How experienced practitioners can inspire, develop, and retain the future leaders of equine veterinary medicine.
Photo: Shelley Paulson
Photo: Shelly Paulson
Help new graduates establish successful careers in equine veterinary medicine through thoughtful mentorship.
A good mentoring relationship is crucial to a new graduate’s professional development in equine medicine. By showing confidence in the mentee and generously sharing experiences, knowledge, and skills, the mentor can have a marked influence on their colleague’s future.
An environment where psychological safety is present is essential for the best mentoring. According to research by Amy Edmondson, PhD, Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, the basis for psychological safety includes a workplace where candor is accepted, mistakes are forgiven, questions are seen as a strength rather than a weakness, and questioning the status quo occurs without fear. A culture with this kind of safety increases engagement, innovation, and productivity. Her work has shown that psychological safety within the workplace is one of the most important factors contributing to learning behaviors. When motivation is high but psychological safety is low, anxiety results. When motivation and psychological safety are high, staff can enter the learning zone. In a practice where the culture is not entirely safe, a mentor can provide a zone of safety where the mentee can be heard and learn more effectively.
When mentors model being vulnerable and acknowledge their areas of weakness, they provide strong examples of human imperfection. When partnered with their expertise and success, this model helps mentees build resilience and avoid imposter syndrome. The Oxford Dictionary defines imposter syndrome as “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.”
The persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.
The characteristics of imposter syndrome include:
Mentoring conversations with the most impact include professional identity, work-family integration, personal confidence, and resilience in the face of stress, along with performance evaluation. Early-career veterinarians prefer frequent feedback, but you must ask them how, where, and when they prefer to receive it. Is that in a formal meeting, during a walk outside, at the end of a workday, or at the beginning? Is it weekly or daily? Do they prefer something in writing to accompany a conversation? Can you accommodate their wishes, or will it be too difficult with your time constraints? Can you compromise so everyone gets something they need?
Most veterinary colleges are using entrustment scales to create paths to success. These scales can be for specific clinical tasks or for soft skills such as client communication. The idea is to determine how much you trust the mentee to perform the task or skill with a particular level of supervision. This method uses language that encourages rather than punishes, such as:
In addition, ask the mentee what steps they will take to achieve competency and how you can help them. Regular check-ins can demonstrate your dedication to the mentee’s success.
Good mentors encourage and demonstrate confidence in the mentee; recognize the mentee as an individual with a full life; value them as a person; ensure a positive and supportive professional environment for the mentee; don’t deny their own struggles, ignorance, or fears; and give liberal feedback in the mentee’s preferred way. They encourage independent action but are willing to invest time with the mentee when requested. They provide accessibility and exposure for the mentee within their own professional circle, allow the mentee to assist whenever possible, are generous with credit, and are patient with inquiries. You too can be an awesome mentor for new equine veterinarians.
Photo: Shelley Paulson
How veterinary practices can work as a team to support new veterinarians personally and professionally.
Mentorship is a critical aspect of equine veterinarians’ early careers. It’s also essential for veterinary practices that want to recruit and retain young practitioners. In a 2022 AVMA survey of graduating seniors, the top reason they accepted a job offer was mentorship. Another study showed more than one-third of new veterinary graduates will leave their first jobs within 1.4 years, and lack of mentorship is the main reason (Jelinski et al, 2009).
“If we want to recruit new grads, we do it by offering them mentorship and we keep them by doing it well,” said Kate Boatright, VMD, associate at Penn Ohio Veterinary Services and founder of KMB Veterinary Media LLC. She discussed the value of mentorship and how to execute it effectively during a presentation at the 2024 Midwest Veterinary Conference.
The 2023 American Animal Hospital Association’s mentoring guidelines define mentorship as: “A two-way relationship and type of human development in which one individual invests personal knowledge, energy, and time in order to help another individual grow and develop and improve to become the best and most successful they can be.”
“I like to point out that it really is a mutually beneficial relationship that promotes professional and personal growth. It’s more than just training,” said Boatright. “I benefit just as much from my mentorship relationships when I’m on the mentor side as I did on the mentee side.”
