Pulse - February 2021 - 18

TOOLS FOR SUCCESS

Give Me a Break!
By Theresa Cosper-Roberts, RVT

t was my first day working at a practice. I had been
there since 6pm and spent most of the shift triaging emergencies. It was now 1am and I was starving,
so I approached my supervisor and asked her when we
would start rotating through lunch breaks. Like a scene
out of a cliche-ridden teen movie, the room got quiet
and everyone turned to stare. As for my new supervisor,
she looked at me as if I had spit in her face.
" We don't take lunch breaks here, and even if we did, you
should have taken it by now. Eat before you come. "
Say what now? We don't take lunch breaks here?
Instead of advocating for myself, I continued working. By the end
of the day, my hands were shaking, and I felt lightheaded. After my
shift, as I sat in my car shoving food into my face, I wondered what I
had gotten myself into.
No lunch breaks in a 14-hour shift?
I could not remember anything that I had done towards the end
of my shift. I had administered medications, calculated CRIs, and
restrained fractious animals for procedures. The whole time I was performing those tasks, all I could think about was how hungry I was.
Were my calculations accurate? Were the syringe pumps set correctly? How did I not get bitten or injured? Did I really want to
go through that again? Why did I do that to myself?

A Common Scene
This is a common scene in veterinary medicine, especially in specialty and academic settings. We are expected to give so much of
ourselves for our patients that we ultimately sacrifice our own wellbeing.This sacrifice and refusal to recognize and fulfill our own basic
needs is harmful. It causes a considerable amount of stress, which
can contribute to compassion fatigue and/or burn out. It may also
be responsible for why so many wonderful people leaving the field.
Meal breaks and rest breaks are an important part of the workday.
They provide employees with the opportunity to reenergize and recuperate.
While this may seem like a foreign concept for those in less enlightened states,
like myself, there are many states with
regulations in place regarding meal breaks.
California law requires that employees
working over five hours be provided a
meal period of at least 30 minutes. While
this law looks wonderful on paper, one
has to wonder how we would go about
implementing it in reality.

Talk is Cheap

to focus on the need for breaks, but less on how to make it happen.
So, how do we make sure that everyone gets a break? The answer is
simple and complicated: Just do it.

Practice Owners
Make sure that the culture in your practice is one that recognizes the importance of self-care. Encourage your employees to
take breaks and set time aside for themselves. More importantly, be
sure that you are adequately staffed so that they can do so without
any guilt or worry that they are leaving others high and dry.

Management/Hospital administrators
As managers, the onus to ensure that there is ample coverage
to facilitate employee breaks lies with you. When creating the
schedule, be sure that there are enough personnel in the hospital to allow for meals. Make sure that the appointment schedule
is reduced around mealtimes for different shifts. Stagger meal
periods and send employees to lunch in " waves " so that there is
always coverage when needed.

Veterinarians
Recognize the need for breaks for all employees, including
yourself. Be sure to set aside time on your schedule for a sufficient lunch and make sure that that lunch period is respected by
all. More importantly, do not overbook yourself or allow others to
do so. Overbooking not only affects your break, but it also affects
your team's breaks as well.

Non-management support staff
Advocate for yourself. If you are tired, hungry, or just need a
break, speak up and encourage others to do the same. Additionally,
take a team approach to lunch breaks to ensure that there is adequate coverage for everyone to get a break. Be of service- when it
is appropriate for you to do so, step in for others. Walk dogs. Answer
phones. Do callbacks. Clean instrument packs.

Putting it all Together
With everyone doing their part,
there is no reason why everyone
should not be able to get an opportunity for a meal.
So... go take a break! You won't
burst into flames the minute you step
outside, I promise. Leave the building,
even if it just to sit in your car. Eat a
nutritious lunch and use the time
allotted to you to disconnect, decompress, and decompartmentalize. P

The funny thing about most discussions on meal breaks is that they seem

FEBRUARY 2021

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Pulse - February 2021

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