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In this week’s episode:

• The Veterinary Profession Faces Unique Mental Health Challenges: Veterinary professionals are at a higher risk of mental health struggles, including burnout and suicide, partly due to the perfectionist mindset required to enter the profession, high levels of empathy, and moral injury from not always being able to provide the care they aspire to.
• Psychological Health and Safety Requires a Multi-Level Approach: Wellbeing in veterinary workplaces involves individual resilience, leadership fostering psychological safety, and organisational policies that support mental health, such as monitoring burnout and improving communication.
• Reducing Stigma Around Mental Health is Crucial: A key initiative has been removing harmful language from licensing applications that discouraged professionals from seeking mental health support, demonstrating the importance of reducing stigma at an institutional level.
• Measuring Wellbeing is as Important as Measuring Financial Performance: Veterinary practices track financial and operational data meticulously, but they should also measure workplace wellbeing through assessments, communication feedback, and proactive mental health initiatives to create a healthier work environment.

Dr. Richmond is a practicing veterinarian and the Founder & CEO of Flourishing Phoenix Veterinary Consultants. He advocates and consults for positive culture and individual, team, and organisational psychological health, safety, and wellbeing in veterinary workplaces.

Additional Guest Spotlights

• Ryan Leech: Ryan Leech recommends Reddit as a valuable platform for accessing community-driven insights across various topics, including veterinary forums, AI, and Formula One, and highlights the Giga Brain Chrome plugin for efficiently sourcing relevant discussions from Reddit.
• Next episode sneak peak: Next week, we welcome Bruce Truman to explore the evolving role of technology in veterinary care, the power of an abundance mentality in driving innovation, and how embracing emerging tech can future-proof your practice.

Show Notes

• Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
• Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
• Dr. Richmond is a practicing veterinarian and the Founder & CEO of Flourishing Phoenix Veterinary Consultants.
• He has served as Chief Medical Officer for Veterinary United. He is also a member/advisor for several national committees and boards for workplace suicide prevention, psychological health & safety, and veterinary wellbeing, including those sponsored by the CDC/NIOSH, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Veterinary Visionaries, MentorVet, and Appalachian State University. 
• Dr. Richmond is a speaker and published writer, including having co-authored the recent publication of “Psychological Health and Safety Guidelines” from Veterinary Visionaries. He is a frequent veterinary podcast guest, and holds multiple certifications in applied positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, workplace wellbeing, psychological health & safety, trauma-informed workplaces, resilience training, behavior change, and suicide prevention.
• Phil was awarded the FVMA Gold Star for service in 2019, FVMA Veterinarian of the Year in 2021, the Uncharted Veterinary Community Founder’s Award in 2023, and a finalist for the 2024 US Bright Minds Veterinary Wellness Champion Award.
• Phil recommends reading ‘The Culture Code’, by Daniel Coyle, and ‘The Fearless Organization‘ by Amy Edmondson. Phil also recommends the following podcasts, Unfiltered Vet Discussions and The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast
  

Transcription

Jack Peploe:

Coming up on modern veterinary practice…

Dr. Phil Richmond:

The veterinary industry, we are at higher risk. And I want to say that there’s some confusion a little bit around the data. Certainly the suicide risk is one of the things that we hear most about and as happens with anything when we talk about suicide, is that is multifactorial. Some of that has to do with who we are, who we select to come into the profession.

Jack Peploe:

Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe. In this episode, I’m excited to welcome Dr. Phil Richmond, a practicing  veterinarian and a leading advocate for psychological health, safety, and wellbeing in the veterinary profession. Phil has worked extensively on national and international initiatives, aiming at improving workplace culture, reducing burnout, and fostering environments where veterinary professionals can thrive. Today we’ll dive into the realities of mental health in the industry, the impact of leadership on team wellbeing, and the practical strategies that you can create lasting change in veterinary workplaces. Get ready for an insightful and thought provoking discussion about how we can build a healthier, more sustainable future for veterinary professionals.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

