National Veterinary Technician Appreciation Week is October 13-19. We know vet techs are highly susceptible to burnout and mental health challenges. Recognizing and celebrating these hardworking team members can have a significant impact on your employee retention and morale. Take time to honor them this month. Keep reading for more tips on alleviating staff burnout.
Veterinary demand remains at an all-time high, and practice owners and managers are struggling to keep pace and maintain growth. 2022 has proved challenging, with high turnover (25% in vet tech positions, the highest in health care) and high levels of staff burnout.
Epicur is committed to supporting the health of your practice and your patients. We covered the topic of staff burnout in this comprehensive article, but mental health is not a simple one-and-done challenge to address.
Turnover and burnout have not dropped to pre-pandemic levels because neither have the demands on your practice and staff.
Fast pace, limited pay, high student debt, surging patient needs, and work that demands empathy and difficult decisions—from veterinarians to technicians and staff, is a recipe for burnout. Adding to this, 2022 has brought:
- High turnover, requiring others to pick up the overflow workload
- Additional weight of hiring, training, and onboarding new staff
- Overflowing animal shelters with returns from the pandemic adoption surge
- Margin pressures and pharmacy shortages
- Changing ownership structures, new processes, and procedures that add to change fatigue
That’s a lot of stress on your staff. As veterinarians and practice managers, you set the tone, so please, take care of yourself first. Take a break, and cut yourself a little slack, before taking steps to address veterinary staff burnout. Ensuring you’re in a healthy place allows you to better care for your veterinary technicians, inventory managers, and other staff.
Need support? Many veterinary professionals are in crisis. Not One More Vet (NOMV) provides the necessary support to all members of veterinary teams and students who are struggling. Because you are good enough, and you are never alone.
Our previous post on veterinary staff burnout offered some concrete ways to support your staff. Here are eight more ways to help to boost morale and create growth and change while recognizing and respecting the current workload and challenges.
8 Tips to Improve Veterinary Staff Mental Health & Retention
- Peer support: Don’t underestimate the power of the buddy system. A peer, accountability partner, or assigned mentor in a similar position can offer a lot of support without putting more on you. It also can strengthen friendships—one of the top reasons employees stay with a practice.
- Know your limits: Don’t mistake stress for a more serious or systemic mental health concern. There is a limit to what you can do—make EAP and mental health resources visible, easy, and normalized. Not One More Vet is an amazing resource for veterinary professionals.
- Ask the question: From a snappy client to emotional euthanasias, your staff’s day can be overwhelming in a number of ways. Taking a moment to ask “How are you?” or “Is everything okay?” creates a safe space for them to ask for help.
- Offer a sense of control: Whether it’s creating an achievable and measurable goal or providing clarity of roles and responsibilities, remember that clear is kind.
- Address it together: Work through exercises such as:
- Like/loath: understand what each person’s least favorite activities are, reassign, outsource, or automate where you can. One person’s like is another person’s loath—the answers may surprise you!
- Start/Stop: remove a couple of things that will offer your staff some relief. Consider accepting no new patients for a month, saying no to a type of service, etc. The loss of short-term revenue may be far outweighed by the gains in retention and morale.
- Create a small contest: Add a sense of play through gamification. Something as simple as a sticker chart and small prizes can help staff band together to achieve a goal.
- Share your “why’s”: Ask staff to share why they chose this field, their favorite pet, or the case they felt was a win. Understanding their motivations can help you to support them in their work.
- Take a break together: Be careful not to plan too much on top of regular hours, but an early closing and offsite social can reignite positive energy.
As we approach the end of the year and begin planning for next year’s growth and change, these practical tips can help you to retain staff and improve productivity with empathy and compassion.
There are a number of organizations dedicated to helping veterinarians, their practices, and their staff thrive in a changing and stressful industry. NOMV is one of those special organizations. Epicur is proud to be a silver sponsor of the organization and support its crucial work.
Connect with NOMV for great resources and check out all of our industry partners who are making a difference to advance the veterinary profession.
