Nine dimensions of veterinary wellbeing and personal resilience

Abstract

Veterinarians, like all health professionals, are subject to multiple demands and stressors that at times in their careers can compromise satisfaction, engagement, and wellbeing. These stressors include high debt load, long hours, heavy workloads, client demands, navigating social media, and isolation. Our health as professionals can be conceptualized on a continuum, with optimal wellbeing at 1 end and burnout on the other. Veterinarians and the organizations they work within may move at times toward the wellbeing end of continuum, while others may move more towards burnout. A major component of maintaining personal wellbeing is resilience. Veterinarians that have strategies for overcoming adverse situations are more apt to avoid burnout. Individuals and organizations can play a role in fostering and promoting wellbeing through 9 dimensions: career, creative, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual.