Vet Med Wellness + Leadership

This week, I’m stepping into the guest seat on the Pawsitive Leadership Podcast with Andrea Crabtree and David Liss, and we’re going deep into something that matters to me with my whole heart: caring for the people who care for everyone else. If you’ve ever felt the weight of veterinary medicine in your bones, the kind of exhaustion that comes from showing up day after day with your whole soul, this conversation is for you. I share my full circle story, from being the kid who only ever wanted to be a veterinarian to burning out hard as an overnight ER tech to leaving vet med entirely because I thought I “didn’t have what it takes.” That pivot led me into psychotherapy, where I became a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and learned the tools that brought me back to life. And eventually, those same tools led me right back into veterinary medicine after I was invited into a hospital that had just lost a veterinarian to suicide. That moment changed everything, and it clarified why this work is so urgently needed. We talk about why wellness is not fluff. It’s operational. Healthy, happy people make healthy profits, and when hospitals ignore that, the cost shows up everywhere: turnover, productivity, and the emotional toll carried by the team. I explain why burnout isn’t random. It’s often the predictable result of leadership structures that don’t support humans, especially when people are promoted without training and then expected to carry impossible expectations.  We also get practical. I share one of the most powerful tools I use with teams and leaders: pause, notice, and choose. It sounds simple, but it is life-changing. That moment of awareness interrupts autopilot and brings you back into alignment, so you can lead from intention instead of survival mode. Because the truth is, you cannot build a thriving hospital culture from a depleted nervous system. What’s Inside: How my full-circle journey took me from vet tech burnout to psychotherapy and back into veterinary medicineWhy wellness is a retention strategy and a profitability strategy, not an optional perkTwo leadership mistakes that quietly sabotage hospitals: promoting without training and misaligned expectationsA simple tool to reduce stress and regain control in real time: pause, notice, and chooseMentioned: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl Vet Med Wellness and Leadership Podcast Pawsitive Leadership Podcast Full Circle Lab  Crystal Stokes on LinkedIn