Scheduling may be a frontline fix for veterinary burnout: full analysis

CURRENT FULL VERSION: A new scheduling-focused report in Today’s Veterinary Nurse argues that veterinary practices may be able to improve staff wellbeing and career satisfaction through relatively modest operational changes, especially more predictable schedules, protected breaks, and flexibility with clear boundaries. The article centers on a mixed-methods pilot and primary study of 51 veterinary professionals and arrives at a message many teams will recognize: schedule instability doesn’t just wear people down, it can also affect communication, recovery, and patient care. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

The timing matters. After the pandemic-era surge, veterinarians are working fewer hours than they did at the peak, but the profession hasn’t returned to a low-strain baseline. AVMA’s 2025 Economic State of the Veterinary Profession report shows average weekly hours for all veterinarians dropped to 42.4 in 2024, down from 45.6 in 2021. Even so, full-time veterinarians still averaged 48.3 hours a week, with some sectors, including mixed animal, equine, and advanced education, reporting substantially higher figures. AVMA also reported that among veterinarians considering leaving the profession in 2024, the top reason was improving mental health, followed by lifestyle and work-hour demands. (ebusiness.avma.org)

Against that backdrop, the Today’s Veterinary Nurse article translates the study’s findings into practical scheduling recommendations. Among respondents, 72% preferred consecutive workdays, often in three- to four-day blocks paired with equivalent time off. Preferences on shift length were split, with many favoring either 8- to 10-hour shifts or 10- to 12-hour compressed schedules, reinforcing the idea that a one-size-fits-all model is unlikely to work. The article also emphasizes that “flexibility” does not mean constant availability; respondents described wanting input, predictability, and fair swap systems rather than last-minute schedule changes. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

Breaks emerged as a particularly practical issue. In the survey summarized by Today’s Veterinary Nurse, 85% to 90% of respondents said regular breaks improved mental clarity, reduced mistakes, and improved team communication. The article’s operational recommendation is to engineer coverage for breaks rather than simply listing them on paper. It also highlights role-based pressure points, noting that veterinary nurses often have the least control because their hours expand with doctor flow and end-of-day case creep. That concern fits with a broader message showing up across veterinary wellbeing coverage: rest works best when it is treated as a requirement built into the structure of the day, not as a reward teams can take only if the work somehow ends early. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

That framing is consistent with earlier peer-reviewed research. A 2020 Frontiers in Veterinary Science study of 1,642 veterinary technicians found that schedule control was the most significant predictor of lower emotional exhaustion. Another multicenter study of technicians in specialty teaching hospitals linked burnout with job-related risk factors and found burnout scores higher than those reported for a contemporaneous group of trauma nurses in human medicine. A 2024 JAVMA study, meanwhile, concluded that work-life balance is essential to reducing burnout and improving wellbeing in veterinary medicine. Outside the peer-reviewed literature, recent profession-facing commentary has also highlighted how early and persistent the strain can begin: one Kansas State longitudinal study cited by Vet Candy found about one-third of first-year veterinary students reported depression levels above the clinical cutoff during their first and second semesters, with symptoms in some students worsening over time. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Industry commentary around wellbeing has increasingly shifted from individual resilience to systems design. AVMA’s economic report explicitly advises employers seeking to reduce turnover to offer flexible work hours, support designated break times, and encourage employees to use leave when needed. In a recent dvm360 interview, anesthesiologist Lydia Love, DVM, DACVAA, made a related point from a patient safety angle, arguing that veterinary teams should focus less on blaming individuals and more on improving the systems in which inevitable human errors occur, including communication tools, checklists, and the psychological safety needed for people to speak up, ask questions, and propose solutions without fear of retribution. PetMD has made a similar systems-level case on mental health support, noting that many practices still do not discuss mental health openly and recommending simple near-term steps such as normalizing those conversations in meetings and maintaining a ready-to-use mental health resource list for staff. That broader systems mindset helps explain why scheduling is drawing more attention: it sits at the intersection of retention, safety, morale, and workflow. (ebusiness.avma.org)

The pressure is not only emotional. Financial strain is increasingly part of the profession’s wellbeing story for both students and clinic staff. Recent veterinary commentary has pointed to the combined burden of high educational debt, rising living costs, and low compensation for many technicians and support staff. That affordability squeeze also shows up in everyday care decisions: Today’s Veterinary Business, in a Q&A about whether clinic employees can seek less expensive care elsewhere for their own pets, noted that many veterinary workers cannot comfortably afford care even with employee discounts and that this is part of a much wider affordability problem affecting pet owners nationally. In other words, schedule redesign may help, but it is landing in a workforce already carrying financial stress that can worsen burnout and retention risk.

Why it matters: For veterinary leaders, the takeaway isn’t simply that people want fewer hours. It’s that teams appear to want more control, more predictability, and more realistic recovery built into the workweek. That distinction matters operationally. If demand is softening from pandemic highs while full-time hours remain elevated, practices may have room to redesign coverage using overlap shifts, fixed lunch blocks, or compressed schedules without automatically sacrificing access or revenue. For associates, technicians, and veterinary nurses, schedule redesign may also be one of the few near-term retention tools that doesn’t depend on broader labor-market fixes. But the wider lesson is that schedule changes work best when paired with a culture where people can speak up, take breaks without guilt, and access practical support for both mental health and financial stress. (ebusiness.avma.org)

What to watch: The next question is whether these preferences translate into measurable clinic outcomes, such as lower turnover, fewer medical errors, better appointment flow, or stronger retention over time. Watch for larger, peer-reviewed follow-up studies beyond this 51-person sample, and for more practices to formalize schedule experiments around protected breaks, role-specific flexibility, recovery-oriented shift blocks, and psychological-safety measures such as checklists, clearer communication routines, and more open discussion of mental health resources. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)