Working in the veterinary profession is rewarding, challenging, and purposeful. Caring for other people’s pets daily is a privilege that comes with a lot of emotional and mental ups and downs. If you’re navigating personal pet loss and working in veterinary medicine, you might find yourself on a rollercoaster of emotions.

As a veterinary professional, there are unique challenges to grief that can make your loss feel multi-layered and complex. Coupled with the fact that many vet professionals come to rely on their pet as their most trusted coping mechanism during tough times, grief can feel isolating and relentless.

Balancing professional obligations and personal needs

They want you back at work before you feel ready. But you need a distraction from the hurt and know that bills don’t stop for grief, so you dive in. But actually being there and trying to function feels strange and overwhelming. 

While returning to work itself isn’t a unique challenge of early grief, the added layer of caring for others’ pets and interacting with families who are both joyful and potentially grieving themselves, is complex. 

Maintaining your professionalism and pausing your own grief to get through the day, becomes a big challenge. Your grief and heartbreak deserve the same care you give others.

The perception of grieving as a veterinary professional vs the reality

Society, colleagues, clients… No one is really great at supporting grievers. There may be a misconception that since you “see this” all the time, you won’t feel as emotional or you’ll inherently know how to cope with your own grief.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. 

The reality is that giving care, including end of life care, to others does not mean you’re immune to the overwhelming emotions when you lose your own furry (feathered, or scaled) family member. It doesn’t mean you will immediately know how to navigate the world without your best friend. 

It doesn’t mean your grief won’t feel like a deep and painful void.

Feelings of failure and self-doubt

Being in the profession of fixing and trying to improve and save the lives of pets is noble. There is so much gratitude for veterinary teams that tirelessly listen, investigate, and help pets live the fullest life possible.

So what happens when you can’t save your own? When you’re the healer, the fixer, the observant eye, and it’s your pet that you’ve lost.

There can be a lot of self-judgment, hindsight bias, guilt, and self-doubt. What did I miss? Did I not do enough? Am I an imposter with other pets if I can’t save my own? 

This is an especially unique challenge for veterinary professionals. The human beings behind the scenes who are sometimes faced with their own uncontrollable loss. Grief can feel powerless.

Feeling both overwhelmed and isolated at the same time

When you get back to work after pet loss when you work in veterinary medicine there can be a very distinct sense of too much peopling and simultaneously feeling isolated. 

Everyone is asking how you’re doing. There are kind remembrance gifts. People noticeably trying to help you ease back in. Clients might know what happened so there are many condolences. 

It’s like feeling so supported and feeling so alone at the same time. 

You don’t want to be at work, but it’s familiar and you don’t want to be home because that’s now unfamiliar, so you fake smile and autopilot your way through the day. To do it all again the next day.

Grief is weird. 

Aside from autopilot, how do you cope? I strongly suggest attempting to take time off, but know that’s easier said than done.

Here are a few other ways to C.A.R.E. about yourself while you grieve.

Compassion – You deserve the same compassion you give others. Just because you work in the field of veterinary medicine and have experienced the professional loss of many families’ beloved pets, does not mean that your loss is softened or easier. 

Self compassion is giving yourself grace for things like being exhausted, having grief brain, and not knowing exactly who you are without your pet. 

It’s also the art of mindfully making choices that help reduce suffering through loss and finding bits of motivation to work through grief.

Active Mourning – Emotions thrive on motion and you deserve to find ways to actively honor and remember your pet, to cultivate what love looks like now, and to move through grief with no timeline or expectations.

Grief takes time, and what you do with that time will make a difference. 

Restoration – People might say it’s self-care but I’m going with restoration. How to rediscover your spirit, strength, and purpose without your pet physically here. 

When you work in a caring profession, much of you is given to others each and every day. When your pet is there to come home to it’s easy to feel refreshed, familiar and… restored. 

In the absence of this natural furry self-care, you have to try to find ways to fill up your cup. Because as we all know, you can’t pour from an empty one.

Empathy – When you experience deep personal loss, you may have a renewed sense of empathy for clients or colleagues who have experienced similar loss. 

Your empathetic nature is part of why you succeed in veterinary medicine. 

Just be aware of your empathy. Reserve enough for yourself and don’t give too much to where you begin absorbing other people’s pain. 

Empathy in grief can, and should, encompass sharing emotions as well as keeping them separate. The separation is a crucial when you are professionally exposed to human and animal challenges, including death and grief, daily. 

Losing a pet while working in veterinary medicine is humbling and complicated. The resiliency that gets you through hard days is something to be grateful for. But also allow yourself to make space for how tough grief can be. 

You don’t always need to seem like the strongest person in the room. The truth is, sometimes the strongest people are the ones who embrace vulnerability even in the face of their greatest struggles.