestro número de casos. Parece que tomarse una semana libre es mucho pedir.
 —Veterinario en una práctica de animales pequeños de dos ubicaciones, DC/Virginia

La práctica en la que estoy ahora apoya absolutamente el tiempo libre. En mi práctica

anterior, solo había otros dos médicos en el turno de noche. Si me tomaba vacaciones, eso
dejaba solo a quienquiera que estuviera trabajando. No había voluntad real para ayudar a
cubrir los turnos. Nadie aceptaría mi turno de noche. Realmente se sentía como si estuvieras
jodiendo a alguien más. Fue difícil mentalmente hacerle eso a otra persona porque sabías que
se iba a ahogar. Casi había que hacer trabajo extra para conseguir que alguien cubriera ese
turno.

—Veterinario, práctica de animales mixtos, Kansas

¿Tu práctica realmente te permite escapar? ¿Alguna vez su lugar de

trabajo se comunicó con usted cuando estuvo de vacaciones o se
tomó días libres?

Sí, pero siempre lo hablamos de antemano y decimos si está bien que se comuniquen con
nosotros. Diré que la única razón por la que quiero que me llames es si mis animales están
enfermos o si mi casa se está incendiando. De lo contrario, no me molestes. Eso es lo bueno
de ese tipo de vacaciones. Hay algo muy especial en poder desconectarse por completo.

—Veterinario, divide su tiempo entre la práctica general y la práctica ortopédica especializada,

Maryland

Intentan no hacerlo, pero siempre hay uno o dos textos que llegan para aclarar algo o
preguntar algo.
 I graduated in 2006, and when I first started working, I had a hard time separating work and
life and shutting off the work. As I've come along, I’ve had to learn that I have to set
boundaries for myself so that I have time with my daughter. No one else is going to look out
for that. I tell myself that it is important that I leave at 6 today to go see her recital. And if it
doesn't happen, I'm not going to remember what case kept me late. I've learned that as I've
gotten older.

—Veterinarian at a two-location small animal practice, DC/Virginia

What happens at the clinic when you're gone? How are your
patients managed? Do you face a backlog of work when you return
to the clinic?

We are a 3-doctor practice at each location, so only one of us is off at a time. If I'm not there
one day, then it all falls to the other doctor. They would get all the client calls, as opposed to
half of them. And all the blood work results. They can sift through them, and some can wait,
and some can't. Ultimately, it's a lot on one person.

Even when we know well in advance that there's not going to be 2 doctors on, the schedule
isn’t ever adjusted to reflect that. Instead of leaving more openings for those same-day sick
patients to fit in, they'll just completely book our schedule and then ask, “Can't you see one
more patient on your lunch break?”

—Veterinarian at a two-location small animal practice, DC/Virginia

Most things are handled by the other veterinarians. We do a pretty good job at both practices
of picking up each other's urgent questions. I normally ask most of my clients to email me how
their pet is doing in 2 weeks. I put an out-of-office reply on my email that says to call the clinic
for an urgent matter. I answer email when I can. If I'm at the beach, I might take half an hour in
the afternoon and answer a few emails. If I'm on a cruise, I'm not turning on my email. We all
try to help each other out to prevent a big backlog situation. We also try to keep clients happy.
If there are urgent inquiries, we handle them. We screen out questions that can wait until we
get back.
 —Veterinarian, splits time between general practice and specialty orthopedic practice, Maryland

Somebody else fills in. Our practice owners are not full time on the schedule, so often they end
up being the ones to fill in if somebody's away. Occasionally relief doctors come in, too. When I
get back there’s usually some catching up to do, but a lot of the time the team keeps up with
things so that there's very little that needs to be caught up on.

I’m preparing to open my own practice. I'm hiring an associate right off the bat so that we can
continue to take week-long vacations. I want to be able to step away. That was a big priority
for me. I do have a manager and I will have an associate.

—Veterinarian, small animal general practice, Virginia

They don't bring in a relief vet. They just block out my schedule, so there are no appointments
in my column. My coworkers are then picking up a bit of slack because there's not another
person to cover clients who call day-of. But what I do like about this practice is they leave
blocks for day-of emergencies. We always leave a block of time in the afternoon for vomiting,
diarrhea, or an urgent case that needs to be seen today. That hour is already built into the
schedule. It's very rare that the time slot is not filled. It helps keep the day on track and
prevents a train wreck.

At my previous practice, I was 1 of 9 doctors. We had fully booked schedules, there was no
built-in time anywhere, and we saw walk-ins on top of that. We typically saw 20 to 40 walk-ins
a day. They had a rule that you could not leave your shift if there was a walk-in who arrived
before your shift ended. I worked the late shift and there was nobody to pick up slack. I
typically worked 2 hours after my shift ended.

—Veterinarian, mixed-animal practice, Kansas

What kind of prep work do you do in advance of taking vacation to

reduce stress?
 If there are crucial labs, or a patient is ill, I’ll round with the doctor who will be there, so that
they don’t have to wait for me to get back to move forward. I don't want them waiting for me
to come back. I will pick those most important cases and ask the team to watch for those. I’ll
have my technician screen the labs as they come back in to look for anything majorly wrong or
that needs to be addressed right away.

