Veterinarian Mental Well-being
My Contribution and Research
As an interdisciplinary researcher and veterinary epidemiologist, I am extremely fortunate to be able to contribute to improving the well-being of the veterinary profession and pursue my Ph.D. research at the same time. In June 2025, I started writing blog-style articles and collected them here as a way to break down findings from my thesis, into bite-sized chunks of information, in hopes of improving the accessibility of the research findings.
Veterinarian Mental Well-being in 2025
In 1980, Blair and Hayes discovered that veterinary professionals had higher suicide rates compared to the average population. Over 40 years and potentially hundreds of published studies later, what have we learned? And, more importantly, where are we headed next?
Veterinary Feelings
Veterinary medicine is an undeniably emotional profession. Veterinarians are subject to emotional distress on a regular basis, whether that is their own emotions—perhaps brought by the inevitable failure to save a patient— or the clients’ emotions, from losing a beloved pet. With this constant exposure to extremely emotional situations, it’s no wonder that many veterinarians experience empathic distress, eventually leading to burnout and, in some cases, leaving the profession.
In 2022-2023, I interviewed 21 early-career veterinarians in Canada, asking them about emotional experiences in their clinical practice as part of my doctoral thesis research, now published as the article, “A qualitative exploration of the emotional experiences and applications of emotional intelligence in early-career veterinarians”. This article below, summarizes the findings in a more digestible language.
Relevant Publications
Previous Presentations
| Title | Date | Categories |
|---|---|---|
| Doctoral Thesis Defence | May 2, 2025 | Oral |
| How can Emotional Intelligence benefit veterinarians? | Jun 10, 2025 | Poster |
| “A Multitude of Emotions” in Veterinary Work | Nov 13, 2024 | Oral |