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Meet Marylu Ernsting: Championing Equine Health with Passion and Purpose
Epicur’s newest Equine Key Account Specialist is Marylu Ernsting, and she brings a rich background in the equine industry with her to the team! Get to know her more below as she shares her thoughts on ethical representation as a sales rep, the innovative injectable omeprazole our team released, and how she stays busy when she isn’t working. We’re excited to have you join us today, Marylu! Tell us a bit about your role at Epicur and the region you cover. I cover what I like to call the “Midwest corridor”—everything from Wisconsin down to Florida. It’s a big territory, but I love it. I live in Kentucky, which is perfect because it’s right in the heart of horse country. I’m an Equine Key Account Specialist. My role is all about connecting with veterinarians, understanding their needs, and helping them find solutions that make their jobs easier and their patients healthier. What’s your background? How did you get into this field? I’ve been involved in equine care and management for over 20 years. It’s kind of a funny story. I didn’t grow up in an equine family, but I’ve always loved horses and bought my first horse at 15. I realized early on that if I wanted to keep up my “horse habit,” I needed a career that could support it. That led me to work at a boarding facility, where I met a trainer and an exercise rider for racing quarter horses. I started galloping and ponying racehorses, then moved into hunter-jumper work, and eventually ran my own boarding facility. I even became a 4-H leader for 10 years, which was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I’ve had a lot of different roles in the equine space though. I was a vet tech for an equine reproduction vet where I was very hands on. I did everything from bookkeeping to holding horses for the farrier. I was also an inside sales rep for nine years. COVID displaced me from equine for a little while. I ended up taking a job that gave me the opportunity to work with zoo accounts, which was new for me, and it was so fun but I’m super glad to be back in equine. You’ve held so many different roles! Would you say any of them were your favorite? Honestly, being a 4-H leader was one of my absolute favorite things I’ve ever done. I didn’t have kids of my own, but I ended up with 35 of everyone else’s! We had the largest equine-only 4-H club in Florida at the time. Some kids wanted to show, others just wanted to trail ride or learn about horses. I got to learn right alongside them. I didn’t get to be in 4-H when I was a child, I got to do it as an adult, which was even better. It was a really fun time in life, and now with social media I’ve been able to connect with all my 4H kids as adults. It’s cool to keep in touch and watch them grow and have their own families. One of them actually tried to be a 4H leader, and she reached out me to say, “I don’t know how you did this!” which was funny. It was such a special time. With every job I’ve had though, truthfully, I have found that it’s just been my next journey. I love everything about all the roles I’ve ever had. I don’t have a job for one or two years. I have jobs for seven years, nine years, 10 years. So, I’m extremely excited to see where my next journey is with Epicur for sure. What excites you most about being part of the Epicur team? Honestly, it’s the innovation and the integrity. I’ve always prided myself on representing products I believe in—and as a horse owner, I trust what Epicur is doing. They’re bringing science-backed, data-driven medications to market, like the injectable omeprazole. It’s exciting to be part of something that’s modernizing equine medicine. Plus, the team is just incredible. Everyone is genuinely committed to making a difference in animal health. Speaking of omeprazole, how do you explain the benefits of Epicur’s injectable version to veterinarians? Great question. I usually start with discovery—asking vets how many ulcer cases they see, whether they’re scoping, and what their treatment protocols are. One of the biggest surprises for me was how many aren’t scoping and are treating based on symptoms alone. That’s where education comes in. I’ve learned from endoscopy reps that 95% of horses scoped have ulcers, and 75% of those are glandular. Most traditional treatments aren’t proven for glandular ulcers, but Epicur’s injectable omeprazole is. It’s faster, more effective, and ultimately more economical for clients. Plus, it works for squamous ulcers too! What’s your perspective on how GFI 256 and 503B manufacturing impacts equine vets? There’s a lot of confusion out there. Many vets don’t fully understand GFI #256, USP, or the nuances of compounding. I try to simplify it for them and connect the dots. I believe—and I think Epicur does too—that we need to have critical medications available when vets need them. That’s why I’m advocating for certain life-saving drugs to be manufactured under 503B. It’s not about duplicating what’s already out there; it’s about making sure vets have access to what they need, when they need it. Sometimes drugs that are only available through 503A can end up on long-term backorder. That’s not acceptable in emergency situations. I’m hoping we can continue to develop these critical drugs through 503B manufacturing so they can be stocked and ready when they’re needed most. Epicur’s omeprazole injection suspension is especially helpful in maintaining a horse’s peak performance. How does your experience in horse racing shape your approach to equine care? Horse racing adds another layer of complexity—especially with regulations like HISA. Vets have to be extra cautious about what they carry and prescribe. I try to help them navigate that. For
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