So I’m Phil Richmond. I’m a veterinarian, practicing  veterinarian. I work a lot in psychological health and safety, wellbeing, those aspects of veterinary practice, which if I would’ve told fourth year me that, Hey, by the way, you’re going to be doing this, I would add some choice four letter words for crusty, crusty old me now. And I think that’s the beautiful thing, is what is this journey that now I get to be a part of all these committees and work with wonderful people, and we’ve put out a lot of content and just brought a lot of light to this. So that’s the area. Without getting into, people joke about the, and let me also say this, I’m in long-term recovery from alcohol and substances. The reason why I say that is if you ever look at my bio, the number of letters after we joke that I do certifications like I used to drink. So it, it’s mildly ridiculous. But I have a genuine passion because without being over the top and getting serious, these principles genuinely help save my life and help me love veterinary medicine again, which is why I’m so, so passionate about helping, I should say, helping bring this to the profession.

Jack Peploe:

Well, Phil, I am super excited to have you on the One Veterinary Practice podcast now as a leading advocate for positive culture and wellbeing in veterinary workspaces. I thought today’s episode we could go into your insights on fostering a healthier work environment in veterinary medicine as ultimately it’s really, really relevant right now. Now, obviously, take me back. What initially drew you to focus on psychological health and safety in veterinary workspaces?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

As it happens, if I’m talking to my kids with algebra or math, one thing builds on another. So I mentioned in the beginning in long-term recovery, and so I learned a lot about individual skills of resiliency. So how my thinking of skewed the lens through which I viewed the world in the profession that I was in, blaming, victimisation, misinterpretation, those things. And when I learned how to, I wouldn’t say master, but by any means, but learning the tools to reframe the environment I was in and challenging the thoughts that I had, my life got significantly better. As time went on though, I realised that wasn’t the whole picture. And that’s very much what we see with psychological health and safety in veterinary workplaces and really any workplace. And when we talk about culture is that there’s an individual responsibility or need. So those are skills of resiliency and that type of thing, team and leadership level. So communications, this concept of psychological safety, how safe do I feel on my team to bring up new ideas, make mistakes, those types of things. And then organisational responsibilities. What policies am I putting in place? What support structure do I have to put in place? Am I monitoring burnout? Am I measuring the things that are going on with my organisation? Am I taking assessments? Am I sitting down with one-on-ones? That type of thing. I hope that answered somewhat of your question.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I’m intrigued because you hear of all these fairly significant statistics. I mean, it’s something that we obviously go to brief our team on in trying to get them as technical professionals to understand where LY professionals sit. Being that it’s obviously our area of expertise, but some of the figures are pretty brutal around burnout and depression. And where does the veterinary industry rank in comparison to other industries from your perspective?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

No, I mean, it’s a fair question. So the veterinary industry, we are at higher risk, and I want to say that there’s some confusion a little bit around the data. Certainly the suicide risk is one of the things that we hear most about and as happens with anything when we talk about suicide is that is multifactorial. Some of that has to do with who we select to come into the profession. I’ll say this, Jack, what’s interesting is for veterinarians, we’ll say, to get the type of grades to get into vet school, that selection process, we are essentially rewarding people that are perfectionists. I am one, there’s no, I’ve got a sign in my office, be curious, not judgmental, no judgement  there, but there’s a certain mindset that it takes to get those types of grades that isn’t necessarily healthy, that doesn’t handle failure well. And so we bring those people into the profession also, then bringing in this high level of compassion, these high level of empathetic individuals, and then we bring in moral injury.

And so using these terms, but we bring in where sometimes we as veterinary professionals can’t deliver the care to the animals that we treat. And it’s an external forces keep that from that happening. In the us I’ll say a lot of that has to do with cost. The cost of care is going up, clients have to pay for this when we come out of school, if we’re not ready with those tools, it can be overwhelming is that I’ve gotten into, most of us have wanted to do this since we were kids, and what professions are that do that? My dad sold cars for many years and did a number of things, and I don’t know that he thought that that’s what he wanted to do when he was a kid. And just meaning there’s this strong attachment to a sense of purpose and calling that sometimes is even not necessarily healthy for us. But anyhow, just saying that the veterinary population or the people that go into veterinary medicine or wonderful, beautiful big hearted group, and sometimes those things because of what happens, can open the door for some specific things that are challenging for us.