Mentorship helps ease the veterinarian’s transition into the clinic and provides them with confidence-building and a network of support, she explained. On the mentor side, it offers professional satisfaction and the potential for two-way learning. It can also be personally rewarding.
Mentorship benefits mentees by:
Mentorship takes many forms, Boatright added, including:
TRADITIONAL MENTORSHIP
More experienced individual supports a less experienced individual.
REVERSE MENTORSHIP
Less experienced individual serves in the “teaching” role. For example, a new grad might have new techniques they can share.
PEER MENTORSHIP
Individuals of equal experience support each other. “This is especially important for the current population of early-career veterinarians, because their education was directly impacted and disrupted by COVID,” she said.
REMOTE MENTORSHIP
Mentor and mentee in different locations.
MOSAIC MENTORSHIP
A combination of different types of mentorship, often involving different mentors playing different roles.
“The nice thing is mentorship is not a menu that you have to pick from,” said Boatright. “It’s more a buffet.”
To be effective mentors, seasoned practitioners must first understand the challenges early-career veterinarians face, said Boatright. Of course they have the common challenges of starting a new job, learning new technologies and workflows, and getting to know a new team and client/patient base.
“Then layer on top of that early career challenges such as financial pressures and large amounts of debt, practical knowledge gaps, imposter syndrome, and confidence-building. A lack of confidence should not be equated with a lack of knowledge,” she added. “Make sure we make that distinction.”
In a 2021 research report, Reinhard et al. determined the three most critical skills new veterinarians lack are client communication, conflict management, and self-care. “These are the things we need to be aware of as mentors and work to support,” said Boatright.
“A lack of confidence should not be equated with a lack of knowledge. Make sure we make that distinction.” — Dr. Katie Boatright
Early-career veterinarians are also at higher risk of mental health distress than older colleagues, have lower levels of job satisfaction, and have higher levels of burnout. “This is why we need mentorship and why it’s so important,” she reiterated.
When entering into a mentorship, Boatright recommended creating an agreement that:
In her mentorship programs, Boatright said she starts by having the mentee work alongside her rather than simply shadowing. “This benefits the mentee but also allows you as the mentor to see how they work and communicate, assess their skills, and build some of that trust up before you let them fly free.”
Then she puts her mentees on preventive care and wellness appointments only, progressing to minor illness and injury cases and more complex cases and emergencies over time.
Whether your practice comprises just two veterinarians or an entire team of vets and support staff, it’s important to set expectations when bringing on a new grad. Have a team meeting to discuss each member’s role, the general mentorship plan, and whom to provide feedback to, said Boatright.
Encourage your team to create a welcoming environment, which might include meeting for introductions prior to the veterinarian’s start date, wearing name badges, and introducing frequent clients.
The team should also promote confidence-building, Boatright said. “Young doctors may frequently ask for advice on case management or do extensive research on what may seem to be a routine case to experienced staff members,” she explained. “These actions should not be interpreted as a lack of knowledge, but instead a lack of confidence. Building confidence will take time, and young veterinarians should not be expected to enter the clinic with the same confidence, efficiency, or skill of an experienced colleague.”
Boatright said the primary mentor’s role involves:
“Other veterinarians can serve as mentors as well, providing as-needed case or procedure support, mental health support, and communication and leadership skills,” she added.
If you have veterinary technicians on your team, pair your most efficient, experienced techs with new grads to teach them technical skills, share experiences and observations, make respectful suggestions, and provide support during difficult client communications, said Boatright.
Mentorship improves recruitment and retention for early-career veterinarians and helps support their unique needs.
“All team members have a vital role in supporting early-career vets,” said Boatright. “Having a mentorship plan in place will help execute exceptional mentorship.”
Photo: Adobe Stock
Being a strong mentor is an art rather than a science—here’s how to develop and enhance your veterinary mentorship skills.
Equine veterinarians mentoring new grads and young practitioners must develop a variety of skills to be effective advisors, teachers, and role models. During a presentation at the 2024 Midwest Veterinary Conference, Kate Boatright, VMD, associate at Penn Ohio Veterinary Services and founder of KMB Veterinary Media LLC, described skills that support a successful mentoring relationship in a clinical setting. Here are seven of the most important.
