CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses suicide and suicidal feelings that some readers may find disturbing.

This one will be brief and to the point.

This one will be to tell you about something I think you should know about.

This one is for Andrea.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word: Resilience. What is it? What does it really mean? Do I have it? How do you get it? How do I make sure my children have it? It is a word used a lot lately when we talk about the pandemic, and one used a lot when discussing today’s veterinary medicine.

I’ve touched on it before in this column: a profession in crisis – rampant with burnout, compassion fatigue, and a simple “inability to see all the pets.”¹ All concepts very close to me, to my day-to-day and the colleagues around me.

But this July, things changed…for the worse.

I lost someone – someone I knew well.

Andrea Kelly committed suicide on July 31st, 2022.²

And these ‘concepts’, all ever-present in the background, suddenly became too harshly real.

Andrea was a large animal vet working in Ontario and Quebec. I was close with her in undergrad and in vet school. I remember her as a sharp, intelligent individual with high standards set for herself and the people around her. She had a wonderful smile, a great sense of humor and a work ethic like no other.

Andrea decided to take her own life at the age of 36. At 36, she DECIDED not to live. While I’ll never know for sure the reasons she made this decision, the circumstances surrounding her profession — a profession that defined who she was — must have contributed to her struggle.

During the pandemic my outlook was to remind myself that our profession, while in crisis, was not alone. Many industries were suffering undo strain, and our hardship could not compare to those on the front lines of human health care.

Our problems meant that pets would suffer, and that some would die without the medical care they needed. But PEOPLE were dying, and it was important to remember that.

I’ve had a much grimmer look on things the last few months, because PEOPLE ARE dying in vet med. VETS are dying. And it needs to get better.

A comment I unfortunately hear too often about our industry is that “we don’t care.” Vets care. Trust me, we care a lot.

We care when we have to turn people away because there is no more room to squeeze into the schedule. We care when our clients have to wait 14 hours at the emergency hospital and we care when pet owners don’t get their voicemail answered on time.

We are trying to keep our staff healthy, and we are trying to avoid medical errors that will inevitably occur if everyone gets overworked.

In Andrea’s case, one could argue she cared too much. She gave everything she had to her clients and her patients. It is an unbelievable tragedy she is gone.

In lieu of flowers, Andrea’s family requested that donations be made to the Not One More Vet charity the leader in the veterinary mental — health, working to transform the status of mental wellness within the profession. If you want to learn more about this topic or would like to make a donation please visit their website.³

But above all, please be kind to the veterinary team in your life.

¹ You Don’t Have to See All the Pets  | Drandyroark.com
² Beloved veterinarian takes her own life, leaving West Quebec equine community shocked, saddened | CBC News
³ Not One More Vet | NOMV.org