Jack Peploe:

No. Cool. So I mean spinning this slightly, because I mean from a psychological health initiative point of view, you’ve been involved in quite a number of national and international projects to advance workplace wellbeing. Could you run through one or two initiatives that you feel have made significant impacts?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yeah, absolutely. I think one over time is trying to, and this is a huge initiative, but just generally trying to decrease the stigmatisation of mental health in the workplace is saying that I’m not okay and that I need to go to therapy. That I’ll give you an idea of one specific data point or one specific thing that we did in the state of Florida in the us there was a big study that was done with physicians and it was shown that on a licensing application, if there were questions around mental health, have you been diagnosed with mental illness in the past years? Have you been under treatment for mental illness for the past two years? If any of those questions were present on a licensing application in the US for physicians, those physicians, and I have, the numbers are a little wonky, but in my mind, but essentially it comes down to those physicians are about 40% less likely to seek mental health treatment solely because of the presence of those questions on a licensing exam because we see those.

And the unwritten thing is, is that I’m putting, I’m answering these questions and if I answer yes, that feels like a fitness to practice issue. And so in the state of Florida, we had those questions, and I just want to say a shout out to the Florida Board of Veterinary Medicine and the FEMA that helped us do this, but we went in and it actually said in the past two years, or have you ever been diagnosed with insanity? It actually said that on our licensing application, that term hasn’t been used clinically since probably the forties. The other thing is, as I said, I’m in recovery from alcohol and substances. It’s said on there, are you addicted to intoxicating liquors or narcotics? And it’s like, who’s going to answer yes to that question? And it just again, reiterates that I can’t share that with anybody if I’m having a problem because I’ll lose my license. And so what I would say is just even that is around some of the language that we use. And so I think maybe in a microcosm, that specific initiative that we were able to have that language taken off of the Florida application for a veterinary license in the state was something that speaks to where we are versus where we were say 20 years ago.

Jack Peploe:

No, I mean, that’s massive, and that’s fantastic because like you say, it’s very damning in a way, which is mad. You’re surprised that kind of thing still happens, but no, fantastic and well done. Now, one thing I’d love to do is I love for people to be able to take some things away from these podcasts, and obviously there’s already a load of content and information there, but try to make it as practical as possible. Could you explain to me the core principle pause behind this psychological health and safety guidelines that you co-authored and how these can be practically applied within veterinary settings?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yeah, I think in general, the important concept is twofold, is one thing is what gets measured gets managed. And so what I would say in veterinary practices or really any business, if I were to ask any veterinary leader in the business, what’s your hospital’s gross revenue? What’s the squeal point? What’s your breakeven point for keeping the hospital open? What’s your staff costs? What are your cost of goods? How many patients have you treated? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. People would be able to pull that data out. How many people are you having issues with communication?

What’s your level of risk of burnout of your team? What is this? And it’s just very subjective, and we don’t have that training. And what happens is, is it oftentimes it reaches a critical mass, and then that’s it. So where I’m going with this is measurement is one, making an assessment with a validated tool is important. The other is just talking to our team, those one-on-ones, being able to sit down. And we talked a little bit about the importance of focusing on the individual. So what skills of resiliency can I have with thinking and that type of thing, team level, leadership level, another data point in the us there was a study that was done. Our managers, our direct managers have more impact on our mental health than our doctors and our therapists. And it’s equivocal on the same level as our domestic partners.

