Motherhood and maintaining your role as a vet professional

Managing a family and a veterinary career is undoubtedly a challenge. According to a 2020 AVMA survey¹, about 30% of companion animal veterinarians said they wanted to work fewer hours to improve work-life balance and mental health. In the RCVS 2019 Survey of the Veterinary Profession², 23.4% of veterinary surgeons were working part time, and almost half of veterinary surgeons taking a career break were on parental leave/looking after children – for female vets, this is the main reason for taking a career break.

Returning to work after maternity leave can be tricky to manage. New parents can find it difficult to predict what will be manageable around childcare; and the demands of on-call rotas, increasing workloads, and lack of flexibility from employers can present challenges to new mothers. They may still be nursing, experiencing new circumstances in their home lives, and may also feel they have changed substantially as a person. “I feel constantly guilty that I’m compromising either my job or my children. It feels awful if I’m leaving earlier than the rest of the team, but equally awful if I don’t see my kids because of a long shift,” says Fiona, an English equine vet with two young children. It can also be daunting to return to practice when people, procedures and drugs may have changed.

As children get older, the pressures can be different with school and extracurricular activities to work around, and the omnipresent challenge of finding suitable childcare for both term-time and school holidays.

So what can help to smooth the road?

Support and solutions

Finding an employer who can offer flexibility – whether part-time hours, shorter shifts, reduction of OOH or term-time contracts can make it easier to manage a family and enjoy a rewarding work life; and it is vital to find a practice who embraces a positive culture and values their employees.

“My practice was really accommodating when my children were small. They allowed me to work flexibly, doing blocks of consults in the middle of the day,” says Katy, a small animal vet from Suffolk. “That was balanced by me being as flexible as possible and offering to cover whenever possible. My practice manager made it clear that making temporary accommodations while children were small was worth it to keep valued staff.”

Many organisations and CPD providers now offer learning specifically tailored towards vets returning after maternity leave or a career break, both to gain confidence about managing a family alongside a veterinary career, and to update on changes in practice and refresh skills and knowledge in key clinical areas.

Good support is essential, from childcare to family, friends and colleagues. “Covering evening surgery was a big issue,” says Katy, “I was lucky to find an accommodating childminder who was able to work in the evenings and didn’t mind if I was late.”

Support is not just about the practicalities of ensuring that children are safe and well-cared for, but is also about coping with the mental load, gaining emotional support and facilitating personal time to maintain health and wellbeing. “It’s really important that practices respect that work is work, and home is home,” says Fiona. “Managers can help by ensuring that everyone is aware of staff’s working hours and needs.”

Katy sums up: “In our practice there was a real atmosphere of teamwork so that we all supported each other and worked together to cover the workload. It’s so important to have that attitude that we can make it work for everyone.”

Previously published on 24 October 2022 in DVM360 as part of the Strategic Partners Programme: https://www.dvm360.com/view/you-can-navigate-motherhood-and-be-a-veterinary-professional

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