We need to talk to each other more!

As a veterinary nurse who has worked in clinical settings for over 30 years, it has become increasingly clear to me that one of the causes of difficulties in the workplace and a significant stressor for both vets and vet nurses, is that we don’t talk clearly enough about our clinical skills and preferences.

I am at a stage of my career that affords me the confidence to discuss openly the things I am not good at; I am not competitive or egotistical and one of the few positives of having had several visits from ‘the black dog’ of depression during my time as a veterinary nurse is that it has made me very self-aware. I know my strengths and weaknesses. I am good at taking blood samples from anything that has blood, and I am not good at puppy clinics! But do the people around me know this and will declaring my weaknesses make me seem less employable?

When a new vet or vet nurse joins a team, we never take the time to share our clinical preferences. Just five  minutes to share what we like to do and don’t like to do allows us to know how we can help and support each other clinically. Not being able to do something you are asked to do in practice can be very stressful, as often a client is waiting and the task needs doing immediately. Clinical pressure is not always good, despite what some people say!

This became clear to me after realising that I could have prevented a vet colleague from being stressed and feeling unsupported during one of our busy evening surgeries. Before this occurred, I had not instigated a clinical skills discussion with them, despite having worked with them for a few weeks.

One winter evening I was finishing my shift and had gone to the staff room, washed my cup up, put my coat on to get ready to leave, and as part of my ‘leaving the hospital routine’ I went to check in on everyone as I left, making sure things were okay. I was in the kitchen area ready to head out and I could hear some crying in one of the consulting rooms and when I investigated, I found a very upset team member.

When asked what had happened, they managed to explain between the tears that for their next client, they had been booked in to do an African grey parrot conscious health check, microchipping, and blood sample for DNA sexing. They went on to explain that there was a note on the file to say that the bird was vicious and bites (don’t they all!); they explained they were not confident with these clinical procedures.

I felt so disappointed with myself that I didn’t already know that this was something my colleague had difficulties with and that my colleague in turn didn’t know it was something I would be happy to do. I explained to them that I was very happy to take bloods from birds, chip them and handle them for physical examination and I remember very clearly, they replied ‘… really?’ We proceeded to do the procedures together; no one got bitten and bird was fine.

The next day I sat down with the vet, and we openly discussed what we both liked doing clinically and what we were not keen on doing clinically, or needed more support and training with, and how we can work better moving forward. This brief conversation allowed us to optimise our clinical synergy and this professional alignment and greater understanding really improves what we all can do; so why don’t we talk to each other about our strengths, weaknesses and preferences as part of our induction for new professionals joining the team, it really does help, so let’s do it!