Jack Peploe:

Really? Gosh,

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Woof. Yeah. So just saying is the importance of, as a leader, am I being just thrown into a leadership position because I was a good veterinarian or because I was a good technician or I was a good front desk customer service representative. I had a skillset over here, but am I getting the skillset that I need to help my team and lead? So training around leadership, and then organizationally, am I measuring, do I have clear policies in place with verbiage that’s supportive? Do I support diversity, equity, and inclusion? Do I feel it? Do my team members feel like they’re included? And I would say overall, the bottom line of all of this is, as a member of an organisation, do I feel like I matter? Do I think that my leaders, my organisation, has my best interests at heart? I think that’s, if we can say that, that’s kind of the crux. I mean, we can get into all the wonky stuff of psychological health and safety, but if my team says that I’m doing a pretty good job.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, I mean, focusing more on the leadership side of things, considering significance. And honestly, I had no idea about that. I mean, I know obviously being a leader is an important part, but to that level of significance, that’s insight. So how did different leadership styles within veterinary practices impact the psychological health and safety of the team? And can you share insights on, I don’t know which stars might promote a healthier work environment?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yeah, absolutely. I think if we could take something away, and it gets a little wonky too. So the term psychological safety and the terms psychological health and safety are actually two different concepts, which awesome, fantastic, great. They sound exactly the same. That’s not confusing at all. But when we’re talking about psychological safety, which is a term that was coined by Dr. Amy Edmondson in the us, that is how safe do I feel taking risks in my immediate team? And what I would say is that that is really reflected in how do we frame mistakes? Are mistakes seen as bad and unacceptable or are they an opportunity for learning? And I would say in a workplace, if we’re talking about psychological safety, and as a leader, how do I respond to mistakes made on the floor? And if there is, because we’ve all worked for somebody that we’ve been publicly bashed an authoritarian leader, you’re stupid. I mean, even those of us that played sports and did those kind of things, that kind of rough and tumble type thing, that really has a negative impact, obviously on what direction we go in, and the vulnerability of the leader as well, having the leader share that they’ve made mistakes and this is how they handled it. But that’s what I would say is that the first thing, if you want to dip your toe into psychological safety is genuinely speaking, how do we handle mistakes in the hospital when they happen? Yeah.

Jack Peploe:

And talking about challenges, what are some of the most persistent challenges that you’ve encountered when you are consulting for veterinary practices on issues of wellbeing and how do you approach these challenges?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yeah, what’s been interesting, so transparency, and I’ve partnered with the Wellbeing Lab and the Good Foundry in Australia where psychological health and safety, it is now mandated. I believe the law is if you have a organisation that’s over 30 employees, you have to measure psychosocial factors or psychosocial hazards, like work demands, poor change management, those types of things. But we work together to create a tool for veterinary workplaces. And what has been interesting in the data that I have right now is far and away on an individual basis, we were talking about individual team and organisational, but on an individual basis, and this goes for the leaders too, the most impactful thing affecting wellbeing, negatively affecting wellbeing is self-criticism. Probably not that surprising if we all sit down with it. But the level of impact that that has is just was really eye-opening. I wasn’t surprised, surprised, but it really has continued to come through as one of the biggest challenges that, and again, who do we select for perfectionists? We don’t handle failure well, so it’s not surprising, but just those of us beating ourselves up. So is one of the main things that we end up doing when we go in is teaching about self-compassion, growth mindset, these types of things. Yeah.

Jack Peploe:

Nice. And I mean, looking forward, what are new areas of research or practice in veterinary psychological health are you most excited about exploring?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yeah, I think one is, excuse me. One is just assessing these hazards in general. So the international standards for organisations, the ISO, which is if you’re in the us, OSHA is the organisation. We all have organisational health and safety departments in the government, but they put out the ISO 45 0 0 3. It’s psychological health and safety hazards or psychosocial hazards in the workplace. So versus physical hazards, slip and fall noise, too much noise, those types of things. This is looking at measuring and assessing these psychological risks in the workplace. And that to me has been really fascinating is let’s measure those things. Let’s talk to the teams. Let’s find out how often they’re encountering these and can we potentially remove them? And if we can’t remove them, can we at least mitigate ’em? Where if there’s a high level of trauma, do we have access to a veterinary social worker in the US or do we have these opportunities to offload some of this?