Communication is essential to having a good practice. “You can be the most intelligent doctor and have the best and most up-to-date medical information, but if you have terrible bedside manner, you’re not going to be a good doctor from the client’s perspective,” said Boatright.
The most successful type of communication in a veterinary setting, she said, is relationship-based communication, “where we’re building a relationship and a bond with our clients.”
She then listed several core communication skills mentors should help mentees develop:
Asking open-ended questions beginning with words like “what” or “why”
In practice, these types of questions are great ways to collect information, help the veterinarian connect with the client, and elicit more of a response than yes or no, said Boatright. She also uses these types of questions when asking mentees about their cases, saying, for example, “What questions do you have?” instead of “Do you have any questions?”
Active listening
which involves showing your engagement with nonverbal cues, such as nodding and eye contact, as well as phrases like “go on” or “I see.”
Reflective listening
which you can use to confirm your understanding. Examples include paraphrasing the history a client just gave or echoing the last thing they said.
Sign-posting
which is a communication style that gives conversations structure and provides transitions between topics. For example, said Boatright, if you find a lot of abnormalities on a patient’s bloodwork, set expectations for the client by telling them you’re going to discuss those findings one at a time and then talk about what they mean altogether.
Chunking and checking
Deliver information in small chunks. “Clients do better with small pieces of information than a five-minute monologue of results where you lose them at Step 1,” she explained. “If we stop and check for understanding, we’ll prevent that information overload.” This is an important skill for new grads to develop, she added, because they have a lot of information in their heads.
Empathy
which is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from their point of view. Veterinarians should have empathy when communicating with clients as well as when delivering feedback to mentees.
When developing and addressing mentee communication skills, Boatright recommended:
Additional ways Boatright said she supports mentee communication skills include suggesting phrases to use in conversations, reviewing key points when discussing cases, and creating templates for email communications.
When working with mentees on cases, encourage self-directed learning. “I like to try to guide my mentees to the answer and not just tell them,” said Boatright. If a mentee asks you what to do, for instance, help them get to the answer using open-ended questions. (The exception, she noted, is during emergencies, when you don’t have time to teach.)
She also urged mentors to teach early-career veterinarians about the spectrum of care approach—the idea that there are a range of acceptable options for any given patient.
“On one end is the gold standard—which is what most students are learning at the teaching hospital—and on the other end of the spectrum are options like palliative care, symptomatic treatment, and economic euthanasia,” she explained, which can weigh heavily on new grads and lead to consequences like compassion fatigue and burnout. “That’s why we want to talk to our new grads about the spectrum of care approach and the reality of practice.”
Help mentees prepare for cases when there are financial limitations and ethical dilemmas by sharing your own experiences and how you handled them. Encourage them to focus on what they can learn and diagnose without running lots of expensive tests. “When discussing treatments, encourage mentees to think about cost, likelihood of owner and patient compliance, and frequency of follow-up,” Boatright added.
Having goals improves mental health and job satisfaction. Veterinary professionals with goals are less likely to get burned out and feel happier and more valued than those without goals, Boatright said.
“Goals help us focus our training,” she explained. “They provide ways to measure mentee success, motivate individuals, and create accountability. As a mentor, I like to set goals and ask mentees to keep me accountable as well. ”
She recommended using the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals format, whether setting goals for clinical skills, soft skills, or personal development.
“Goals help us focus our training. They provide ways to measure mentee success, motivate individuals, and create accountability. As a mentor, I like to set goals and ask mentees to keep me accountable as well.” — Dr. Katie Boatright
Model good boundaries and wellness for your mentees, said Boatright, which might include:
Be aware of situations that might be problematic, she said, such as difficult conversations with clients, euthanasia, ethical dilemmas, mistakes, and complications. Monitor mentees for signs of burnout and mental distress, and make sure you know what mental health resources are available so you can direct them to those.
Boatright listed symptoms of burnout to watch for in mentees, especially if they’re new behaviors:
“If we’re seeing these things, we need to have a conversation,” she said. “Say, ‘Hey, I’ve noticed lately you seem like you want to spend more time alone, is something going on that you want to talk about? I’m concerned about you.’”
