“I can’t believe my contract has seven more months left!” I felt trapped. A sinking sensation in my stomach made me doubt whether the sign-on bonus was worth the expense of my freedom. While I will always have fond memories of and respect for that veterinary clinic, I realized early on that my values did not align with those of the corporate owner.
I have heard many stories like mine: A young veterinarian choosing a practice (often getting a sizable sign-on bonus in exchange for a multiyear commitment) and realizing before the contract expires that the employer isn’t a good long-term fit.
Choosing a job is one thing, but picking a practice where you feel truly at home is another.
I have some advice for my fellow millennial veterinarians who want to find a clinic they can call home. I’ll leave you with relationship advice from a famous astrophysicist, a touch of intuition and a bit of stoic philosophy you might not want to hear.
Calculating to Find “The One”
Neil deGrasse Tyson is known for his astronomical knowledge and down-to-earth demeanor, but one wouldn’t expect him to give relationship advice. And isn’t finding a job essentially like entering a relationship (except with paid vacation time)?
In multiple interviews, the astrophysicist shared his formula for how he picked his wife, Alice Young, to whom he has been married for over 30 years.
One would think choosing a relationship is all about adding up the positive attributes or perhaps prioritizing certain qualities. And while that strategy works to some extent, Tyson asserts that multiplication, not addition, makes the difference.
While Tyson shared his formula to help people pick the best partner, millennial veterinarians can use the same calculation when choosing their veterinary employer.
In this example, I will compare two practices: Big Clinic and Small Clinic.
1. Ask Yourself, “What Do I Care About in a Practice?”
Be honest and pick the most important qualities you seek. Some common ones are culture, location, pay and team competence.
2. Rate the Different Characteristics
Let’s say Big Clinic is offering a $50,000 sign-on bonus (before taxes) and generous annual pay, which you rank 10 out of 10. However, you noticed that Big Clinic doesn’t retain its doctors for very long, and you witnessed the head veterinarian treating a technician poorly. You give the team competence and the location a 9 out of 10, and the culture gets a zero.
On the other hand, Small Clinic won’t offer you a dowry as a sign-on bonus — you rank the pay at 6 out of 10 — but the team competence, culture and location get a 9.
3. Multiply the Numbers
Once you rank all the areas that are important to you, it’s time for multiplication. For example:
- Big Clinic: pay 10/10, team 9/10, location 9/10, culture 0/10. Ten times 9 times 9 times 0 reveals a final score of zero.
- Small Clinic: pay 6/10, team 9/10, location 9/10, culture 9/10. Final score: 4,374.
After you do a little math, the better fit becomes obvious.
If you have trouble picking a practice, think mathematically. Calculators are good for more than just finding the correct drug dosage.
Remember to rank a clinic’s traits truthfully. A zero disqualifies that workplace. The highest-scoring practice might be the best fit for you. That is, unless something tells you otherwise.
Gut Feelings
When I was looking for a new job, I created a complicated decision matrix with 17 factors, from mentor qualities and standards of medicine to finances and team dynamics. It was a spreadsheet that geeks dream of — a perfectly organized, color-coded file with weighted values that would produce a single value after dozens of calculations.
However, life is not perfectly organized. Making a critical decision based on a number did not feel right to me.
One of the head veterinarians who interviewed me gave me some advice. After his leadership team took me to a fancy lunch, I asked him, “How should I pick a place to work?”
He paused and said, “In the end, pick a place where you feel at home.”
That was great advice. To this day, I respect him for counseling me rather than telling me to pick his practice. (I did not.)
Veterinary medicine trains us to be as objective, rigorous and scientific as possible. When you pick an employer, gathering data and making calculations helps, but do not forget one of your most powerful (yet poorly understood) abilities: intuition.
Now that you have all the tools for making the “perfect” choice, my next bit of advice might be a bit of a shock. You won’t make the perfect choice, and you’ll be OK.
Bursting Your Bubble
As a millennial and recovering perfectionist, I have, at times, become disenchanted with veterinary clinical life when it does not live up to my ideals due to inefficiencies, staffing shortages, confusing cases and so forth.
Striving for excellence is commendable, but striving for perfection is chaos.
While combining the logical and intuitive sides of your brain will likely give you the best chance of making the optimal decision, life is messy. If you expect perfection, you will be disappointed. There is no perfect clinic. No clinic can make you completely happy.
Managing expectations in the age of social media and constant comparison can be challenging. But stoicism can help.The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius asserted: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Suppose you signed a two-year contract and now want to leave your job, but you can’t because you fear having to sell your home. However, you can get through it. Your obstacle (being stuck in a job you don’t like) is an opportunity to grow your resilience. (Of course, if the environment is truly toxic, consult a lawyer or mentor about how to extricate yourself as soon as possible.)
While you might not be able to change your environment, you can change how you perceive it. Aurelius argued that “External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them.”
Perhaps you committed to a workplace for a year and find yourself complaining about it every day. Don’t panic. Not all is bad. Good can come from your situation if you look for it.
Home Sweet Home
Finding a hospital that you want to stick by through thick and thin is difficult. Sure, some practices might offer the sexiest technology and the biggest sign-on bonuses, but do you really want those things?
As for me, I left the practice that gave me a sign-on bonus (after I fulfilled my one-year contract) and went into relief work. After I got tired of the relief job’s inconsistent scheduling, I ended up at a hospital where I am quite happy.
When I was ranking my current practice, it did very well on all the metrics that were important to me. However, keep in mind that you cannot measure everything, and sometimes places or people will just “feel” wrong. Consider staying away from those.
No clinic is perfect, but with a bit of thought and planning, you can pick the best one for you.
OUTSIDER INSIGHT
Neil deGrasse Tyson hypothesized why dogs seem so incessantly happy. Listen to his explanation in a short YouTube video posted at bit.ly/4qfU2LO.