I’m generally a big fan of the various vet-related Facebook groups – they provide a less formal way to keep in touch with veterinary news, while offering a wealth of information from numerous different types of people across the profession.
In minutes, a post looking for opinions can offer a “thousand ways to skin a cat” (although not literally, I hope). Everything must be taken with a pinch of salt, of course, as some of the serial posters who crop up can seem very experienced when I know, in truth, they are not long graduated.
The downside is some very opinionated posters can steamroll right over other professionals’ opinions – and once a couple of other vets jump on the bandwagon, it can soon escalate into a series of demeaning and patronising comments. Sometimes this isn’t even intentional, as satire or sarcasm can often be lost through the keyboard and may come across as offensive when only meant in jest.
A number of admins on these groups do a fantastic job of trying to regulate these posts before they do get out of hand, but when some threads have hundreds of comments, even they may miss things.
Kids these days…
A running theme I’ve witnessed recently is “new grad bashing” – where, unfortunately, some seemingly older, “more experienced” vets were in agreement on a number of aspects.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, but labelling new grads as lazy is offensive, while referring to us as “kids” is just patronising – as if younger vets don’t face enough comments alluding to how young they look on a daily basis from clients, we do not need it from our professional colleagues.
Although the profession does seem to be dragging itself forward (slowly, but surely), this attitude of “well I went through it, so they should too” is still lingering with a number of older vets. In a time of a profession-wide retention and recruitment crisis, there is just no time for such an old-fashioned viewpoint.
It’s not me, it’s you
Recruiting new graduates is relatively easy; keeping them in the profession long term, however, is seemingly difficult and should, therefore, be a key focus to stop losing extremely talented people to other sides of the industry. This will only happen if the older generations accept new graduates want or will tolerate different things, and alter their practice models to suit.
I have discussed the pros and cons of outsourcing out-of-hours cover previously, and no right or wrong answer seems to exist; both in-house and outsourced OOH can be equally poorly staffed in certain circumstances.
However, if you cannot recruit vets because they don’t want to cover small animal OOH, and your practice is the only one in the area that continues to provide its own cover, rejigging your business model is likely to be more successful than berating new grads on social media for being lazy.
The same goes for any business – if you don’t move forward as client, staff and public expectations or demand changes, you will get left behind and be left struggling. This is where the corporates have capitalised, offering more attractive wages and a better work-life balance on paper, and leaving many independents unwilling to change, left clinging to the nostalgic view that, somehow, overworking your staff for poorer pay is a better way of life.
Law of the land
In terms of working hours, regardless of OOH cover, for too long has the veterinary profession dodged the law regarding appropriate shift lengths and breaks.
Many practice owners would argue that, as a medical profession, our hours can never be fully fixed and we consent to sign out of the EU Working Time Directive in our contracts… but is this really by choice if we can’t get a job as a practising vet without signing away this legal right?
As for breaks, some vets will have unpaid lunch breaks worked into their contract, yet barely ever get the opportunity to stop for food. How is that still acceptable in 2019? But we are “lazy” if we question this, we have been “misled” if we question our salary and we are “snowflakes” if we struggle emotionally with the job.
I disagree – we are simply human.
We are not – and will not become – the shadow of the person we once were because we have been worked into the ground and every generation before us has “just dealt with it”.
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