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President's Message – Do you remember "Why"? (October 2023 CVJ)
September 21, 2023
President’s Message
Do you remember “Why”?
Do you remember the moment you received your acceptance to vet school? Maybe the moment you donned your Blue Coat, or when your first White Coat was placed over your shoulders?
Welcome, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine! You will do great things!
I do. It still stirs a passion and pride in me like it did back then. I love our profession, but I am filled with worry. I see cracks in strong and competent people, friends, and colleagues just like you.
Do you remember that “feeling” — the hope, excitement, opportunity?
What about the “why” we do what we do, no matter which path in veterinary medicine you have taken?
We know the privilege we have being veterinarians comes with the expectation and responsibility of service to society, and it can come at a deep individual cost. Right now, the veterinary profession is strained to an extent we have never experienced before.
Perhaps, like me, you’ve been around awhile, and you aren’t “feeling” our profession like you used to. Or perhaps you are a student or new veterinarian who is overwhelmed, and you feel like the path you have devoted so much of your life to isn’t quite feeling like you expected. I implore each of you to return to your roots, to remember your “why” and that feeling you had when you received that acceptance letter or first donned your Blue Coat, the moment you walked across the stage to become a DVM!
We all know that not every day will give you that feeling, and if I’m being honest, I’ve experienced some painful lows — the kind that shook my confidence, stole my appetite for weeks, and made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. These moments stole my desire and made me question my love of veterinary medicine and my own self-worth.
Those who I’m closest to know this. They watched helplessly and offered what support they could. They also know how difficult it is for me to write these words here, as I am by nature very private.
That feeling, your pride and excitement, was deserved and so real, and you deserve it again. So, how do you find your way back there?
You might wonder how I have navigated those incredibly difficult days, what was it that allowed me the courage to believe in myself again so that I found my way back. If I can distill it down to a single thing after travelling more than a million kilometers around rural Nova Scotia, there is one thing that has protected me, healed me, allowed me to love my profession again — it has been the many deep relationships that I’ve forged over the last 20 years serving clients who cared about me as much as I did about them.
It has also been the many incredibly deep and supportive relationships I have with colleagues from across our profession — the ones who believed in me when I donned my Blue Coat, those who encouraged me at every turn on my journey, and those that knew how to help pick me up when I was failing. All of them have at times helped me rewrite a heavy and dangerous narrative of negativity that can creep into all of us.
I remember the first time a client asked me, “Trevor, are you OK?” moments after we said farewell to a lifelong friend; it was many years ago. “George” was a beautiful chestnut gelding, and I knew how incredibly deep their bond was. I’m certain George’s person didn’t know the power of that moment when she laid her hand on my shoulder and spoke such genuine words. I’ve replayed that moment, and many like it, over the years — all those people who have cared as much as I have. A global pandemic may have disrupted those moments, but to be honest, I made a choice to keep some of those moments despite COVID-19. This likely didn’t make me the best at adhering to public health guidance at times, but I chose another wellness and health path: togetherness and connection.
If we want the most out of life, the most from our profession, it is going to depend on relationships, togetherness, and connections that will carry us on the darkest days. To do this, there is something that is necessary: Allow yourself to be truly vulnerable without knowing what might come next. The gifts that will follow will sustain you when you are tired, injured, and need strength, and they’ll remind you of your “why.”
These relationships, along with the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association’s and our provincial associations’ slate of programs, can help you through the most challenging period our profession has ever known.
-Trevor Lawson