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Veterinary medicine has begun to talk about burnout openly. That, at least, is progress. We name compassion fatigue . We circulate wellness resources. We encourage resilience, balance, mindfulness, time off. And yet, year after year, the problem worsens. More veterinarians leave clinical practice. More technicians exit the field entirely. Morale erodes. Distrust deepens. The profession feels strained in ways that no yoga class or wellness webinar seems able to repair. Perhap

We all know someone who prides themselves on being sure . At first glance, certainty looks like strength. It feels like a solid floor under our feet. But certainty without adaptability - the refusal to adjust when reality changes - is less like a solid floor and more like concrete shoes in a rising tide. That’s the heart of the idea behind the phrase: Certainty without adaptability is a dangerous illusion . Psychologically, certainty is warm and comforting. Certainty: Reduc

A close friend who I have known for many years considers me to have well-developed perfectionist tendencies . He was being polite! He recommended a book ( Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff) in which author Richard Carlson suggests that perfectionism is more often a source of quiet suffering than excellence. As I look back on a fortunate life and career, I realize that Carlson has a point. Perfectionism often disguises itself as virtue. It tells us we have high standards, that we

Every veterinarian enters a profession they did not build. They inherit it. They inherit public trust. They inherit standards forged through hard cases, sleepless nights, and moral restraint. They inherit a culture shaped by people who accepted discomfort - financial, emotional, physical - because the work mattered. And yet, something unsettling is happening in veterinary medicine. Not because the work has become harder. But because our tolerance for difficulty has become thi

By this point in this four-part series , a picture has emerged: Part 1 asked who really owns veterinary continuing education when corporate logos dominate our conference programs. Part 2 argued that counting hours is a poor proxy for competence , and explored what outcome-focused CPD might look like. Part 3 looked at how corporate sponsorship can quietly narrow the spectrum of care , and how good CPD can reopen it. Now comes the practical question: If we’re serious ab

In Part 3 of this series, I want to explore: How corporate sponsorship can quietly narrow the spectrum of care, and How an outcome-focused CPD system can help us reopen it. Picture this. You’re at a major conference, in a standing-room-only session on chronic enteropathy in dogs. The speaker is excellent, the slides are polished, and the diagnostic workup on each case includes: full lab panel, abdominal ultrasound, GI panel, endoscopy with biopsies, and long-term branded

Facts about India are plentiful. Useful facts are earned. This piece is not about superlatives or trivia. It is about what makes the difference between merely getting through India and truly experiencing it. Much of what follows comes from personal experience - mistakes made once, sometimes twice, but never again. Think of this as practical wisdom. India Is a Continent Masquerading as a Country India’s scale defies intuition. Distances are vast. Cultures shift dramatically

One of my favorite things to do in India is street photography. Its unlike anywhere else in the world. Colors that don’t merely decorate the scene but structure it. Saffron, vermilion, indigo, turmeric, dust, rust, sunlight. In India, color is not esthetic garnish. It is language. It signals devotion, work, caste, celebration, grief, season, intention. For a photographer, it is irresistible. But India is not a place where you simply take photographs. It is a place where you

People rarely speak of grace when they first leave India. They speak of exhaustion. Of noise. Of heat, crowds, delays, things that did not work the way they were supposed to. They speak of how difficult it was. How relentless. How unlike anywhere else. And then, quietly, often weeks or months later, something shifts. Grace arrives late. What Remains When the Hard Parts Fade The discomfort fades first. The frustration loosens its grip. What remains are moments so small they al

India does not meet you halfway. This is the point in the journey where many travelers stiffen. Where carefully learned rules about food, water, family, and faith collide with something less containable. Noise rises. Crowds thicken. Plans dissolve. Systems you rely on - time, order, efficiency - begin to wobble. India pushes back hardest here, not out of hostility, but indifference. Time as a Suggestion In India, time is elastic. Trains arrive when they arrive. Meetings begin

