Blog Author: Mariel Hendricks, BS, RVT
NAVTA Board of Directors
Indianapolis has a beautiful and extremely interactive zoo that I often take my kids to for a fun day out. Activities at the zoo include a dolphin show, bird feeding, petting a kangaroo, feeding a giraffe, and my son’s favorite part…the train! We have a great day experiencing animal conservation and talking with the zoo team to learn more about the animals we are interacting with. The care they provide for the multiple species at our zoo is unprecedented, and I want these ideals to be a common theme in my kids’ lives when they have pets of their own.
Spending time with my family outside of work is vital to keeping a healthy mindset and a nice balance between responsibility and fun! Finding those boundaries between work and home can be hard sometimes, especially for empathic veterinary technicians, but we MUST do so to keep our emotional and mental health in check. We cannot be the best nurse for our patients if we aren’t taking care of ourselves. Physical, mental, and emotional health is incredibly important to career longevity. We all know the stats – the mean length of time for a vet tech is five years in the field. Let’s change that by making our mental and emotional health a priority. This means setting boundaries between work and home, sticking to those boundaries, and enjoying time OUTSIDE of work with friends and family!