Veterinary scheduling study highlights burnout prevention levers

Veterinary scheduling study points to predictability, breaks, and role-aware flexibility

A new article in Today’s Veterinary Nurse puts a practical frame around a familiar profession-wide problem: veterinary teams don’t just need fewer stressors, they need better schedules. Published March 11, 2026, the piece translates findings from a 2025 mixed-methods thesis into operational recommendations for general practice, emergency, and referral settings, arguing that predictable hours, real break coverage, and role-aware flexibility can support both staff wellbeing and safer patient care. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

The underlying research, cited as a master’s thesis by Sarah Ostrin and Laura Marshall at the National University of Natural Medicine, surveyed 51 veterinary professionals about scheduling preferences and the ways work design affects recovery and job satisfaction. According to the Today’s Veterinary Nurse summary, 72% preferred consecutive workdays, most often in 3- to 4-day blocks followed by equivalent rest periods, because fragmented schedules made it harder to truly recover. The same article reported that 73% believed flexible scheduling would improve mental health and work-life balance, but respondents defined flexibility less as constant shift changes and more as input, predictability, and fair swap systems. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

One of the clearest findings was around breaks. When regular breaks were part of the schedule, 85% to 90% of respondents said they experienced better mental clarity, fewer mistakes, and improved communication. The article explicitly frames that as perception-based data, but it also connects the finding to prior literature on fatigue and performance, including a 2023 review on the impact of long work hours and insufficient rest on job performance in veterinary settings. In other words, the scheduling conversation is being positioned less as a lifestyle perk and more as a clinical operations issue. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

The piece also underscores that scheduling pressure lands differently across the team. Veterinary nurses and technicians were described as having less control over their hours because their shifts often expand with doctor flow, a dynamic that can turn “flexibility” into routine unpaid or unplanned overtime for support staff. That aligns with other recent findings in the profession. A 2025 JAVMA study on veterinary technician burnout identified high workload and lack of support as major contributors to burnout, while a 2020 Frontiers in Veterinary Science paper noted technicians face many of the same occupational stressors as veterinarians but have historically received less focused attention in mental health research. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

Broader workforce data help explain why this topic is resonating now. AVMA’s 2025 economic report found veterinarian work hours declined in 2024, but remained above prepandemic levels: 42.4 hours per week on average for full- and part-time veterinarians combined, compared with 41.9 hours in 2019. Among full-time veterinarians, the 2024 average was 48.3 hours per week, with even higher averages in some sectors, including equine practice and advanced education. At the same time, the report found that 69.4% of veterinarians said they’d prefer to keep the same number of hours they currently work, while 23.5% said they’d prefer fewer hours for lower compensation, suggesting that for many clinicians the issue may be less total hours alone than how those hours are structured and experienced. (ebusiness.avma.org)

Industry and wellbeing groups have been pushing similar themes. NOMV’s late-2025 guidance for new graduates recommends schedules that include dedicated administrative blocks, a true lunch period, and clear end-of-day guardrails so clinicians can leave on time. NOMV has also expanded workplace-focused wellbeing efforts through its CLEAR Blueprint certification program, which is designed to help practices build mentally healthier work environments. Meanwhile, dvm360 recently highlighted psychological safety and checklists as tools for safer veterinary teams, reinforcing the idea that sustainable scheduling sits alongside communication and systems design, not apart from them. (nomv.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this article adds to the growing evidence that burnout prevention can’t rest on individual resilience alone. The strongest practical message is that schedule architecture matters: protected breaks need coverage, flexibility needs boundaries, and support staff need more control over when their day ends. That’s especially relevant for hospitals trying to retain technicians, reduce turnover, and maintain care quality while hours remain high across much of the profession. It also fits with JAVMA research published in 2024 showing work-life balance is closely tied to reduced burnout and improved wellbeing in U.S. veterinarians. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)

What to watch: The next question is whether practices move from acknowledging scheduling strain to redesigning workflows around it, through tools like overlapping shifts, administrative blocks, break coverage, and role-specific templates, and whether future peer-reviewed studies test whether those changes measurably improve retention, error rates, and career satisfaction. (todaysveterinarynurse.com)