NOMV ties environmental health to pet care and team wellbeing: full analysis

Not One More Vet is pushing a broader definition of veterinary wellbeing with its blog post “Healthy Planet, Healthy Pets, Healthy Veterinary Teams,” which argues that environmental change is affecting both patients and the people caring for them. The article’s core message is that heat, air pollution, and chemical exposure aren’t just public health or wildlife issues, but everyday companion animal and workplace realities that veterinary teams increasingly have to manage. That argument lands at a moment when veterinary organizations and researchers are paying more attention to climate-linked animal health risks and to the profession’s own sustainability and mental health challenges. (frontiersin.org)

The backdrop is a profession already under strain. NOMV’s broader resource library focuses heavily on crisis prevention, self-care, communication, and psychologically safer workplaces, underscoring how firmly mental health remains on the agenda in veterinary medicine. WSAVA’s professional wellness guidelines similarly describe veterinary work as meaningful but highly stressful, and tie wellbeing not only to workload and support systems, but also to veterinarians’ wider societal role, including environmental protection and public health. (nomv.org)

What’s changed is that environmental health is becoming harder to separate from routine clinical care. A 2025 Frontiers in Veterinary Science report found that more than 80% of veterinary respondents said the profession should be knowledgeable about individual animal health impacts of climate change, and 86.6% said it should understand sustainable practice behaviors such as waste and building design. The same study reported that veterinarians described climate change as affecting their own wellbeing, including through responsibility for protecting animal health and feelings that may contribute to compassion fatigue and burnout. (frontiersin.org)

The clinical signals are already familiar to many practices. AVMA warned in August 2025 that wildfire smoke poses health risks to pets and livestock, and a recent PubMed scoping review concluded that veterinarians are increasingly confronted with questions about poor air quality and its health effects in domestic animals. Heat is another visible example: AAHA has highlighted that heat stress can progress to life-threatening heatstroke, even when temperatures are not “extreme,” especially in brachycephalic pets and those with obesity, cardiac disease, or respiratory disease. Meanwhile, the British Veterinary Association, citing Royal Veterinary College data, said veterinarians saw five times more heatstroke cases during heat-health alert periods in 2022, with one in four affected dogs dying. (avma.org)

Industry and professional commentary is moving in the same direction. AAHA’s reporting frames heat safety as a shared responsibility between veterinary teams and pet parents, with practices expected to educate clients, adjust workflows, and protect patients on hot days. Sustainability presentations circulating in the profession, including a 2025 Vermont VMA slide deck, also suggest client expectations are shifting, with veterinary teams increasingly valued for specialty knowledge around pet health and environmental concerns. That doesn’t make every clinic a climate clinic, but it does suggest the issue is moving from advocacy language into operations, communication, and case management. (aaha.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the significance isn’t just philosophical. If environmental change increases the frequency of heat illness, smoke exposure, or other environmentally linked conditions, then caseload complexity, triage demands, client education needs, and moral stress may all rise together. The practical response may include updating discharge instructions and seasonal client messaging, building protocols for smoke and heat events, reviewing workplace safety and scheduling during extreme weather, and treating staff support as part of clinical preparedness. The emerging literature also suggests that sustainability work inside practices, such as waste reduction and operational redesign, may support staff wellbeing rather than compete with it. (frontiersin.org)

What to watch: The next phase will likely be more formal guidance, continuing education, and practice tools that connect climate resilience, companion animal care, and veterinary workforce retention, especially as warmer seasons and smoke events continue to test how prepared clinics really are. (frontiersin.org)