Veterinary offices across region overwhelmed, employees dealing with burnout

PITTSBURGH — At least a dozen staff members at the Avalon Veterinary Hospital have left the practice in the last several months because of burnout.

“When you’re full and when you are at capacity, there’s only so much you can physically do,” said Avalon’s practice manager Tawnya Roman.

So what’s behind the huge backlog of vet appointments? The pandemic.

“A lot of people got pets that never had pets during COVID-19. They were home. They needed something to do to fill their time,” Roman said.

But now, that’s leading to less time for staff members and in some cases, Roman said it’s creating a difficult work environment.

“A lot shorter fuse, let’s say. They expect to come in right away when they’re called. They expect their patients to be seen right away and what hurts the most is when someone says you don’t care about pets. We still love pets just as much,” Roman said.

Right now, her facility has five doctors on staff and each one see about 20 animals each day. To combat burn out, she said they’ve dropped the number of hours they’re open from 12 down to 10.

“We’ve almost had an exodus of staff and it’s not because necessarily they don’t like where they’re working. They’re leaving the industry because the stress and expectations of clients are just too much daily,” Roman said.

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