Dvm360 podcast reframes burnout around purpose, not just advice

Veterinary medicine has no shortage of burnout content, but a new dvm360 podcast episode suggests the profession may be asking the wrong question. In “From ‘I should’ to ‘Why?’: A different approach to burnout,” published November 19, 2025, Aaron Shaw and Jennifer Edwards argue that the persistence of burnout is not mainly a knowledge gap. Instead, they say, many veterinary professionals already know what supports wellbeing, but struggle to act on it because of internalized expectations, workplace culture, and competing demands. (dvm360.com)

That message arrives in a profession that has spent years trying to define the roots of burnout more clearly. dvm360’s broader Resilient Vet series has focused on physical durability, energy management, and expectation-setting, while other recent dvm360 reporting has emphasized that burnout prevention has to happen at the organizational level, not just through individual self-care. In parallel, AVMA and Merck-backed wellbeing research has continued to document persistent stress, even as awareness has improved. (dvm360.com)

In the episode, Shaw opens by calling burnout in veterinary medicine “really kind of an epidemic,” then asks why it remains so widespread despite abundant seminars, posters, and continuing education. The answer, he and Edwards suggest, is that generic advice often stalls at the level of obligation. Edwards describes a process of helping people move past superficial “should” statements and identify what actually matters to them personally, whether that’s family, mobility, nature, or sustaining the life they want outside the clinic. dvm360 summarizes their approach as shifting from collecting information to taking meaningful, individualized action. (dvm360.com)

That framing fits with emerging evidence that burnout is shaped by more than mindset alone. A 2024 JAVMA paper on the Merck Animal Health Veterinary Team study found serious psychological distress was twice as prevalent among nonveterinarian practice team members as among veterinarians, while burnout was also common. The study pointed to financial stress and other predictors of poor wellbeing, underscoring that support staff and technicians face many of the same pressures as DVMs. Meanwhile, the 2025 AVMA Report on the Economic State of the Veterinary Profession showed burnout scores for associate veterinarians have trended down since their pandemic-era peak, but burnout among relief veterinarians has been climbing since 2021. The same report found more than two-thirds of veterinarians were satisfied with their jobs, lifestyles, and compensation, yet only about half were satisfied with the profession as a whole. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Expert commentary elsewhere in the field points in a similar direction. At the 2024 Fetch dvm360 conference, Kate Boatright, VMD, said burnout can be recoverable, but argued prevention “really has to happen at the organizational level.” She also urged teams to connect wellbeing conversations to operational and financial realities when speaking with management, a sign that burnout is increasingly being treated as a practice performance issue, not just a personal one. Merck Animal Health’s 2024 wellbeing release likewise said veterinary teams continue to report high exhaustion, work-life balance strain, and concern about staffing shortages, especially earlier in their careers. (dvm360.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the episode’s message is useful because it bridges two truths that can seem at odds. Individual reflection matters, and so do structural conditions. A clearer personal “why” may help a veterinarian, technician, or manager make better decisions about boundaries, schedule design, physical health, or career direction. But the broader evidence suggests that personal motivation alone won’t resolve distress tied to understaffing, financial pressure, unclear expectations, or practice culture. For clinics trying to improve retention, that means wellbeing efforts may work best when they connect personal values with practical changes in staffing, workflows, mentorship, and team communication. (dvm360.com)

There’s also a workforce angle. AVMA’s labor-market analysis published in late 2024 argued that existing veterinary colleges should be able to meet U.S. companion animal demand through at least 2035, challenging the idea that the profession’s problems can be explained simply by too few veterinarians. If that holds, then retention, role design, and sustainability become even more important. Burnout is no longer just a wellness story; it’s a workforce strategy story. (avma.org)

What to watch: Watch for more veterinary education and workforce discussions to tie burnout prevention to measurable practice changes, especially around team support, early-career mentoring, and relief veterinarian retention, rather than relying on awareness campaigns alone. (merck-animal-health-usa.com)