Working in the veterinary profession can be very rewarding. However, veterinary professionals face stressful situations on a daily basis, regularly having to make difficult decisions or confront unavoidable suffering and negative outcomes.

While stress and burnout in veterinary jobs are not new phenomena, they are persistently common. This troubling issue highlights the importance of finding ways to reduce stressors to improve vet teams’ mental health and, consequently, the quality of care provided to their patients.

Veterinary teams frequently contend with “moral stress,” a feeling stemming from the perceived inability to act ethically or “do what is right.” Veterinary doctors or nurses can feel moral stress when personal, professional, organizational, or client circumstances prevent them from acting according to what they believe is best for their patients. Relational barriers like differing views among members of the team or disagreements with the animal guardians can also cause moral stress.

Situational constraints such as lack of time and resources or wider socioeconomic factors can add further stress. For instance, offering veterinary care in disadvantaged communities where animal guardians may not be able to afford the right treatment for their companion animal can cause great stress to the team.

Stress can be caused by single situations or by the cumulation of smaller, repeated stressful events. The way stress is felt varies depending on the professional’s ability to detach from the situation and not focus on work issues once at home. Together, with other types of stress, moral stress can cause burnout and mental health issues.

Recent research suggests that regular facilitated group discussions over ethical matters can help reduce moral stress and improve patient care. In this study, the researchers conducted nine focus group discussions and 15 individual interviews with personnel from three U.K. charity veterinary hospitals. The hospitals were chosen because they differed in size, location, and socioeconomic background of clients. Both the focus groups and the individual interviews were semi-structured and centered on specific topics. A definition of “moral stress” was given to the participants. The discussions were recorded and analyzed using thematic analysis.

The results show that ethical discussions may reduce moral stress by helping team members better understand each other and the complexity of their roles, along with providing support through one another’s decision-making. The authors found that it is crucial that active cases are not specifically discussed, as this may raise conflict. Overall, regularly scheduled ethical discussions could have the ability to positively alter team dynamics and behavior. 

The study presented in this article has some limitations. First, it was a small study, so the techniques used to test the outcomes of ethical discussions have not been tested at large. Moreover, problems with scheduling and COVID-19 limitations affected the meetings’ regularity. Finally, the research was co-designed with the study participants, which means that researchers had to compromise on design in order to improve acceptability.

The results can help foster important discussions around stress and burnout in veterinary teams and encourage the use of ethical group discussions to increase mutual understanding, reduce conflict, and enhance empathy for each other. This is particularly important when facing difficult cases, as providing the best care possible to animal patients should remain the focal point of veterinary professionals.