I need to be more insensitive! (work rant)

[Umbran]

Teach you to be insensitive? What, and admit that I'm an insensitive clod?

Of course not! In order to properly teach insensitivity, one must be sensitive enough to know what makes an insensitive person tick

My fiancee is a veterinarian, and I've done the vet-receptionist thing myself, so I know where you are coming from, Kahuna. Talking someone through the options available is draining. The worst is having to tell them that, as they lose their beloved pet, they're also going to fork over cash....

I'm not sure how many places you've worked at, but having receptionists and techs bear much of the burden of setting up and such is pretty much standard operating procedure nationwide, even in multi-doctor practices. It frees up the doctors to do the things that only they can do.

A really good practice makes sure that everyone who works the front desk is trained to do some of this. Besides making sure that no one person gets burnt out, the absolute last thing you want is to have the one person who knows all the details of euthanasia to be out sick, so that the practice looks like it is full of fumbling incompetents at that most stressful time. So training someone else to cover it is a darned good idea.

 

[monkeygrrl]

There's a name for what you are experiencing, it's called "compassion fatigue" and is common in people working in "helping" professions like yours. I'm a veterinarian, and I'm the "go-to" for this type of stuff at my clinic, too, so can totally empathize with you, it can be absolutely exhausting at times.

My guess is that the other people in your clinic turf this stuff to you not only because you are good at it but because they are uncomfortable doing it. They probably feel awkward or don't know what to say to the clients in that situation, because of course that type of thing doesn't come naturally. But personally, I think that almost anyone can be taught to be good at it, no matter what their personality is.

There are a lot of seminars these days geared toward this issue, so if you get a chance to go yourself or steer your co-workers that way, it helps a lot. Colorado State University in particular has a really good program that I've seen on the agenda at a lot of state and national meetings.