This one's for Dr. Stephanie Smith, Jacksonville, NC. She knows why.
There's a running conversation a DVM colleague and I used to have at the end of particularly brutal days in the clinic. Every morning, we'd give ourselves the same pep talk: "Try not to be an asshole today." Then we'd circle back at the end of the shift and report how we did.
Spoiler? Sometimes the answer was, "Welp. I failed."
Let me be clear: we were not out here intentionally setting out to be jerks. But in the whirlwind that is veterinary medicine, complete with frantic pace, emotionally charged moments, and one printer that never works, we're human. And sometimes we snap.
Snapping doesn't make you a bad person. Refusing to reflect on it does.
Self-Reflection in Veterinary Leadership: Why Owning Your Mistakes Matters
We all have those moments. You're short with a teammate. You roll your eyes on the phone with a client, even though they can't see you. You quietly beat yourself up for missing something in a case. Sometimes the hardest person on you is you.
Self-reflection is not wallowing. It's not performative guilt or a spiral of self-criticism. It's just pausing long enough to ask: what was I actually feeling in that moment, and was it really about the client or the tech or the patient, or was I just maxed out?
Owning your behavior is the first step toward doing better next time. That's all it has to be.
How to Apologize Effectively as a Veterinary Leader
You are not a robot. You are going to lose your cool sometimes. The strength is in the follow-up.
Apologize to your team when you've been short with them. Apologize to a client when you know the interaction went sideways. Apologize to yourself when you've spent all day silently punishing yourself for not being perfect. And mean it. We don't need theatrical guilt. We need accountability and a little grace.
"I'm responsible for what I said, and I'm sorry." That's it. Say it, mean it, move on.
Veterinary Hospital Burnout: Fixing the Systems Behind the Behavior
Here's where a lot of people stop. The apology happens, the moment passes, and nothing actually changes. Then the same triggers appear a week later and you're right back in it.
If you keep having the same reactions, it's worth asking whether the environment is set up to bring out your worst instead of your best. In veterinary medicine, the usual suspects are pretty predictable.
Veterinary Scheduling: How Structure Protects Your Team's Effectiveness
Are your appointments stacked without breathing room? No margin for the walk-in pyometra, the euthanasia that needs extra time, or lunch? A schedule that works on paper doesn't always work in practice.
The scheduling conversation is one most veterinarians never actually have. The calendar appears each morning and you work it. But how your day is structured, whether surgeries are front-loaded or scattered, whether there's buffer built in or every slot is filled to the minute, directly affects your clinical judgment, your patience, and your ability to show up for the next patient the way the last one deserved.
A few things worth asking: Do you have any input into how your days are built, or is that entirely someone else's decision? Is there a system for when things run long, because they will run long, or does the burden fall entirely on you to absorb it? Are your high-focus cases scheduled when your brain is actually at its best?
If you've never had a real conversation about any of this, that conversation is overdue. And if you're the one doing the scheduling, listen to your team. What looks efficient on a spreadsheet can be quietly exhausting in practice. The right schedule preserves your effectiveness and your empathy. The wrong one just helps you survive until Friday.
Veterinary Staffing: Putting the Right People in the Right Roles
It's not just about how many people you have. It's about who is doing what and when. A non-morning person running surgery drop-offs at 7:40 a.m. is a problem you built. Play to people's strengths, align skillsets with tasks, and be honest about team dynamics. A well-set-up team runs like a relay race. A poorly set-up one feels like bumper cars at the county fair.
Training and Expectations in a Veterinary Hospital
Before you spiral about the team member making the same mistake repeatedly, pause and ask: do they actually know what's expected of them? Is there a real training system, or are new hires tossed into the deep end and expected to figure it out while juggling blood draws and ringing phones? People learn at different paces and in different ways. Get curious before you get angry. If someone is struggling, support them before you write them off. Chances are, they want to do a good job just as much as you want them to.
Setting Client Boundaries in a Veterinary Practice
Clients don't teach you how to treat them. You teach them. If someone is calling at 3 p.m. on a Friday for an urgent refill because they're leaving for a trip at 5 p.m., they learned that was acceptable because it was allowed. Once. And then again. And then it became the expectation.
Boundaries only work if they're held consistently, and that means everyone on the team holding the same line. The most damaging dynamic in a veterinary practice is the one where policies exist on paper but bend in practice depending on who the client is talking to. Staff learn quickly which clients get exceptions and which DVMs will override the front desk. Once that pattern is established it is very hard to undo, and the people who pay the price first are the ones at the front desk who had to say no and then watched someone else say yes.
Setting boundaries isn't about being inflexible or losing clients. It's about building a practice where your team feels supported and your clients understand what a respectful working relationship looks like. The clients who push hardest against reasonable policies are rarely your best clients. And the team members who watch leadership fold under pressure don't feel protected. They feel disposable. And eventually, they leave.
How to Handle Noncompliant Clients Without Losing Your Mind
If you're explaining flea allergy dermatitis for the third time to the same owner who still won't buy flea prevention, stop expecting a different result from the same approach. Change the medium. Try a diagram, a handout, a link to a reputable source. If nothing lands, there's no shame in calling in reinforcements. And either way, you'll have a story for the end-of-day debrief.
The Bottom Line
Being a vet is a calling and a privilege and, on the hard days, something that requires every resource you have. You're not always going to get it right. But if you can pause, reflect, apologize with honesty, and actually look at the systems around you, you're not just surviving. You're building something worth showing up for.
Tomorrow morning: let's try not to be assholes.
— Dr. V
The Gray Oak Journal