When Personal Lives Don't Stay at Home

The other day we had an incident during morning treatments that profoundly upset the morale of our veterinary team. One of our technicians, who I will refer to as John, was getting a cat out of its cage when the cat became extremely fractious. This was not an unexpected event as the cat had been showing signs of aggression previously and John was prepared with leather gloves. However, the cat’s behavior escalated to bouncing off the walls in a furious ball of teeth and nails. John’s behavior escalated as well and he ended up knocking the cat’s head against the cage door as he forcibly removed it from the cage and slammed it down on the dental table, to the horror of everyone watching.

John’s reaction was unacceptable and needed to be addressed right away, for many reasons. Most obviously, animal abuse of any kind, regardless of the circumstance, goes against the very goals and values of our profession and there is zero tolerance for it. Being a practice that works with a lot of feral cat groups, dealing with fractious cats is nothing new for John. He had been increasingly grumpy over the days preceding this incident and his reaction to the situation was very uncharacteristic.

So what caused him to snap anyway? How likely is it that he will respond similarly in the future? Can we continue to trust him with the care of our hospitalized patients? These questions began to circulate amongst the staff following the incident and everyone remained on edge for the rest of the day. Although John was removed from the situation until he could gather himself and calm down, there was obviously a deeper problem that needed to be addressed.

This is where the separation between work life and personal life can get blurry. It was apparent to me that there must be something significant going on in John’s personal life that was being carried over into his professional life. His personal problems were negatively affecting both the team and our patients. However, privacy issues made it difficult to get to the root of the problem.

I was genuinely concerned for John’s mental well-being but did not want to overstep the lines of being a professional and so conducted myself as such. All I could do was express my concern and let him know that if there was anything we could do to help him through this time, to let us know. This was after the more clear conversation that his behavior earlier in the day was unacceptable and regardless of what precipitated his actions, he needed to find a way to control himself in his interactions with his co-workers and patients.

It is situations like this that make working in a smaller business community a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it becomes a familial atmosphere where a small group of people working closely together form a deep bond through the good and the bad. On the other hand, it can be more difficult to separate one’s work life from one’s personal life and there tends to be more emotional crossover. In a larger corporation the management is generally more removed and there are often onsite resources such as counseling and wellness services that employees can be referred to.

How should the veterinary profession handle situations such as these? I would like to think that there is a more holistic approach to correcting misguided actions that gets to the root of the problem and helps create more well-rounded, emotionally intelligent individuals. Just as medicine tends to be reactionary, personnel management also tends to be reactive rather than proactive. The long term investment in the well-being of individuals creates a stronger, more functional team.

What is the happy medium between providing life tools versus micromanaging the lives of employees? There is a broad spectrum of personality types and varying degrees of openness to self-improvement and personal well-being. I think that we can begin by at least creating an infrastructure for the people who are interested. We still let smokers take smoking breaks during work – why not let stressed individuals take 5 minutes to step outside, take a deep breath and re-center? Why not make personal days a standard benefit in addition to sick days?

If you work in a practice that promotes personal well-being as a strategy for a more productive and successful business, please share!