layout: true background-image: url(../../images/slide_background.jpg) background-size: cover class: middle --- ## Managing Time and Expectations ### Medium Reads --- ### “They are terrified from Day 1 and it takes them a while to realise they can cock up an awful lot before anyone notices anything’s gone wrong. 70% of everything gets better off its own back so as long as you don’t do anything too harmful, things often get better in spite of what you do, not because of what you do. They are also obsessed that everything has to be perfectly diagnosed and perfectly treated. It’s unrealistic. Setting yourself up to fail.” --- ### “My phone was always switched on, messages left for me which could be really negative, if left by someone who was really frustrated. So, I’ve learnt now, when I’m off, I’m off. I do feel bad that I can’t help someone when I’m not working but I need my work / life balance to be right.” --- ### “Work just keeps piling on but now, I can just say no to things. I’ve learnt those mechanisms. I’ve also learnt ‘do more exercise’, ‘get your mind to think of other things’. I’ve taken up my hobbies again and can completely switch off from other things. And the world still revolves. Closing a door sometimes, saying I need to back off – someone else can look after you for a while. You have to look after yourself, otherwise you can’t help anybody.” --- ### “You kind of need to be able to say, actually I don’t really need to go and do that, I can send one of the other members of staff to go and do that. You need to make yourself more available and you need to prioritise. And it’s difficult because, as vets, we have always, particularly as livestock vets, it’s always been about the animals and the clients. It’s customer first.” --- ### “… trying and change that perception that we have to know everything. Because you feel a little bit that we’re supposed to know everything about their industry, everything about how to raise sheep properly, but in fact, we can’t be experts in everything. We come from a veterinary perspective and we can learn from them (farmers). --- ### “It’s a skill to know when you need help. So sometimes, some vets will pick up the phone too readily because they won’t back themselves – they need confidence in their own ability… knowing when to just back yourself and say, “look I’m going to crack on and do my best” or when to say, “I’m not quite sure what the best course of action is” or, “it’s a two vet job.” --- ### “We all have those moments when you think “Oh My God”. An adrenaline moment. But just because you’re having adrenaline, doesn’t mean you have to call for help – it’s knowing you can be the person in charge.” --- ### “When you’re inexperienced, fixing that individual animal can be something new and something rewarding. So if you’ve got a farmer with a lameness problem, if you’ve treated an individual lame cow successfully, showing him that you’re competent, you’ve started on building that relationship even if you haven’t solved the overall problem. Feeling those skills building up over time.” --- ### “Satisfaction … for me is when I have a motivating salary and motivating working hours. When I first started in UK, on-call hours always shifted so I couldn’t plan my free time, so it’s really important when the on-call shifts are fixed so you know in advance when you’re working and when you’re free.” --- ### “De-motivating is long working hours, being on call too often, i.e. if someone leaves and you get extra shifts which can continue for a certain undefined period of time, especially if they don’t have a fixed schedule.” --- ### “It’s quite bad that the lunch breaks are not counted in. Most vets either eat in the car when they’re driving or just before their next visit, so you don’t get a dedicated half hour lunch break. I’ve spoken with some of my colleagues and some of them have an hour in farm animal practice and that’s amazing but even half an hour would be amazing.” --- ### “Also, very important is to analyse anything that happens at work or on farms and think what could I have done differently and being better prepared for next time. Talking to colleagues, important to have meetings, discussions. And thinking ahead – if you have a stressful visit ahead, it’s good to have a bit of time to prepare yourself so that you’re not overwhelmed when you arrive.” --- ### “It depends on the person but the more experience you have with different people and situations you realise you do your best. You can’t expect to get along with everyone and there will be clashes, but I think it comes down to the individual and how they deal with situations. For me it hasn’t been extremely stressful, but I find that analysing the situation in your head afterward is really helpful.” --- ### “Communication skills are really, really important. You touch on it at vet school, but nothing prepares you for what it actually is. And you look at other people in the service industry who didn’t go to university for 5 years and they are so much better at it than us. I can tell you a lot of things, but I can’t communicate with a farmer who is yelling at me and telling me to get off his farm.” --- ### “A lot of this job I do love though. But when that romantic image of what you thought you’d be doing, when that pops, it really hits hard. Everyone gets into this profession because they love animals but it’s not that simple.” --- ### “Over time you can accept that not every animal you treat is going to get better. Things that you get presented with have maybe been treated multiple times by the farmer and there’s little more to be done … it might be things that it’s been left too long by the farmer, facilities are sub-standard. So