By Dr. Heather Gunn McQuillan
For years, conversations about well-being in veterinary medicine have focused almost exclusively on the individual. We encourage veterinarians and team members to meditate more, exercise more, set boundaries, build resilience, and “fill their cups.” While these tools can be valuable, they tell only a small part of the story.
Well-being does not exist in a vacuum.
In reality, every veterinary professional practices within an ecosystem—a living, interconnected system made up of people, culture, policies, workflows, leadership, and values. When that ecosystem is unhealthy, even the most resilient individual will eventually struggle.
To truly address veterinary well-being, we must shift our lens from individual resilience to clinic ecosystem health.
The Clinic as an Ecosystem
An ecosystem is defined by interdependence. Each element affects the whole.
In a veterinary clinic, the ecosystem includes:
- Veterinarians, technicians, assistants, receptionists, and managers
- Leadership styles and decision-making structures
- Communication norms and psychological safety
- Scheduling, caseloads, compensation, and expectations
- The unspoken rules about rest, emotions, and asking for help
When one part of the ecosystem becomes strained, the effects rarely stay isolated.
A simple (and admittedly imperfect, but memorable) analogy: peeing in a pool. The urine doesn’t remain confined to one corner. It disperses. Everyone in the pool is affected.
The same is true in a clinic. When one person is overwhelmed, unsupported, burned out, or behaving in ways that erode trust, the impact ripples outward—affecting morale, communication, patient care, and the emotional load of the entire team. But just telling people, “Don’t pee in the pool!” isn’t enough.
Struggle Is Not a Personal Failure
When an individual is struggling, our instinct is often to ask:
- “Are they resilient enough?”
- “Do they need better coping skills?”
- “Should they do more self-care?”
But this framing is incomplete—and often harmful.
As Dr. Mamta Gautam so clearly articulates in her Quit Multiplying by Zero model, veterinarian health is not determined by individual factors alone. Instead:
Veterinary Health (H) = Individual Factors (I) × Culture (C) × System (S)
This is a multiplication equation, not an addition problem.
That distinction matters.
Because in multiplication, any factor multiplied by zero equals zero.
You can have:
- Highly capable, compassionate, resilient individuals
- Who invest time, money, and energy into therapy, coaching, mindfulness, and wellness
But if they return each day to:
- Unsafe communication
- Chronic understaffing
- Unsustainable workloads
- Poor mentorship
- A culture of perfectionism and self-sacrifice
Then culture or system equals zero—and the outcome is still zero.
This helps explain why excellent veterinarians continue to struggle, burn out, or leave the profession despite doing “everything right” at an individual level.
The Limits of Individual-Focused Wellness
Mindfulness, exercise, therapy, and reflective practices are powerful tools. They can help individuals regulate stress, build awareness, and respond more skillfully to challenges.
But even mindfulness has limits.
Mindfulness supports the individual—but it cannot compensate for a broken system.
When veterinary well-being initiatives focus solely on individual resilience, they unintentionally send a dangerous message:
“If you’re struggling, the problem must be you.”
In truth, individual resilience will fail if the ecosystem does not support the individual.
Culture Is the Water We Swim In
Veterinary culture often reinforces:
- Perfectionism
- Self-sacrifice
- Emotional suppression
- The belief that clients and patients must always come first—at any cost
- Stigma around vulnerability and asking for help
These cultural norms shape behavior long before burnout appears. They determine whether people feel safe speaking up, setting limits, or admitting uncertainty.
Culture isn’t written in policy manuals.
It lives in what gets rewarded, tolerated, or ignored.
And culture, like water in a pool, touches everyone.
A Broader View of Resilience
Research in resilience science, including the work of Dr. Michael Ungar, Canada Research Chair in Resiliency at Dalhousie University, reminds us that resilience is not just about grit or toughness. It depends heavily on access to resources, supportive relationships, fairness, safety, and the ability to influence one’s environment.
In other words:
“Resilience depends more on what people are given than on what they personally possess.”
-Dr. Michael Ungar
When clinics invest only in strengthening individuals—without addressing scheduling, mentorship, workload, psychological safety, and leadership accountability—they are asking people to adapt endlessly to systems that are not adapting at all.
What Ecosystem Health Looks Like in Veterinary Practice
A healthy clinic ecosystem doesn’t mean the absence of stress or difficulty. Veterinary medicine is inherently complex and emotionally demanding.
But a healthy ecosystem does include:
- Clear mentorship and support, especially for early-career professionals
- Fair and predictable schedules
- Psychological safety to ask questions and admit mistakes
- Shared responsibility for emergencies and emotional load
- Leadership that sees team well-being as a systems issue—not a personal flaw
- Cultures that value sustainability as much as dedication
In a healthy ecosystem, resilience is not forced—it emerges.
From Resilient Individuals to Resilient Systems
If we truly care about veterinary well-being, we must stop asking:
“How do we make individuals tougher?”
And start asking:
“What in this ecosystem is being multiplied by zero?”
Because no amount of individual resilience can compensate for a culture or system that undermines human sustainability.
Well-being is collective.
Health is shared.
And ecosystems—whether forests, oceans, or veterinary clinics—thrive only when the whole system is cared for.
Supporting the Whole Ecosystem: How AwareVet Helps
If veterinary well-being is truly an ecosystem issue, then solutions must extend beyond the individual. This is where AwareVet plays a critical role. AwareVet works at the intersection of individual awareness, team culture, and organizational systems, helping clinics move from burnout management to true ecosystem health.
Through facilitated workshops, leadership development, mindfulness-based training, and culture-focused consulting, AwareVet supports veterinary teams in identifying the “zeros” in their equation—whether they live in communication patterns, expectations, workflows, or unspoken cultural norms. Rather than asking individuals to become endlessly more resilient, AwareVet helps clinics build environments where resilience is supported, shared, and sustainable.
Because thriving veterinary professionals don’t emerge from grit alone—they emerge from ecosystems designed to support human well-being alongside excellent patient care.
To learn more about how AwareVet can support your clinic’s ecosystem health, book a conversation with Heather.
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