And then again, self-criticism. Do we have tools to not let our team beat themselves up when something goes wrong? So that’s really the area for me that I’m really, really passionate about is measuring and assessing this type of thing. In the uk, and this is one of the factors as well, but civility in the workplace, I know I’m going to get it wrong. I know Liz Barton I think is part of that. I know Katie Ford’s doing stuff, but there was just a incivility toolkit, which civility was also part of the guidelines that we put out. But genuinely speaking, my interactions with my team members obviously has a huge impact on that. We’ve all worked with somebody too that we we’re avoiding them or we’re in our head going, oh, they said this and they said this. It said, and how much that affects our wellbeing on a day-to-day basis. And then when we’re in that stressful state, how that carries over into patient care where if I’m stressed or if I’m not willing to open up and ask a question of somebody else, if I have a question about a therapy or a treatment or something like that, how that negatively impacts patient care. That stuff is really fascinating, is how those soft skills really, really do impact our delivery of veterinary medicine on a daily basis. Yeah.

Jack Peploe:

Well, I mean, I knew this was going to happen, Phil, our time is already up. It’s nuts. But what I wanted to say is that was incredibly insightful. It’s eye-opening in a way, kind of a bit of a shocker in some cases, but really inspiring stuff that you’re doing, and obviously I want to thank you for what you’re doing. It is incredibly important, and again, thank you very much for sharing your expertise and experience with me and the listeners. So thank you. But before we do close off, how can people get in touch with you?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yeah, absolutely. So certainly can go to my website. It’s www dot flourishing phoenix. That’s all one word.com. Also on LinkedIn. Just LinkedIn slash dr. Phil Richmond, PHIL. Yeah.

Jack Peploe:

Cool. Phil, thank you so much. That was brilliant.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Thanks, Jack.

Jack Peploe:

Every week we ask professionals and experts to suggest a best business resource for our listeners. This week’s recommendation is from Ryan Leach.

Ryan Leech:

I think that Reddit is an invaluable resource. It is a source of people that are passionate about literally anything that you could ever dream of being passionate about or paid or have any feelings towards. And it’s an opportunity to be able to crowdsource information, have a resource to communicate with other people. You have to take it with a grain of salt. The nice thing is Reddit’s grown. It’s become less four chance from back in the day where you had to decode what the words meant. But I mean, I go on there, I go onto the subreddit singularity to freak myself out about ai. I read everything about Formula One on there. I am in vet forums. I’m in all sorts of different groups and sometimes just lurking and reading and sometimes contributing. I have been on the front page for a picture of a CVS receipt, so that was a absolute highlight of my life.

But yeah, so I think Reddit is a great place for people to do it. There’s also a really cool plugin, and I know I’m going to, like we said, I am not great at being succinct, but let me pull up the name of this plugin. There is a chrome plugin called Giga Brain, GIGA Brain, and it takes, whenever you search something on Google, it does what you actually want to do, and it uses AI to search Reddit and give you answers based on Reddit, and then pulls up Reddit threads based on any search that you’re doing. So if you’ve ever searched a word and then the word Reddit to just try and get the subreddit threads about it, giga Brainin does it for you.

Jack Peploe:

Coming up next week, we welcome Bruce Truman, a leader in veterinary technology and innovation. With decades of experience in the companion animal industry, Bruce has worked extensively in digital transformation, data utilisation, and fostering collaboration across the veterinary sector. In this episode, we discuss the evolving role of technology in veterinary care, the power of the abundance mentality in driving industry-wide innovation, and how key opinion leaders are shaping the future of pet tech. Tune in for a fascinating discussion on how veterinary professionals can embrace emerging technology to improve patient care and business success,

Bruce Truman:

To future-proof your practice. Don’t be afraid of technology, don’t be afraid of early adoption. Pick a champion within your practice, and failure is okay.

Jack Peploe:

That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.