In India, faith does not lower its voice. It rings bells before dawn. It burns incense at street corners. It spills into traffic and interrupts schedules without apology. Here, belief is not something you carry discreetly. It is something you live visibly, publicly, and often without explanation. To the visitor, this can at first feel overwhelming. And then, slowly, it feels instructive. A Majority Faith That Isn’t Quiet Hinduism is not just one belief system among many in In

In India, you are not hosted. You are absorbed. There is a subtle but important difference: Hosting implies a boundary: a start time, an end time, a sense that you will eventually leave and life will resume its usual shape. Absorption has no such courtesy. Once you cross the threshold of an Indian home, you are inside the organism. You are family now. Whether you asked to be or not. The Guest Is God The phrase Atithi Devo Bhava - the guest is God - is often translated p

You can admire food from a distance. You cannot do that with water. Water enters you quietly. It slips past intention and habit, past years of unthinking trust. In India, water is never neutral. It is watched, boiled, filtered, carried, bartered, worshiped, feared. It is life - and it is risk. You learn this not from a warning sign, but from the pause before you brush your teeth. Water Is Everywhere & It’s Rarely Innocent In much of the world, water is invisible infrastructur

Before you travel in India, you must learn how to eat. Not what to eat - that comes later - but how . Slowly. Deliberately. With respect. With restraint. And with an understanding that food in India is not merely nourishment, but culture, religion, family, and ritual layered onto a plate. India teaches this lesson early. Sometimes forcefully. The First Truth: India Is Generous With Food Food in India is everywhere. It arrives uninvited. It is pressed upon you. It is shared

In Part 1 , I argued that we need to bring the same level of scrutiny to veterinary continuing education (CE) that human medicine has applied to its own system, especially around corporate influence. But even if we solved the funding problem tomorrow, we’d still be left with a deeper issue: Our regulatory systems treat time spent in a chair as a proxy for competence. Even if a participant sleeps through all the lectures! You know the drill: I need 20 hours this year. I’m sh

Picture two wolves in the veterinary profession. One is Greed . Not always snarling, often well-dressed. It speaks in polished phrases: efficiency , synergy , standardization , scale , shareholder value . It doesn’t announce itself as predation. It arrives as a spreadsheet. The other is Care . The old, stubborn animal in us. Compassion , craft , continuity . A vet who knows the patient, the client, the staff member’s kid’s name, the way a frightened dog leans into a particu

We drove into Van Horn, Texas, as we have done once a year for the past eleven years and sat down for dinner in the dining room of the El Capitan Hotel . Built in 1930, El Capitan still carries itself with the quiet dignity of another era. The food is excellent, the wine list carefully chosen, the service warm and unhurried. For us, the El Capitan has become a ritual. Proof that some things endure when care, community, and craftsmanship are valued. Just north of this little

One of the more curious rebuttals to any critique of corporate influence in veterinary medicine is the phrase: You’ve never worked in a corporate practice, so your opinion doesn’t count. It’s a silencing tactic. A way of shrinking the conversation to those already within the system, and by extension, ensuring that dissenting voices remain unheard. But this argument collapses under the simplest scrutiny. You don’t need to have drawn a corporate paycheck to understand the ethic

In the high desert of New Mexico, where sunlight paints the mesas in gold and red, a simple yet powerful image radiates across the landscape. The Zia Sun Symbol . To many, The symbol is instantly recognizable from the New Mexico state flag: a red sun with four groups of four rays extending outward on a golden field. But to the Zia Pueblo , this symbol carries a far deeper meaning rooted in spirituality, harmony, and respect for the natural order of life. Origins in the Zia Pu

Last Sunday morning, I noticed her in the church yard of the San Albino Basilica in Mesilla, New Mexico, 30 miles from the border. A delicate, black, lace mantilla draped over her head and shoulders, almost blending with her hair. The mantilla has long been a symbol of faith, femininity, and tradition across Spain and Latin America. In Mexico, has its own unique identity. A blend of Catholic devotion, indigenous artistry, and social expression. The mantilla’s roots reach bac