Delivering effective, timely, and specific feedback is an important skill for anyone in a coaching or leadership position, said Boatright. Tips for effective feedback delivery include:
“There are lots of places we can run into conflict in veterinary practice, with clients, colleagues, support staff, mentors, and management,” said Boatright. Equip mentees with conflict resolution skills by:
Lastly, have patience when mentoring early-career veterinarians. “Every mentee is going to go at a different pace and require different levels of support,” said Boatright.
“Remember, we’re not dictating how these doctors are practicing—we can make suggestions on case management or communication skills, but they might not always take our advice. That can be difficult, but let them develop into their own doctors.
“That’s what we’re trying to do with mentoring,” she added. “Make them the best possible doctors they can be.”
Photo: Getty Images
Learn about common mentorship mistakes and how to avoid and correct them.
Practices that don’t offer their early career veterinarians effective mentorship are at risk of A) the new grad leaving the practice, or B) the new grad being unhappy.
“You put that investment in setting them up with mentorship and they leave,” said Kate Boatright, VMD, associate at Penn Ohio Veterinary Services and founder of KMB Veterinary Media LLC. “The alternative is the new grad stays but is unhappy, which impacts overall morale, may lead to turnover of other staff, and can have mental health ramifications for not only the new grad but the rest of the team.”
During a presentation at the 2024 Midwest Veterinary Conference, she described common mistakes practices can make and how to avoid them, so neither mentee nor veterinary practice find themselves in this situation.
Set clear expectations for the mentor, mentee, and clinic management’s roles and responsibilities at the start of the mentorship. Doing so will improve the likelihood of all parties being satisfied with the outcome, said Boatright. One way to do this is by creating a mentorship agreement that:
Boatright advised both mentor and potential mentee to define mentorship for each other.
“If the new grad’s expectation of mentorship is having a very formalized program where you have coworking time and go through things step by step, and the practice’s idea of mentorship is having a doctor available to answer questions, you’re not going to be happy because your expectations don’t line up,” she said.
Boatright then listed other questions to consider:
Every mentee is going to progress at different speeds, Boatright explained, and refusal to adapt the plan to fit that individual’s needs can lead to frustration for the mentee, mentor, and team.
“Some mentees will be ready to move along, see complex cases more quickly,” she said. “If we tell them ‘No, we agreed you’d only see wellness for a month,’ that’s not supporting them. Others will need to extend time in certain areas. Flexibility is essential.”
She advised assessing the mentee’s current schedule at each mentoring meeting. Get the mentee’s perspective, collect feedback from the team and clients, encourage the mentee to share their concerns and feelings about their schedule at any time. Then discuss when and how any changes will take place.
New veterinary graduates can be great assets to a practice, but make sure you prepare your team for what to expect. “New grads are going to be less productive, efficient, confident, and direct,” said Boatright. “But they’re also going to be more enthusiastic and creative and have new ideas and the latest knowledge. ”
Make sure your team feels comfortable giving feedback and suggestions to mentees as well as expressing concerns to the mentor or practice management, she added. Ensure they’re aware of the mentorship plan and timeline.
“New grads are going to be less productive, efficient, confident, and direct. But they’re also going to be more enthusiastic and creative and have new ideas and the latest knowledge.” — Dr. Katie Boatright
“No one can fix or change what they don’t know isn’t working,” said Boatright. The right balance of positive feedback and constructive criticism can let young veterinarians know what they’re doing well as well as where they need to focus on improvement.
Boatright gave the following advice:
Determine your mentee’s preferred way to receive feedback, and schedule a time to circle back after giving difficult feedback. “This gives the mentee time to digest feedback and create a plan for responding,” said Boatright.
Mentee veterinarians have higher levels of psychological distress than older colleagues (17.3% in vets under 35 years of age vs. 10% across the board, according to the most recent Merck Veterinary Wellbeing Study), Boatright stated. So, how do we support these individuals?
Lack of mentorship is a top reason new veterinary grads leave a practice, Boatright reiterated. To retain young vets in equine practice, be clear on what you can offer a new grad before they begin, identify a primary mentor to coordinate the mentorship efforts, and involve the whole team in the mentorship process, she said. Be willing to adapt the plan to meet individual needs, provide regular, timely, specific feedback, and don’t forget to be open about mental health and check in on mentee well-being.