—Veterinarian at a two-location small animal practice, DC/Virginia

I prepare my notes and make sure everything is up to date. If one of my patients revisits while
I'm gone, then [the other doctors] know what I did and my thought process behind it so they
can better handle that follow-up.

It was the same at my previous practice but getting time off involved a big trade. A colleague
would offer, “If you'll work the night shift, I'll cover your on-call when I get back,” to sweeten
the deal.

At my current practice, when I told them I had a big trip planned, they just built the call
schedule around it so that I wouldn’t have to trade with anyone. I was on call the weekend
before and the weekend after I got back. So there was no need to switch and swap and try to
get people to cover shifts.

—Veterinarian, mixed-animal practice, Kansas

Your Voice in Clinician's Brief

We're talking to our readers about everything from practice vacation policies to euthanasia—
and there's no right answers. Fill out the submission form here to participate!

Do clients ever react positively or negatively to you taking a

vacation?
 I've had a lot of the same clients for 15 years. It's inevitable that if you take vacation, one of
your clients will need you and you're not going to be there. That's just reality. I'm a human
being and I'm allowed to take vacation. I'm reachable most of the time, too. I answer emails,
answer text messages.

Quite honestly, I've planned for the next five years to be a veterinarian who takes a fair bit of
vacation. If that's not a good fit for [my client], they’re welcome to find somebody else. I'm a
good veterinarian 48 weeks of the year. But I work with wonderful veterinarians, we always
have someone wonderful here in this office. And if that's not good enough for you, then sorry.

—Veterinarian, splits time between general practice and specialty orthopedic practice, Maryland

I try to warn clients ahead of time if I'm not going to be the one doing their follow-up or lab
work. But in general, most people seem to be neutral to it.

—Veterinarian, small animal general practice, Virginia

What strategies do you use to put work aside while on vacation?

What travel tips and advice can you offer for your fellow
veterinarians who might struggle to truly get away?

It's about making time off a priority. The more you do it, the more you get used to it. We've
increased our trips over the years as the kids got older. Ever since they were born, we have
traveled. The more we do it, the easier the planning becomes and it’s less stressful because we
know what we're doing. We know the things on our checklist that we need to get done. Now
that the kids are starting to get older, we're starting to think about taking them internationally
and on bigger trips.

—Veterinarian at a small animal general practice in Northern Virginia

You must give yourself permission. I think this is something that's a learned skill. I don't think I
was good at this early on. I also think the attitude of my coworkers and my employers helps,
when everyone agrees it’s OK to be on vacation. Communicating with your coworkers and
planning is also important.

Decide what your priorities are and find a job where the way vacation happens fits your
personality. A good vacation policy is part of what attracts me to a job. I'm old enough that my
debt problem is not what it is for new graduates. For me, compensation means something
different.

You might not be able to find a $30,000 sign-on bonus and excellent health insurance and 4 or
5 weeks of PTO and CE. But if vacation is what's important to you, you can find jobs where
that's valued and allowed.

—Veterinarian, splits time between general practice and specialty orthopedic practice, Maryland

Vacation is important. You think you’re doing clients or patients a favor by staying and
toughing it out. But the problem with that is they're not getting the best you. Your brain can't
function past that capacity. You need a break to practice good medicine, to provide service
that people want. To provide that kind of medicine, time off is just as necessary as time on. 

At the end of my 2.5 years [at my previous practice], I was getting super emotional about
things that I had never gotten emotional about before. After a tough case, I would have to take
30 minutes and go cry it out. That was my brain saying, “You need to slow down. You need to
take a day off.” The next patient I saw after a meltdown was not getting what they needed from
me. I was just so scared to take time off. Vacation is just as necessary as being there.

It is hard to stop and it's hard to feel like you're abandoning people. But you can't just keep
your nose to the grindstone and think that one of these days it'll get better. You must take that
time off and recollect and recenter yourself.

—Veterinarian, mixed-animal practice, Kansas

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Claude Morris • 2 days ago

I have owned a practice for 22 years and have never seen such shortages of staff or
weight of demands put upon them. I went from a three vet practice to a single vet practice
as one went into semi-retirement and the other to large animal medicine due to the
pressures from clients. So for vacation I simply shut the practice down entirely and
everyone took holiday time together. All the staff were onboard with the idea and it
worked out well. Feedback was almost 100% positive, as most people who are our
devoted clients see how hard my staff work. The few negative remarks that come from
those who feel entitled or see us as veterinary vending machines are of little
consequence in the big picture.
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jeff legato, DVM • 8 days ago

OMG. Solo practitioner here. I haven't had a day off in...four years- and when I was sick, I
learned that relief vets come in the following flavors: too expensive (we are a small clinic),
unavailable or unreliable. I've even tried contacting relief services companies, but they
either want too much or don't service my area. Looks like I'll just have to close if I ever
want a few days off, never mind if I become sick!
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