BOUNDARIES f f a t S r u o Y d n a f l e s r u o Y g Protectin Candace Boudreau, CVT
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Self-care has become a popular topic, a buzz word we’ve heard so often that it fades into the background—but what does self-care actually look like? The first image that comes to mind may be of someone enjoying the solitude of quiet meditation or laughing with a group of friends. However, self-care isn’t strictly yoga and staff pizza parties; it can be the things we know we should do for ourselves that we put off. It can be paying bills or buying healthy food from the grocery store. It can be declining a social invitation so you can stay home and catch up on rest. Self-care could be visiting the gym for a workout or sending the kids to Grandma’s house for the weekend. It can be having the difficult conversations. Saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that,” or “I’m not comfortable with this.” Self-care can look different for different people and depending on context. I feel confident assuming that anyone reading this already knows that compassion fatigue and burnout are ongoing challenges in veterinary medicine. I’ll go out on a limb and say that many of us in this field struggle with self-care and work-life balance, myself included. In the past few years, I’ve made a particular effort to develop a healthier lifestyle for myself, both professionally and personally. In doing so, I realized I lacked boundaries. I needed to learn how to set them and how to deal with the guilt that comes along with that. For those in the veterinary community, self-care can largely come in the form of setting boundaries.
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Boundaries in Veterinary Medicine When you think about it, we already operate within the guidelines of boundaries every day. Doctors don’t offer treatment without a doctor-patient relationship. Veterinary technicians can’t diagnose or prescribe. Pre-anesthetic blood work is required for surgery, etc. These protocols that we follow are all examples of boundaries that we set and/or maintain in every day practice. It may feel easier to enforce boundaries that are set by others. If those are the rules as they were told to us, and since we don’t make them—we just follow them, then we may feel less of a responsibility to those who are upset by
