Increased risk of suicide among U.S. veterinarians
As senior veterinary students around the country celebrate the completion of their didactic learning and enter into their long-awaited and hard-earned lifetime of experiential learning, it’s important to revisit the striking findings from CDC’s December 2018 study. Using data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and the American Veterinary Medical Association, the study revealed that U.S. veterinarians are at a higher risk of death by suicide than the general U.S. population, a trend that has increased since 1979. This trend has also been described among non-American veterinarians in other studies, and supports findings of higher self-reported distress, feelings of depression and anxiety, and suicidal ideation in veterinarian well-being surveys.
The study found that female veterinarians were 3.5 times as likely and male veterinarians 2.1 times as likely to die by suicide than the general population. Alarmingly, 75% of these individuals were small animal practitioners. Suspected multifactorial causes include high emotional and physical work demands, high debt-to-income ratios, poor work-life balance, and access to lethal pharmaceuticals.
These statistics will hopefully guide veterinarian-specific suicide prevention strategies, including managing perfectionist ideologies and setting boundaries with patients, clients, and colleagues. Frequently discussed prevention strategies that address the demands in veterinary workplace culture include training in both communication and emotional intelligence.
EQ: Personal competence
Emotional intelligence has become an increasingly popular topic among many workplace teams; a quick search in AVMA’s Career Center reveals that this is a specific, employable veterinary skillset that supplements the competency-based frameworks taught in veterinary schools. Emotional ability (EQ) involves the ability to perceive, manage, understand, and respond to the emotions of ourselves and others. Intellectual ability (IQ), or the ability to learn, remains fixed throughout an individual’s life. EQ, on the other hand, can improve with practice, more strongly predicts professional performance, and guides action-based decision making.
The four key elements of EQ fall into two categories: personal competence (self-awareness and self-management) and social competence (social awareness and relationship management). Self-awareness involves understanding our own emotional strengths or weaknesses. This is our ability to perceive our emotions, improve our weaknesses, and maximize our strengths. Self-awareness includes our ability to recognize how our behavior influences others and how others’ behaviors impact our emotions.
Self-management is what we do with this awareness to adapt to conflicts or regulate emotional responses to challenging situations. It underpins the motivation behind expressing our ideas, getting along with others, and showing empathy. Self-management also involves taking individual responsibility for managing our emotional triggers.
EQ: Social competence
Personal competence guides intrapersonal social skills, whereas social competence guides interpersonal social skills. Social awareness involves perceiving how others are feeling, either through sensing or active listening. It involves awareness of staff morale or a client’s mood and guides appropriate responses to these feelings.
Like self-management, relationship management involves navigating conflict and clearly expressing ideas. It involves collaboration, negotiation, and cooperation with others.
Advocates for EQ explain that this skillset surpasses standard veterinary competences in contributing to overall job success and satisfaction. Becoming a mindful practitioner who regularly develops EQ skills benefits the individual, the team’s morale and performance, patient care, and customer service.
Well-being resources
Lauren Bernstein
Lauren received her BS in Animal Science from the University of Tennessee. Following a Rotary International site visit to South Africa as an undergraduate student, she decided to focus her prospective veterinary career on public health, specifically on issues involving diseases at the human-animal-environment interface. She completed her veterinary education at the University College Dublin, School of Veterinary Medicine. When she's not in the office, she enjoys yoga, embracing the outdoor activities in Minneapolis, and finding excuses to talk about her rescue cat.