not always the vet’s fault if there is a bad outcome.” --- ### “I come from a farming background, so I don’t find it too bad. Others not from a farming background expect more. The reality of farming definitely conflicts with what they think should be done.” --- ### “Farmers have to be a bit more business-like, more animal welfare aware. There’s a lot of farmers who are really good – if they get a bad calving, they take it as their fault – a mistake somewhere. Whereas other farmers, if things go wrong, it’s the vet’s fault, they don’t see that they could have prevented it.” --- ### “I think it’s maybe the way vet school is done. Everyone’s got to be gold standard / perfect and that’s not relevant to everyday practice. The change from the vet school, hospital-like environment to rural mixed practice - because it’s not always going to be the same facilities and expertise in the practice! Realising that everything’s not going to be perfect all the time.” --- ### “The better, longer lasting the relationship, the more farmers trust / value you and the more they will use you for in depth activities rather than just the first aid type of thing, e.g. In the herd health / planning in depth management side of things.” --- ### “When you come out of vet school, depending on levels of competence and levels of confidence varies between individuals, there is a learning curve that young vets have to go on until they reach the point where they feel they’re confident and their farming clients feel their confidence… how long it takes varies from person to person and practice to practice.” --- ### “If both of a couple are working full time with a young family and on call as well, can be a real demand on time. If you can do part-time work, even for a certain period of time, that can be really helpful as well.” --- ### “The transition from a student to a vet has been interesting. You’re never actually finished, there’s always stuff that needs doing. Learn how to prioritise things. That’s not one of the things you expect. There’s never an end point which I suppose is the transition from school and Uni to life.” --- ### “One thing I learned in my nearly 5 years graduated is, sometimes these things go wrong because of other factors; the farmer hasn’t rung you soon enough or he’s made the wrong decision. And you’re coming out to clear up the mess.” --- ### “I’m competitive and I want to win them all. But I’ve learned that that is a streak that is in most vets and we’ve probably been caught up on perfection which isn’t possible in the farm animal world or usually in veterinary at all.” --- ### “I would make it that your time off was definitely off. I think that’s the main thing that wears you down. You’re supposed to have a lunch break, but you don’t. You’re supposed to finish at 6.00 pm, but you don’t. I would make it more like a shift pattern.” --- ### “You’ve got to be realistic, can’t sort everything out. The key is, “manage expectations, don’t boast, be humble, keep up to date”. So that you believe that most of what you’re doing is as good as what anyone else is doing.” --- ### “The reality of the profession, once you’ve gone through 5 years, is very different to the dream of a 16 / 18-year-old kid wanting of being a vet. And I think, that contributes to the mental illness side of things, particularly with high achieving, very intelligent people (doctors and dentists too). And I think that’s one of the areas where the reality of the profession needs to be conveyed clearly to the people that are coming into it.” --- ### “I try and disassociate myself from it. It’s my role to advise them of what I think should happen. It’s not my role to be on their farm, holding their hand for them and doing everything for them. Because you have to draw the line somewhere.” --- ### “They are teaching new graduates to be specialists when we need them to be generalists, to know that not everything is going to be ideal. And you sometimes have to take things right back to basics and stay there for a very long time before you can do more fancy stuff. So, it’s about measuring your expectations to fit your client base.” --- ### “As a young graduate you want to do everything – go the extra mile for your clients. Maybe a year of that you can cope with. But after that, you’ve got to get out of that place and go and do other things. And in some jobs it just sucks you in and it feels like there’s no way you have time to do all the work.” --- ### “If I’ve done my best, and the farmers done his best. You can’t do anything more and you have to accept that sometimes. No matter how good you are, no matter how experienced you are, things do not work out the way you want them.” --- ### “Every so often I think, if I’d done that slightly different or if I’d taken that option sooner, it might have been a different outcome. And yes, sometimes I will feel disappointed, maybe I could have done better. Even now, that still happens. But you have to make a choice, dependent on what you see, and thankfully 95/6/7% it’s right. But every so often, you get it wrong.” --- ### “The relationships between partners and directors could be challenging – no major fallout but was difficult. In a large practice, and in any business, there will always be a handful of difficult clients and we weren’t immune to that.” --- ### “New grads, vets in general, we expect so much of ourselves, we must save every animal – it’s really important to remember we’re dealing with biological specimens that don’t do “textbook” who don’t do what we want them to do. So you have to accept that you won’t save everything – all you can do is your best at all times. And if you’re doing your best, that’s all anyone can ask of you.”